Good bye High heels

Goodbye high heels! Well, goodbye heels.  They're hardly high compared to the foot killers the young girls wear now. My final three pairs are on their way to the Angel Shop.

Three pairs of shoes - each for one of life's great events. The purple shoes I wore to a wedding in Las Vegas. I attended this with low expectations and but it was a wonderful event.  A flower filled chapel, an entertaining JP, followed by a lovely dinner in a small flower-filled private dining room with a cellist providing the music.

The black strapped shoes went to a few cocktail parties, mostly business but they stood by and ushered in a fun New Year's Eve or two.

The nun-like shoes were mostly work shoes - I wore them at trade shows and for traveling. The last event I remember wearing them to was my sister's funeral, sitting in the family pew at the front of the church looking down at my feet, wishing it was all a bad dream.

Looking at them now, they might as well be stilts for all that I could manage wearing them. I slipped one pair on and staggered down my hallway, bouncing from wall to wall, trying to keep from breaking my ankles in a foolish experiment. So much for that!

Tag Team

Like all cats, these two spend most of their time staring at holes, branches or under rocks waiting for a lizard to make an appearance. The bunnies usually stay clear but this one wandered a little too close. He got away because of intervention by the photographer. 

The cats heard it first....

The mail had accumulated for the month he was traveling. He sat down at the desk to sort through it and pay the bills. Piles of magazines and catalogs were stacked to one side, yellow sticky notes jutting out haphazardly, marking things to remember. He pushed his laptop out of the way to clear a spot to work.

The radio was playing softly; dusk had fallen over the grove. He pried off his boots and set them aside glancing at the globe standing in the corner. The Asian continent was almost rubbed away from being examined while trips were planned or remembered. The world on his globe was the map of a lost world; borders had long since shifted and country names had been changed as regimes came and went. As on the globe, people and places in his own world were slowly being erased and fading away. He thought about his funeral suit shoved to the back of the closet after his wife's death, but hauled out again in January, the cruelest month, when his mother and brother both succumbed to illness.

The ranch was purchased for the quiet respite it offered, nine miles out of town with the closest neighbors acres away.  Gated and enclosed with a 6 foot tall wire mesh fence and razor wire, maximum security was provided. He was frequently absent and needed the protection from crop theft. As he sat thinking, one cat came in and flopped at his feet; the other found a spot on the desk. Both began languorously licking themselves from top to bottom, purring heavily then more slowly, snorting a bit and falling into sleep.

At this time of year, the avocado trees were heavy with fruit and ready for picking. He was waiting and watching the market hoping to get the very most out of the crop this year. Water costs were high and climbing. For once in a very long time, he needed the money.

Penny Savers papers, credit card offers and pizza ads gradually filled the trash can, The once hopeless heap was reduced to a manageable stack. In the distance, rolling booms from Camp Pendleton training maneuvers rolled through, sounding like distant thunder storms.

The cats heard it first, awakening instantly, ears pushed forward, whiskers twitching, bodies alert and ready to run. He turned to the door and listened. A thump, followed by heavy footsteps coming down the driveway, a squeak of the iron gate and the sound of something being dragged.

His rifle was downstairs in the garage, locked in the gun case. 

Craig's List

I'm now a Craig's Lister. We had five outdoor lights left over from construction and my niece suggested we try selling them on Craig's List. I was skeptical but prepared the ad and placed it. Days passed with no response and then bingo! Someone from Oceanside made me a deal I couldn't refuse.

We met in the Oceanside Home Despot parking lot. A young charming Vietnamese man and his wife and child were the buyers. I told them I'd meet them at the front entrance of the store and that I'd be wearing a red shirt. There's a uneasy blind-date sort of feeling to this kind of encounter. Will they show? Will they be scam artists? I'm sure they wondered the same about me. They were very nice people...we opened the unsealed boxes together at my suggestion and found one small piece missing for which I gave them a credit. The $175 is found money and I'll buy something silly with it.

Inside HD I cruised the paint section to see what's new...old habits are hard to break. I love the inventive names paint sellers and clothing catalogues devise for colors. Glidden had a new Top 10 list of Empty Nest Colors. Why would Empty Nesters want specific colors? The line-up seemed unappealing to me: Pink Ballet Slipper, Sweet Baby Boy.  Are they thinking of names for rooms you keep for your grandchildren? The other color names were sort of nostalgic and overly subdued - like colors you'd use in a funeral parlor: Misty Summer Day, Frosted Pine, Frosted Mulberry, Soft Suede, Wood Smoke. I would think they could have done something more fun and more baby boomerish: Thank God They're Gone Green, At Last We're Alone Amethyst, Get out the Bong Blue, Sex in the afternoon Suede, Now I've got an office Navy,  There's food in the fridge Orange, New car in the garage Aqua, Tahitian Vacation Violet, No More Rap Red and so on.

I've only painted a few ceilings and still remember how difficult it is. Should I decide to do this in the future, I'd buy Gliddens ceiling paint which goes on pink and dries white. Brilliant. You can see the missed spots easily and fix them right away. The cosmetics people could apply this technology to make-up....have it go on green or something visible, so that old people can see where they've smeared it and where they haven't.

Resurrection

Maybe I should have stayed out of those religious sites in Israel. When I lit a candle for St. Anne I think I may not have been clear about my request for assurance that my brain tumor was "braised" . Instead it's been raised.  The MRI I had on Dec. 30th shows "enlargement" which is not supposed to happen because the darned thing is irradiated and presumably dead. My otolaryngologist hasn't seen the films yet - it could be simple swelling which happens, but not usually so late after radiology. I'm hoping that's all it is.

Meanwhile a brain tumor can be used a great excuse for just about anything. Yesterday I heard a woman who was being tried for shoplifting used having a "brain tumor" as a defense.  I might head off to Cartier, Fred's or at least Nordstroms for a visit.


Because my tumor is now sticking into hitherto virgin territory - fortunately I don't have much of this left - there's a new bunch of anatomy to learn. It's a good thing I've always been interested in the brain. The more I learn about it the more flabbergasted I am that it works so flawlessly for the most part, just humming along.  I'm hoping I find out the tumor is pressing the correct way on the "increase smartness" dial.

There are many complicated structures in the internal auditory canal to learn about. One of them is called "Bill's Bridge"..it's a vertical crest of bone and it's named after William House, the pioneer of most of the surgical techniques used on acoustic neuromas. How fabulous to have a part of the brain named for you! I wonder if famous proctologists have experienced the same honor.

Bill's Bridge is easy to remember unlike most of the anatomical structures which have latin names:  lamina cribrosa, meatal foramen or my favorites, tractus spiralis foraminosus and macula crista inferior. When you say all four of these in sequence at high speed and add a Dominus Vobiscum, it sounds like the old Latin mass.

Go in peace.

Maraschino Cherries

We decided to get out of here for a while last night and drove to Ruby's Oceanside on the pier. Usually when we walk there we're bent over backwards by the wind, but last night it was calm and warm.  Fishermen were enjoying the balmy weather, kicked back in lawn chairs with two lines going and musical accompaniment. Two lines is the maximum - one of the many rules you have to obey. No gaffing mussels or overhead casting either.

The beach end of the pier was busy. A yoga class was in progress, a couple of bonfires were burning, teenagers slouched around or whizzed by on their skateboards.  What fabulous weather - January 5th and the teenagers were all in shorts. As you walk out on the pier the scene changes to joggers, romantic couples strolling, families with toddlers and baby carriages. We saw a couple bent down speaking carefully to their toddler, who had a few tears on his cheeks, his fingers in his mouth and his little hand clutching his father's jeans. The father looked over at us and chuckled. He said, "We told him not to swallow. I guess we should have told him first what swallowing was."

By the time you get to the end of the pier, it's all fishermen. Even the air starts to smell fishy.


Ruby's hamburgers are usually serviceable - not great, but the location makes up for the weaknesses. They have new, improved beef patties. Our cute waitress started running down her suggested beverage list and when she hit Cherry Coke, Richard bit. He hasn't had one for maybe 40 years and decided it was time. He took a sip and asked me to taste it. Nudging the neon red cherry out of the way, I slurped up a bit and tasted mostly almonds. This was not a surprise as artificial cherry flavor contains benzaldehyde which component they share with almonds. The original lovely Italian maraschino liqueur was made by fermenting cherries with the pits which added the almond note to the flavor.

Maraschino cherries originated in Italy of course and were a beautiful thing - cherries marinated in the Maraschino liqueur. I tasted one once in a gelato shop. They were loved world-wide and exported everywhere. Then came prohibition in the Unites States and out went liquor-soaked anything.

What to do? Bartenders and soda jerks still needed their cherry garnish. Enter the mad food scientists in Oregon. They invented a non-alcoholic version. First they soaked the cherry in a salt brine to remove it's natural color and flavoring. Then they were pitted and soaked in a sweetener for a month. Finally they were dipped in artificial coloring to render a brilliant red color. As if the florid red ones aren't bad enough you see a green version floating in a drink from time to time. The FDA definition of the cherries sums it up: "The term "Maraschino Cherries" is regarded as the common or usual name of an article consisting of cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and packed in a sugar syrup flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor." The only part they leave out is the mandatory eradication of any sort of cherry flavor.

Despite my rambling on about these cherries Richard managed to suppress the natural eye-rolling instinct,  tune his husband-ears to the "yes, dear" setting and enjoy his drink. 

 

No Explanations please

 

 

In November while in Israel, in Old Jerusalem we visited St. Anne's Basilica where no explanations can be offered; these signs are posted everywhere in the church. We didn't hear any explanations but a man did run in and start yelling at the top of his voice. I couldn't tell what language he was yelling in or what he wanted. A woman came along and shouted at him to "Shut Up!" and he turned around and left.

St. Anne's is on the site of the Bethesda pool (rain water reservoirs) whose waters were believed to be healing. The story goes that an angel flew over the pools once every 24 hours; whoever happened to be inside the water at that time would be miraculously healed. Christians believe that Jesus met and healed a paralytic there.

According to several Christian histories, the Virgin Mary was born in a cave near here. The Crusaders came roaring into the area in the twelfth century, slaughtering most of the inhabitants in the name of God and "discovered" many specific sites like this one, apparently overlooked by Helena, mother of Constantine who discovered most of the rest of them. The Crusaders included the cave in a huge church named for Anne, Mary's mother and the grandmother of Jesus. If the Crusaders or Helena missed a spot, the Franciscans stepped into the breach and named sufficient locales to satisfy the growing needs of pilgrims who traveled long and hard to get to Jerusalem and found the area a bit deficient in tourist infrastructure.

Nuns - Damascus Gate

St. Anne's now belongs to the French Government and is run by the White Fathers, an order of the Catholic Church named for the color of their robes. We ran into this group of white-robed Africans in the church and they popped up everywhere we went for the rest of the day. Easy to happen in Old Jerusalem where everyone is slogging around from one religious site to another. Many in this group had purchased suitcases at one of the shops and they were pushing them along like battering rams through the crowd. You had to keep alert and stay out of their way.

Tourists with suitcase battering rams

St. Anne's church is beautiful, simple and has fantastic acoustics. The Gregorian Chant plays constantly and the music is wonderful in that environment, even with half an ear. After seeing hundreds of bleeding suffering Christs on a cross, the image of the peaceful Anne and the beautiful austerity of the church was a relief. The story goes that Mary was born to Anne in the normal human way but she was born free of original sin so that she could go on to conceive Jesus, hence the Immaculate Conception. 

Lighting candles and asking St. Anne for favors

Anne is the patron saint of, to list only a few : Detroit, Brittany, Quebec, the Mi'kmaq people of Canada and Santa Ana, California. She is also the patron saint of horseback riders, housewives, grandmothers, cabinet makers, unmarried women, women in labor and miners. She has an eclectic brood under her wing. What do cabinet makers and women in labor share in common?

We walked from the tranquility of St. Annes and the Bethesda pools over to the Damascus gate - a wonderfully chaotic spot, filled with people from all over the world milling around, buying and selling things, discussing the issues, living their lives. 

Damascus Gate

Commerce Damascus Gate

Tiny egg seller

Book Club Meeting January

The book selection this month was the 2011 Man Booker prize winner,  "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes. Because there were so few of us, we decided to meet at La Caseta, dining out together for a change. The margaritas and food were good (grilled tacos, cilantro chicken) at La Caseta, but the noise level was so high that it was hard to hear each other across the large booth we'd reserved. If we meet there again, we'll opt for the patio where it's a little quieter. We were all surprised that they had almost a full house at La Caseta on a Wednesday night. Good for them!
I loved this book. It's about memories and how they change when you look back.  I couldn't summarize better than this:

“A page turner, and when you finish you will return immediately to the beginning . . . Who are you? How can you be sure? What if you’re not who you think you are? What if you never were? . . . At 163 pages, The Sense of an Ending is the longest book I have ever read, so prepare yourself for rereading. You won’t regret it.” —The San Francisco Chronicle 

When you finish this book, you ask yourself "Did I miss something? What". Personally I've realized how much editing of my own memories I've done as I sift through family history and pictures. The brain corrects, deletes, embroiders relentlessly.

Julian Barnes not only weaves an amazing tale but he writes so well that you never want to write another line yourself. All I want to do is curl up with the entire Barnes oeuvre. "Flaubert's Parrot" here I come.

Manly

January 2. Great grand nephews doing what boys do. But wait! Aren't those high heels on the little guy?

My grand niece, their mother ,captioned this photo: "Nothing says MANLY like a gun and dress-up heels".

They have a sister who usually wears the heels but two year old Brad likes the way they clack when he walks. He also wears her tap shoes for the same reason.

BAHA

Robert Carlsen with simulated cat ears

BAHA - no, I'm not going to Mexico on vacation.

My BAHA stands for "bone anchored hearing assistance". It's my third year with one deaf ear;  I fare poorly at social events and it's getting old. The holiday parties which I used to enjoy are now a matter of endurance. Straining to hear every word and hearing only half what's said is exhausting. The worst of it is being dismissed by conversationalists who quickly realize I'm oohing and ahing in all the wrong places. I can see the realization in people's eyes as they turn away and go for another drink. I don't blame them - so would I.
 

A regular hearing aid would do nothing to improve my hearing as the nerves are dead, engulfed by my ever-changing tumor. The only option to me for hearing improvement is the BAHA. It consists of a  sound processor anchored in the skull. Sound comes into the receiver and it's transferred through the bone to the other hearing ear. The processor attaches to a titanium anchor or abutment implanted in the skull. The "saw bones", which is an appropriate epithet in this case, describe it as "easy surgery". Easy or not, you have to give the situation a lot of thought before letting anyone near your skull with a drill.

Results reported by people who wear a BAHA are mixed. Some rave; others feel it's a marginal improvement and still others suffer with infections around the abutment and headaches. Ugh.

I'm thinking about the lower-tech stuff. No infections, but I'll definitely have to get a bigger purse to carry the things around.

Never eat more than you can lift.

January 1st: Maybe I bit off more than I can chew? Instead of a Big hairy audacious goal, I should have set myself a Medium hairy, well not even so hairy, audacious goal. It's 7:45 pm and I have nothing to say! Too much partying and talking. Too much talk during a day runs out my word quota; there's nothing left to write.

Miss Piggy said, "Never eat more than you can lift".

Good advice which I feel we've ignored over the holidays. We need a couple of days of semi-fasting to reset the appestat and return to normal. I feel better about our over-indulgence when I read about the routine intake of some of the legendary gourmands, for instance Balzac. I read the review of a new book, Balzac's Omelette, wherein they describe him consuming at a single sitting: a hundred oysters, four bottles of wine, twelve lamb cutlets, duckling, a brace of partridge, sole and pears by the dozen. This was probably more than Balzac could lift.

The book "celebrates Balzac's use of gastronomy as a literary device and social critique" - before Balzac, writers ignored their characters' dining habits. 

Eating habits do reveal much about a person. It was Balzac who said, "Tell me where you eat and what you eat and at what time you eat and I will you who you are".

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

Big Hairy and Audacious

The best thing I have to say about 2011 is that it's over. Hurray! 

Turning the calendar page to 2012 makes me very happy - even numbered years are better for me and the best years are the ones that start and end with the same number. I loved 2002 which is the last time it happened and none of us can really count on being here for the next time in 2022.  I intend to really enjoy this one. The first of many gravy years.

Ready for tea

The vibe is already getting better. My good neighbor came over for tea yesterday and we indulged in a few truffles and a cup of Earl Grey. Our garden is getting straightened out and the raised beds are ready for planting. We're planning a couple of trips and will be on the road in February if we can untangle a few knots.

Chocolate Hills Bohol Philippines

My Big Hairy Audacious Goal* for 2012 is to write something every day - hardly a huge goal compared to some of the bloggers I follow, but my average number of posts has been 100/year. I'm going for a triple.  No rules except that catch-up is OK.

*Term coined by James Collins and Jerry Porras in "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Marlee's First Birthday

My great grand niece Marlee Eilleen (I love the three e's in a row) had her first birthday party in early December. 20 adults and about ten kids. Flash bulbs were popping off continuously in her face, everyone gave her a tweak or a poke and made funny faces at her. They took all her clothes off but her diaper and a bib, sat her in her high chair and introduced her to a purple cupcake while we all croaked Happy Birthday off-key. Surprised at first, her little face showed bemusement, wonder and then delight as she got into sucking her fingers and enjoying the taste and texture.

She's a gutsy little thing, shrank from no one and very sociable - well equipped for life. She smiled at everything and seemed to enjoy the whole event.  Frankly it would have been too much for me at my advanced age. Just the singing alone.

Dad (my grand nephew), Mom (Brandi) and Marlee

Me, Jennifer (grand niece), Marlee and Beth the first great grand niece

2012: Pure Gravy

"Gravy, pure gravy", Raymond Carver the short story writer and poet pronounced his last decade of life. He thought he was a dead man when he was 39 and his dcotor told him he had only six months to live unless he stopped drinking. He did quit and died of lung cancer 11 years later.

Here's his autobiographical poem:

Gravy
Raymond Carver
No other word will do.  For that’s what it was.
Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving, and
being loved by a good woman.  Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going.  And he was going
nowhere but down.  So he changed his ways
somehow.  He quit drinking!  And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and
building up inside his head.  "Don’t weep for me,"
he said to his friends.  "I’m a lucky man.
I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected.  Pure Gravy.  And don’t forget it."

Here's one of Raymond Carver's short stories: 

Little Things

Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too.

He was in the bedroom pushing clothes into a suitcase when she came to the door.

I'm glad you're leaving! I'm glad you're leaving! she said. Do you hear?

He kept on putting his things into the suitcase.

Son of a bitch! I'm so glad you're leaving! She began to cry. You can't even look me in the face, can you?

Then she noticed the baby's picture on the bed and picked it up.

He looked at her and she wiped her eyes and stared at him before turning and going back to the living room.

Bring that back, he said.

Just get your things and get out, she said.

He did not answer. He fastened the suitcase, put on his coat, looked around the bedroom before turning off the light. Then he went out to the living room.

She stood in the doorway of the little kitchen, holding the baby.

I want the baby, he said.

Are you crazy?

No, but I want the baby. I'll get someone to come by for his things.

You're not touching this baby, she said.

The baby had begun to cry and she uncovered the blanket from around his head.

Oh, oh, she said, looking at the baby.

He moved toward her.

For God's sake! she said. She took a step back into the kitchen.

I want the baby.

Get out of here!

She turned and tried to hold the baby over in a corner behind the stove.

But he came up. He reached across the stove and tightened his hands on the baby.

Let go of him, he said.

Get away, get away! she cried.

The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove.

He crowded her into the wall then, trying to break her grip. He held on to the baby and pushed with all his weight.

Let go of him, he said.

Don't, she said. You're hurting the baby, she said.

I'm not hurting the baby, he said.

The kitchen window gave no light. In the near-dark he worked on her fisted fingers with one hand and with the other hand he gripped the screaming baby up under an arm near the shoulder.

She felt her fingers being forced open. She felt the baby going from her.

No! she screamed just as her hands came loose.

She would have it, this baby. She grabbed for the baby's other arm. She caught the baby around the wrist and leaned back.

But he would not let go. He felt the baby slipping out of his hands and he pulled back very hard.

In this manner, the issue was decided.

"Little Things" from Where I'm Calling From: The Selected Stories Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by Tess Gallagher.

The story appeared as "Mine" in Furious Seasons And Other Stories Capra Press, 1977 and as "Popular Mechanics" in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Knopf, 1981.

 

Trivia - Progressive Measuring Spoons

Limbo week. Where nothing really happens. The wheels of industry cease to turn. I used to take the time between Christmas and New Year's to clean out my files and pretend to organize myself for the upcoming year. This is the first year I've had in full retirement...didn't work a single day and didn't earn a single dime. Files are a thing of the past. 

Instead of fooling with files, I continue to concentrate on arranging our living space. Organizing the accumulata. Above is my measuring spoon drawer. If someone breaks in suddenly and demands a 1/2 teaspoon of anything, I can deliver it in a hurry. No fumbling around.

The measuring spoon drawer is in my mechanics cabinet which houses all the gadgets and cooking tools. It's installed in the island right across from my sink.

I resist accumulating new gadgets because most are such disappointments, but they do make great Christmas gifts even if they end up unused. This year I noticed these Progressive measuring spoons which appear to offer a few design improvements.

They're magnetic so if you don't have a measuring spoon drawer you can stick them on the surface most convenient for your use and they nest. No annoying ring holding the set together.  There's a wet end and a dry end - if you measure a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and then have to measure a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, you don't have the clumping problem, nor do you have to rinse it off. The bottoms are flat so you can rest the measured amount on a counter, ready to use. There's a decent grip in the middle. I'm ordering a set from Amazon.

Here's the knife drawer in my mechanics cabinet. I'm not sure what mechanics use this drawer for but it works well for knives...the edges are protected, I can find them at a glance, there's plenty of room. If someone needed an emergency tracheotomy, I think I could find something that would do the job here..

One kitchen tool I particularly loathe is the food processor. Big and difficult to store, hard to clean,  with too many parts.  The recipe testers at Cooks magazine, Sunset, Food and Wine all love these machines because somebody cleans up after them, and cleans up as they go. They incorporate the processor in far too many recipes. For instance, I made key lime tarts the other day from a Food and Wine recipe. The crust is made of Oreo cookies and to crush 12 of them, the recipe calls for use of the FP.  For 12 cookies, any sane cook would use a rolling pin.

Yes, I have a rolling pin drawer.

The Worst Recipes

I have some left-over crab meat and I was looking for a souffle recipe. It's Christmas morning after all.

From the book, "Fashionable Food" by Sylvia Lovegran, comes this horrible recipe from the fifties, in my opinion,  prelude to the foulest darkest decade in recent culinary history, the sixties. People were so engrossed in the sexual revolution that food was barely on the radar screen.

Lobster Thermidor, can-opener gourmet-style. 

1 (15-ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1/4 soup can water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard

3 cups frozen cooked lobster meat, thawed and cut into chunks.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Mix the soup, water, lemon juice, half of the cheese and the mustard in the top of a double boiler. Add the lobster chunks and heat (do not boil) over simmering water. Pour into a buttered shallow baking dish or into lobster shells. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Place in oven until the cheese is browned, about 15 minutes. 

In those days, dubbed the "Casserole Decade" by food historians, "can opener" mixed with "gourmet-style" was perfectly acceptable. Canned soups and TV dinners were newish on the grocery shelves. The Campbell's Home Economists were quickly developing soup-as-glue recipes that were roaring successes, still haunting our kitchens decades later. Who doesn't look forward to the classic green bean/mushroom soup/onion ring dish (three cans!!!!) for Thanksgiving dinner?

A frozen TV dinner sold for $1.00 in the fifties. Today at Albertson's you can purchase Michelina's Gourmet entrees for the same price - a buck each.

Other fifties greats include classics like the gag inspiring, Fruit cocktail-Spam Buffet Party loaf which incorporates such snazzy ingredients as Miracle Whip, gelatin and canned fruit cocktail. How about the Velveeta crab and cheese souffle? or the fat-on-fat Barbecued Bologna for men a la Crisco from the Crisco cookbook, "Praise for the Cook". No kidding, that's the name and here's the recipe:

Barbecued Bologna for men - a la Crisco

3/4 cup Crisco vegetable shortening

2 tablespoons Kitchen Bouquet

3 - 2 pounds whole bologna sausage

Mix the Crisco and Kitchen Bouquet together. Spread over the sausage. Grill the bologna over hot coals or spit roast the bologna until it is browned and hot through. Cut into thick slices and serve on rye bread or toasted hamburger buns.

I've lost my appetite. 

Keep Calm

Vivian Swift featured a link to a make your own "Keep Calm" poster.   Here's mine:

 
And here's the link so you can make your own:

www.keepcalm-o-matic.uk/
The original "Keep Calm" poster you can read about on Vivian's blog right here:
www.vivianswiftblog.com

Merry Christmas

Photo 1. Christmas Eve - through the rancho door 2011

Photo 2. Farewell chandelier

Which picture shall be use in our midnight Merry Christmas e-mail?

Photo 1. A syrupy sentimental Christmas shot through our avocado front door. 

Photo 2. Currently punishing ourselves for continuing to procrastinate about throwing junk away, we're resolved to stay put here until the junkola is gone. The other day, we got up and first thing, while still in our pj's, sleep-rumpled, grungy and before the dumpster guy arrived, we heaved the chandelier in it, said the last rites and parted with it forever. This light held sway (oh pardon me please) over many of Richard's dinners for years in DC and for a few at the rancho. In storage for ages, when we unwrapped it we found the wiring all chewed up or rusted and most of the parts cracked, chipped or broken.

Although Richard is feigning a separation anxiety attack we were actually having a merry time thinking up captions for the shot. Our favorite:

"Last night we had one last swing on the chandelier and we're very much worse for the wear. In fact we were thinking of diving in the dumpster after it!"

"Their chandelier days clearly over, the McHargues prepare to face 2012 unlit, as it were."

We held on to that chandelier

'Til people thought us very queer.

We rose at dawn

To get it gone

Consoled ourselves with lots of beer.

December Book Club Meeting

The book selection for December was Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. It was selected because it's short and easy reading, appropriate for the holiday season. Some claim it's the funniest book ever written. I agree. I also think it's one of the most enjoyable travel books ever written. The humor has held up remarkably well considering it's a Victorian novel. The key features of the book are the funny perspectives of ordinary events (think Bill Bryson) and the fact that it wasn't written in the high falutin' style practised by novelists of the time. The Victorian literati thought the state of the novel had gone to hell in a hand basket when this book became a best seller. It's never been out of print.

Another bonus: the book can be downloaded free from the fabulous site: www.gutenberg.org. Even an illustrated version is available and it can be downloaded to a multitude of devices.

 Roz hosted our meeting and a goodly groaning spread was enjoyed including bounty from gardens still putting out in December, one of the benefits we get from living here in Fallbrook. Fresh greens from Barbara's garden, a squash dish from Lori's garden and candy-sweet tangerines from Lori's and Rozs' trees. Roz made a pot of delicious chicken soup, a venerable recipe from her mother-in-law which includes as one of the critical components, precisely 12 peppercorns. Cookies and candies, irresistible, finished off the feast.

   
Next month we read the Julian Barnes novel, "The Sense of an Ending", this year's Man Booker prize winner. Critics say there "is more to get each time you read it". I like to have a book like this around - one that becomes familiar but still surprises.

For those of us interested in story telling whatever the medium, in this week's New York Times Book Review, there's an essay by Craig Fehrman on the "Channeling of the Novel".  As the state of film  deteriorates at a rapid pace and our beloved movies become little more than a string of dangerously loud and obnoxious sound effects enhancing car chases and explosions, cable TV is morphing into the preferred venue for serious and excellent story telling. He comments about the writers creating original cable series such as Solomon Rushdie -  "The Next People", Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen - "The Corrections". Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize winning novel "A Visit from the Good Squad" is being made into a pilot.

A footnote about sound effects: my friend's son was an intern on the newly released silent film, "The Artist". We're anxiously waiting for it to open locally so we can enjoy a theatre experience without ear plugs for a change.

My Rich Uncle

 

Shuffling through family pictures and attempting to get them scanned and in order, I ran across this letter from my cousin. She enclosed the "rich uncle' photo above with the letter and comments that Hilda (my aunt, second from right) and Stuart Carroll (right) had a love affair for years but were cousins and never married. 

Hilda was one of my three "maiden" aunts and the oldest of the lot. I knew her only as an elderly woman who wore lisle stockings and those awful clunky shoes with a thick wedge heel and laces up the front..."nun's shoes".  She ended up never marrying which in those days was a tragedy; this letter implies that she never got over Stuart. Instead she worked for the Canadian National Railway for 50 years, retiring with the proverbial gold watch. I wish I knew more.

The rich uncle with all the hair acquired real estate in downtown LA and in Hawaii. Not only did he get the big hair gene he was also a driven entrepreneur. What kind of imagination and guts did it take to leave the farm in Canada,  get into the U. S. and start acquiring property? I have no idea who he used as a role model but "go west young man" was the adage of the day and he heeded the advice. His property was left in a trust, very well managed, and his brothers and sisters, one of whom was my grandmother benefited from the generated income throughout their lives. When the last of his siblings died in 1967, the remains of his estate was divided among the heirs who were all listed in the account of distribution of the estate. There are so many relatives, so many Irish names that I wonder if I'm related in some way to most of the people of Irish descent in Canada.