Thoughts of Ciel

The Rose Cousins Last Supper

2011-08-31T16:25:00.000+01:00

Written as part of an assignment for a course in Food and History that I am taking at USF this fall.

The 11 PM update is just in from the National Asteroid Center and it looks pretty ominous. Forsaking any last minute fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field, Asteroid 2026-A, numbered to denote its year and position, will hit the mid-Atlantic coast of the US just before midnight tomorrow. Asteroid forecaster Jim Cantore, Jr., bald and reporting from close to the center of impending disaster just like his dad always was, keeps reminding us that as the speed of an asteroid increases so does its mass as it nears the earth, projecting 2026-A to rise from a Cat 2 to a 5 as it enters our atmosphere. In short, we are doomed.

Since hearing of the approaching devastation, the Rose cousins have been doing what we do best, sharing lots of panicked WorldNet messages and gathering for a big meal with everyone making a contribution, The Rose Cousins Last Supper. We have cleared out our larders, mine filled with tomatoes, bread-and-butter pickes and pickled beets canned just last summer by an aunt who sadly died two months later taking her recipes with her. We pulled up the end of summer greens from our gardens and put them in a big tub of salt water to soak off the grit. My older male cousins dragged over the big, heavy, barbecue cooker, actually a large oil drum adapted for the purpose, blackened from use and covered in creosote smoked from wood sometimes a bit too green for its purpose, with a metal grate crusted with grease and bits of burned fat fitted inside, all attached atop a trailer for hauling from backyard to lakeside hooked up to one of those oversized pickups rigged for “huntin’ and towin.” Since early this morning, they’ve been stoking a fire of well-seasoned hickory and oak with a little apple wood added for sweetness. The smoke swirls memories through the air until a bed of coals is just about ready for the meat - memories of past birthdays, anniversaries, 4th of July celebrations, baptisms and even a wedding or two where barbecue was often considered more important than the guest of honor, A few pounds of dried black eyed peas, sorted one by one to remove any gravel, are covered with water in a big bean pot to soak all night for cooking in the morning.

The asteroid, as measured by the newly orbiting Hubble replacement, is about 100 miles across and is picking up speed. On the current course, 2026-A will crash into the Atlantic just off the east coast of the US, stir up a tsunami that could circle the earth for as long as 10 years and destroy all life on the planet.. So much for planned leftovers.

My family, the Roses, hails from Johnston County in the sandhills of southeastern NC where barbecue means pork. Period. No exceptions. Eastern North Carolina-style barbecue was first cooked, back long before our ancestors arrived, by new world settlers who thought tomatoes were poisonous. So, despite our Scottish heritage, Rose barbecue is basted with “English Catsup, ”a mixture of vinegar and peppers, hold the tomatoes. Usually the whole headless, eviscerated hog minus its trotters is cooked and the meat picked off the bones, often right on the rack of the cooker - definitely not a sight for vegetarians, those who proscribe ingestion of pork for religious or health reasons or the weak of stomach.

The secret to good barbecue is heat, smoke and time, time which we don‘t have - no time to find a hog and have it properly butchered or even to get the local meat merchant to specially order a whole picnic shoulder, the preferred alternative. So, several of my favorite cousins and I, after a couple of margaritas to drown our sorrows, raided three nearby superWalmarts (the only large food chain still in business) for all the pork shoulders, Boston butts and picnic hams we could carry. The guys are lugging the various pieces of pig out to the cooker now where it’ll rest in dense smoke all night until we are ready to feast on the deep, smoky, tangy/sweet results. Once it’s chopped and mixed together with a little extra sauce no one will know it’s not a whole hog anyway.

The young children, exhausted from chasing lightening bugs and playing post-midnight backyard games by flashlight, fell into a fitful sleep pierced with terrible dreams and frequent tear-filled awakenings as they clung to each other for solace under antique quilts handmade by great aunts from the remnants of all our past lives . The older males passed cold beer and George Dickel to younger cousins, some not yet of legal drinking age who quickly mixed the Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey with Sundrop, the highly caffeinated, bright yellow, almost sickeningly sweet carbonated elixir of choice, as they kept the heat of the smoking fire constant. All the mothers, aunts and older female cousins gathered around the big oak kitchen table telling stories we had heard time and again of our history as a textile family, what is means to be a Scot and a Rose and of how some of the uncles, despite better upbringing, actually wore t-shirts or ties in public emblazoned with the names of politicians like George Wallace, Rick Perry or even the Bush brothers, whose grandsons now hold positions of power and who have no idea what constitutes good barbecue - all while smoking too many NC cigarettes, a family habit passed from generation to generation like the always filled pot of coffee poured into large glass mugs, each cup sweetened with exactly 1 ½ teaspoons of sugar and just enough cream to “bounce off the bottom” until just the correct caramel color is obtained.

Some of the more uber-religious Southern evangelical cousins among us have gathered in the living room to pray, hands held high, that this may be the Rapture for which they have all prepared and to wonder what will become of those of us who, rather than being lifted to the heaven, will be subject to the ravages created by the meteor’s crash. Sadly, the only thing we all know for sure is that our family’s traditions, beliefs, customs and rituals will not survive to be passed on and further molded by another generation.

Dawn came much too early and brighter than expected, not a cloud in the sky to foretell the impending disaster. Shortly after we awoke, I carefully placed whole sweet potatoes in the coals beneath the roasting pork while someone else chopped cabbage and mixed it with some of the barbecue sauce to marinate all day for barbecue slaw. My sister grated more cabbage very finely and stirred in mayonnaise, a little sugar and some vinegar poured off a jar of pickle relish to make sweet slaw for those that might prefer it.

Some of the younger cousins spent the morning sectioning oranges, tossing out the bitter peel, then squeezing all the juice from the remaining fan-shaped membranes over the supremes of fruit they mixed with sweetened coconut tinged pink by the red dye from added maraschino cherries. This desert cum salad, our uncles’ favorite ambrosia, was made from oranges transported from California in large trucks and is only slightly reminiscent of the juicy Florida valencias, navels and oh-so-sweet tangerines shipped up each winter in large green mesh bags by our grandparents while they fished the St. John’s River near Deland. We’d suck out the juice from a hole in the peel and then turn the whole fruit inside out to eat every luscious bit of those special seasonal snacks.

About an hour ago, the black-eyed peas were rinsed and covered with clean water and now those little gray and black pearls of goodness are simmering with seasoning of equal parts garlic, sugar and cider vinegar using our Best Ever Plain Ol’ Peas recipe that somebody found once in a Southern Living magazine. The washed collard greens have been coarsely chopped and boiled for several hours this morning, water gurgling around a big ham hock. Just a few minutes ago the ham was lifted out, chopped a bit and added back to the pot with the dark, bitter greens, now turned soft and almost sweet. We’ll serve a little hot pepper vinegar and some chopped sweet onions on the side for those who want to add them.

I sliced up some sticky okra pods and tossed them in cornmeal just like I was taught by our black housekeeper when I was a teenager. The sticky seeds ooze around the edges clinging to the breading and when the oil is hot and ready the okra is dropped in and fried until golden and crispy. When sprinkled with coarse salt, this okra will taste better than even the most perfectly cooked pommes frites, crunchy on the outside and soft, almost gooey inside, each piece popped into our mouths with our fingers.

The sweet potatoes, skins parched and rippled are moved from the smoker to a large platter and opened with a fork to loosen all the steamy goodness. The caramelized, orange, stringy insides are pulling away from the peels and butter is spooned around to melt, reminding me of my mother’s stories of taking baked sweet potatoes from her grandma’s warming oven and savoring them like candy treats.

Lumpy cornbread batter is mixed and poured into treasured hot cast iron skillets seasoned by years of cooking and now glistening with the drippings from a little fried fat back and melted butter. When removed from the oven, the resulting tender sweet innards surrounded by a crunchy brown crust will make the perfect accompaniment to our meal.

Using big wooden paddles my uncles designed just for the purpose, it takes two strong guys to lift the barbecue from the smoker and place it on the long wooden picnic table that has been covered with brown parchment paper. Large hunks of flesh and fat are pulled apart and then pushed aside to where a cleaver rocks back and forth until all the meat is chopped and the outer crunchy brown, almost burned, bits are mixed with moist, tender chucks of meat and soft fat, then doused with a little more sauce as it is all tossed together. Like I said before, no one will know the difference. Our few family vegetarians are standing off to one side with strained looks on their faces, and I almost laugh. At a good Southern meal there are always enough vegetables to satisfy even the most committed non-meat eaters.

My youngest cousin dumps freshly shucked oysters from a bowl into a stew of cream, milk and crumbled bacon with yellow melted butter floating on top. He tastes it and adds a bit more fresh cracked black pepper before ladling some soup into each of the bowls placed at the opposite end of the table from the meat. Over the years we’ve lost the taste for adding a little oyster liquor to the barbecue sauce as our ancestors did. There’s a basket of saltines set down next to the bowls for crumbling into the stew, no dainty oyster crackers for us.

We open an old rusted folding table and cover it with a white cloth to hold each of the side dishes being carried gingerly from the kitchen, many still in the pots or pans in which they were cooked. In the center of the table, I place my cherished heirloom relish dish filled with beets and pickles from my pantry and chow chow and corn relish contributed by some of my cousins. A large banana pudding is brought from the refrigerator, creamy and pale yellow, with now soggy vanilla wafers layered around soft bananas, crunchy cookie edges poking out of the secret recipe custard. One young cousin sneaks an empty bowl from beside the oyster stew and, remembering how often he has encountered a dish emptied of this gooey, sweet treat when he returns for a serving after the main meal is finished, he fills the bowl with pudding before reaching for a dinner plate.

A deep male voice begins to sing, “Bless this house, oh Lord, we pray,“ and we all join in, the verses memorized in childhood as we sang them at every family gathering. We hold hands and look around as though we are trying to create a permanent picture in our minds of this scene that will never again be repeated. As the singing ends, someone echoes the grace of an uncle long passed, “Good food, Good family, Good God, Let’s Eat.”

And we do.

I sure hope my friends and family don’t mind naked….

2010-05-11T15:03:00.000+01:00

One month until we leave Edinburgh and as David is ultra-organized (thank goodness one of us is or we would still be sitting in a train station somewhere in France trying to figure out how to negotiate the eurail-debacle and appease the Blonde British Border Bitch ) we are beginning to pack. Toby’s room is spic-n-span and David has laid out each of our hugemongous suitcases so that we may begin to put things in them that we aren’t planning to use before we go. Problem is, I am planning to use everything before we go so nothing seems to be moving toward the suitcases.

Please keep in mind that all l I have with me is clothes, shoes, some jewelry, makeup and toiletries, a corkscrew and several framed photographs of T&T (and a drawing of Madison) I guess I can pack the pictures - definitely not the corkscrew as the one provided in the flat may the worst corkscrew I have ever encountered. Since arriving here I have acquired a tiara, a wonderful pen and a small pin, a scarf and a few articles of clothing form a thrift store. I might need to wear the tiara again before June 15; one often never knows a bout those things until the last minute. We will leave behind the Scottish guidebooks just as we left the French ones in France and the Mexican ones in Mexico along with a great Rick Bayless cookbook that I thought would be of more use to the next residents of the casita than to me. Once I make a dish I rarely consult the recipe again but tend to improvise based on memory and taste - well, except for Jane’s Pork Tenderloin which I can never seem to remember and always have to call and ask how to make and oh yes, the corn pudding, also.

We sent a duffle filled with formal wear back to the States with a friend after the QM2 crossing and it now resides in a closet in West Virginia. I left things to donate in London and tossed a few things in France. When we left Florida in October we stashed two bags of summer clothes with David’s sister in Tallahassee. Hence the naked issue.

Today I look really cute in a black burnt-out velvet skirt, double layered shirts black over white, black tights, a drapey black Donna Karan wrap thingie and scrunchy short suede boots. Perfect for the 48* weather with rain predicted later. However, no matter how cute, this will not do in 80*+ NC and FL June weather. I know. I know, everyone is complaining that it has really cooled off there today but we all know that this is a tease and the heat and humidity will return before anyone is ready for it again. Unless of course they have beach reservations.

So I have with me -- one short khaki skirt, one jean skirt, two linen shirts and a pair of flip-flops. Otherwise everything is either wool, cashmere, long sleeve or corduroy. All my shoes are black and clearly designed for winter or boots - which people wear in Scotland year round but would look pretty stupid on the beach. And I plan to leave a lot of stuff here that I am just sick of looking at. There is a great Cat Rescue thrift shop just downstairs.

So I will wear one of my two outfits (actually they are not even outfits but with some jewelry I think I can make it work although I won‘t look as totally cute as usual)) with each different group of people I see once we arrive back in the good ole USofA. However, vanity prevents me from wearing the same thing twice with anyone within a week’s time and since my mother would be the first to complain about such a faux pas and she is the person likely to see me most often while I am in NC, it is the elderly residents and their visitors at Carillon Assisted Living who are most likely to see my naked body first. Yippee for me! That may be one of the few places on earth where I will have fewer wrinkles and less cellulite than the people staring at my naked sagging tushy and perky reconstructed ta-tas.

So here’s the warning. If between June 15 and 22, you have seen me twice since my arrival in the Old North State you may want to avoid seeing me again until my next visit. Understand? Wink wink. I’ll do laundry and then David and I will have two days in St Petersburg before we will be required to drive to Tallahassee to liberate my remaining summer clothing. As we leave the condo, I’ll wrap my naked self in a blanket to get down the elevator to the car for fear of someone seeing me in what I was wearing the day before. There are entirely too many 20-something tight tushys and flat tummys there for me to waddle around sans culottes.

How Beltane got me to thinking about death

2010-05-03T14:33:00.001+01:00

Warning: If reading about death or funerals gives you the heebie-jeebies, you might want to skip this post.

For all sorts of reasons - my Mother’s failing health, the fact that I fell on Friday night and hit my head on a rock, all the weird health issues we both confront every day, attendance at a huge ancient and very spiritual Celtic/pagan ritual that had us both thinking about our heritage, and other things - David and I were discussing our personal funeral preferences on Saturday night. Weird I know.

It wasn’t morbid in any way, but a desire that someone understand each of our personal ideas about transition, death, and funerals so that whoever has the responsibility might try to implement them in the best way possible. Sort of funny when you think about it since neither of us holds a traditional Christian belief in the after-life or resurrection or any of that nonsense (yes, I called it nonsense for that it was I believe it is - no more factual than the belief of some cultures that I might come back as a cat or even more farcical that there is some great being that actually has the time and desire with all the vast universe out there to care what actually happens to little ol’ insignificant, dot of dust in the cosmos, me.)

Both of our most recent close experiences with death ritual, my father’s and David’s mother‘s funerals, were troubling, unsatisfactory and definitely not comforting for either of us. Well, except for David finally having an opportunity to say in public during his mother’s eulogy that she once threw a plate of spaghetti at him and then became angry when it hit the wall instead of his head and to tell the story of how she was braless in the photo of her high school softball team. Both good sharings of stories of her life and neither dwelling on whether her death had meaning and if so, what it was. Oh, but there was a lot of that on either side of the eulogy. It was like a visit to Southern Baptist heaven - definitely not a place I would want to spend eternity.

As we talked about it we both realized that the best funerals, if you will, that we had ever attended were celebrations with good memories, lots of laughter, sharing, caring, meaningful music ( which generally means music that had been meaningful to the person we were remembering) - in short, about our loved one rather than those left behind to mourn or about religious myths or beliefs that may or may not be shared by everyone sharing the death experience or concentration on what’s next other than wonderful memories, or anything like that. Certainly the lost friend or family member will be missed but wasn’t it great when they were around? Hey, do you remember when….? Those are the things that bring about true resurrection of the soul - those times that were shared that will be forever memories.

Our discussion got me to thinking about my Dad’s funeral and doing that always puts a knot in my stomach. I miss him very much and I think about him often. I haven’t had a desire to talk to him since I don’t believe there is anyone to talk to and I definitely don‘t want to go to the cemetery where his rotting body is entombed in concrete and some kind of once beautiful wood with brass handles that by now are certainly green. But I do often ask myself what his thoughts or advice would have been during his life. When I think back on his funeral all I remember is how very uncomfortable I was during the entire experience -- People filing past the flesh and bone casing that had held his soul, his energy, his spirit, looking down at that pasty, makeup covered face not knowing that beneath his clothes were bare spaces where bone and tissue had been removed, the only parts of his body we were able to donate, his organs too badly damaged by his stroke. People I had known all my life touching me in mourning , talking to my mother who was too confused to comprehend fully what was going on, most there because they truly respected my Dad , some there out of responsibility, some there from curiosity having heard stories of how emotionally difficult things had been in our family in the past few years. I hated it all. Nothing of what I think, feel or believe was represented in what for me was a grotesque ritual that did nothing to provide any true comfort to the living and sure as hell ain’t doin’ nothing’ for the already dead.

In fairness, there was one good point, the eulogy provided by the minister of the small church where I grew up, a church where my great-grandfather had been a stalwart member, where my dad still attended and where the board of trustees at the time was probably wondering what they were going to do to replace Dad’s rather substantial monetary contributions. The minister had been a friend of both my sister and me in college and she (what a hoot it was when dad found out he was going to have at one time not only a female minister, but a Black superintendent and a female Bishop. He must have felt that his soul was totally exposed to whatever forces of evil he might have believed were out there because he surely believed that none of those three second class citizens could do much to help him, being the superior Southern white male that he was.)

Despite that, the minister and Dad had developed a good relationship over time, often joking at coffee on a Thursday afternoon that having seen her he needn’t show up at services on Sunday to which she would remind him that would be OK if he just gave her his offering plate contribution then and there. Their relationship was not so unlike the one he had with me. Strong women, particularly if they had any direct intersection with his perceived perfect existence, made him nuts! I never doubted that he loved me dearly and that he would always be there for me if needed, but we had difficulty sitting in the same room without arguing, sometimes changing sides in the midst of things, just to keep from agreeing I think.

Anyway, at his funeral, the minister gave a wonderful description of my Dad. It was clear that she truly loved and respected him, as did so many others, and those words she said about him didn’t necessarily give me comfort, but made me proud to have had him in my life and helped me feel the sadness that he was gone. But that was all. Nothing about the scripture or the hokey, though beautiful, song about the streets of gold that my nephew sang made me anything but angry. I looked around and most everyone else seemed to be buying into what was going on - a celebration of my Dad’s ascension into heaven. All I wanted to do was get out of there as soon as possible.

So, now, we were discussing our own burials and I can’t seem to wrap my head around anything concrete - except that I know for sure that I DO NOT want what is left of my body placed in a concrete vault six feet under ground. I have not nor do I plan on committing any crimes that might require my exhumation for criminal analysis purposes and that is the only reason I can figure for that man-made cave. Nor do I want to be embalmed. After that it gets fuzzy.

David knows that he wants to be cremated and preferably have his ashes scattered on Doune Hill in Scotland. If that isn’t possible he wants his ashes sailed out into the Gulf Stream somewhere and left to float there until a big storm comes and the boat carrying them sinks. (Actually he wants a Viking funeral like in that movie with Burt Lancaster and McCauley Culkin where the kids shoot arrows to ignite a boat carrying the body, the flames turning it to ash as the boat sinks slowly on the horizon - but neither of our boys is very good at archery so I think the fire will have to come first)

As I work through my own ideas I keep coming back to one very troubling point. I know that my sister and the rest of my family will want a funeral for my Mom very similar to the one for my Dad - and I want no part of it, no part of it at all. It is already difficult as we lose Mom bit by bit to dementia but the thought of having her embalmed and laid out for people to stare at and then pretending that she is somewhere out there a whole person again makes me ill. I do not want to be there but I am not sure I am strong enough to endure the criticism and bad feelings I will create if I am not. Hopefully, I will have a lot more time to visit her in life before I have to deal with the death thing.

And, I’m thinking maybe I want to give my body for research at a medical school. Heaven knows (pun intended), that there is enough medically going on with me to make it interesting. Oh, I know the stories about how badly med students treat cadavers but it is only a shell, the energy that comprised my consciousness will have already merged back into the universe. Oh, and I want people to dance around a bonfire in both a clockwise and a counter-clockwise direction while having one hell of a good party. Getting naked and painting your bodies vibrant colors is optional.

Toby's Spring

2010-04-27T15:42:00.000+01:00

Toby is sleeping in the other room and like the mother of a newborn I keep quietly opening the door to check on him. I guess, really, to just look at him and take comfort that he is there. He leaves tomorrow, very early and I am trembling at the thought.

He and David will get up at 4 AM for the airport bus to arrive in time for the two-hour check-in required before an 8AM international flight. There is a 4 hour layover in Dublin before Toby re-boards with all the Irish folk returning from a visit to the homeland or headed to the US to see long-lost cousins or grandchildren not seen in at least a year. He is most excited about the layover and plans to have a couple of pints of Guinness for breakfast. The idea of drinking Guinness in Dublin inspires him as it would most 20 somethings - or his father. I almost wish David could travel along to share the experience except that I will probably be a slobbering mess when they leave and will be happy when David returns to the flat to keep me company.

Tavish, having studied in Dublin for a semester, has most certainly already had Guinness for breakfast, lunch, dinner and about any other time he could break away for one. Within hours of first arriving at the college there, the students were taken on a bus to the distillery for tours and tastes, most likely in an ill-conceived plan to get the desire out of their systems. I suspect it only threw gas on an already burning fire.

From Dublin, Toby will fly directly to Chicago where he already understands all the twists and turns of the El and should easily, if not so quickly, make his way to the apartment on the north side of the city that he will share with 5 friends, all actors or students. He has a job to get started while he looks for something a bit better and has already arranged for some standup gigs. He is well on his way. And I am sitting here bursting at the seams with pride, filled with excitement for his adventure and feeling like I will collapse into tears at any minute.

I feel all soft inside like the first time I held either of the boys. It is strange to feel this way having said goodbyes with both of them so often over the years - summer camp, boarding school, college, travels. Of course, I cried each of those times, usually big gasping sobs, but only always after I was out of their sight fearing that seeing their Mom in such a state night make them homesick. It was a silly worry as they each seemed to embrace every new experience with gusto. Oh, there were occasional difficult or teary times, of course, but many fewer than the norm I think. My boys are resilient, inquisitive and if nothing else, fearfully independent.

But somehow this is different.

This time I know Toby is going out on his own and will never again live with us as our “little one” which I have always called him even though Tavish is much smaller. Toby is the youngest and therefore by default perceived to be the most fragile, Mama’s little boy. He is neither of those things.

These six months, despite our almost constant disagreements, have been a gift. I have watched him continue to grow and change in ways I didn’t expect. And I have watched as he gained about 20 pounds, filled out, grew a beard and now looks much more like a man than a boy. Fortunately he still gives me hugs without which I would surely collapse. Perhaps that is what I most fear - losing the goodnight hugs, knowing he is safely home. I will never have that again. He is most surely now responsible for himself in ways I was not prepared to accept for another few years.

This is Toby’s spring. The air, nature, even the length of the days are drenched in hope for his future. I am in the late summer or perhaps even early fall of my own life - leaves a little droopy, too tired somedays to feel like doing very much other than just sitting and feeling the warm moist air around me. Toby is like a new bud popping out of the ground, looking around and screaming, “Yippee!! Look at all that room around me to grow into. Wow, smell that air. Hey, roots, let go. I’ve got things to do.” As Leo Tolstoy once wrote , he is “…a plant that has just opened and spread its leaves among all the other plants and is going to grow up simply, peacefully and joyfully…” Well, that is what I hope for him. There are sure to be some trials.

“Make way for this wonderful plant that is filling out its buds and growing in the spring” Look out world, her comes Toby. He is loved, and supported and will be missed terribly - but he’s got a lot of living to do!

"You should always be excited about the next chapter of your existence"

--- Toby McMullen

Dear Banana - or birthday advice to a 15-year-old that a lot of us could use too

2010-04-25T20:34:00.004+01:00

A few weeks ago, the Princess to whom I am Fairy godmother, celebrated her fifteenth birthday. I sent her a tiara. It is time for her to learn to wear one properly. Besides I spent nearly a year in Mexico watching many, many 15 year old girls celebrate their quincenearas and I learned a lot about the importance of a fifteenth birthday, and the tiara.

In Mexico and many Latin cultures, the fifteenth birthday is a celebration of a young girl’s continuing growth from childhood to maturity. If only the young girls waited that long in the US. During a quincineara celebration, the father removes his daughter’s flat ballet-style slippers as replaces them with high heels in a symbolic gesture of her growing up. Unfortunately for my tastes, I’ve seen way too many twelve-year-olds already in high heels for the transition to have much American meaning.

The celebration includes religious customs, usually a church service, and extols the virtues of family traditions and social responsibility. highlighting God, family, friends, music, food and dance. The Quincineara is surrounded by a Court of Honor of her closest girlfriends and usually 8 boys, her Chambela’n or Escorte. In San Miguel de Allende, we would often see them all lined up for pictures on the church steps in their formal wear, the birthday girl looking like a bride, flowers and family all around just before climbing into limousines for the drive to the venue selected for the big party.

There was no religious component to the Princess’s celebration , for which I was exceedingly glad (even though I was thousands of miles away at the time). I held her for her Christening 15 years ago after the priest, in his role as representative of the Church, had accepted my involvement as a non-Catholic. At that time, I personally accepted my role as her Godmother during the ceremony. However, as the years have passed my discomfort with the Church has increased and finally when the news broke about the Pope’s personal involvement in the sexual abuse scandal I felt I could no longer condone my involvement, implicitly or explicitly, in the Princess’s association with such a misogynistic, greedy, misdirected and blatantly un-Christian organization as the Catholic Church.

So I resigned as the Princess’s Godmother.

Whew! That really pissed off her Mom, my BFF and I definitely “had some ‘splainin’ to do” But as I said then, I can no longer in good conscience, or as an honest example, accept a role of encouraging the Princess to be part of the Church even if that is her parents’ wish, but I will always be her Fairy godmother (lower case ‘g’) with all rights, privileges and responsibilities thereto assigned.

In other words, I gotta help her grow up right. And that includes how and when to wear a tiara --- and a lot of other things, as well. I will only talk about that church thing if she brings it up. That is my compromise with her mother because I really want to tell her all the reasons for my action. That will come in time. Anyway, all she really cares about at fifteen is the presents I send ( though invariably late), the summer vacation with me and that I am someone she can bitch to about her parents and know I won’t tell. I hope she also feels that way about talking to me about boys.

I think as part of this growing up process it is time I begin to impart some wisdom. There will certainly be more throughout the years and some of what is here falls more into the think- about it, or plan-for-it realm than the do-it- now phase. More importantly, I want these to be some of the things we talk about while she is visiting in Florida this summer. Well, that and a lot of BASEBALL!!!!

Oh ,and there is no rational order of these tidbits of wisdom and advice. Just how things popped into my head. Comments are welcome.

Dear Banana,

Happy birthday, again. Here are some things I want you to think about.

You live in a man’s world and unless things change a whole hell of a lot over the next few decades, which certainly has not been the case over the past millennia, you will continue to do so. Just get over it. Men, for the most part, are not very bright when facing a cute woman so, if necessary, make him think it was his idea, but never hesitate to get what you want. As Maureen Down said, “I succeed in a man’s world living by man’s rules but I never forget that a woman’s first role is selecting the right shade of lipstick” (or something like that)

Always own at least one tiara, and never be afraid to wear it.

Always have your own money.

Save at least 10% of every single dollar that comes your way. Starting today! Get a piggy-bank and always put all your coins in it. (Coins do not count as part of the 10%, they are “gimmes”)

Wear gloves. Warm ones to keep your hands from getting chapped and classic ones on other occasions.

Develop a personal style - classic, bohemian, preppy, fashionista, outdoorsy, girly, dressed-up, dressed-down - but NEVER only dress in that style. It is good to shake things up once in a while.

Have one trademark item that if left at a crime scene would immediately implicate you
- eyeglasses, a pen, a pin. a piece of jewelry, a hairclip, your gloves, a beautiful notebook, your phone, your wallet, a linen hanky you always carry - you’ll think of something.

Know what colors are flattering to you and don’t bother buying anything else. This makes shopping easier and keeps you from standing in front of the mirror for hours in that really cute top that just doesn’t look right for some reason. Choose a basic “background” color and build around it -like black, brown, navy, ecru, white.

Never wear white next to your face unless your teeth are at least as white as whatever you are wearing.

Less makeup is always more.

Whenever you leave the house - even if just for a quick errand - wear lip gloss and perfume.

Choose two personal scents - one for every day and one for more dressed up. And be sure to re-evaluate every few years as your scent should grow up as you do.

Take care of your hair. Don’t over process it and never change anything about it unless you are in a very good mood at the time.

Take advantage of every learning opportunity you are given - school, theatre, music, lectures, travel - whatever - Soak it in!

Never get bored and, even more importantly, never ACT bored. It is unbecoming.

Volunteer!

Find an activity that you enjoy and can do throughout your whole life - tennis, chess, backgammon, squash, cards, sewing, knitting, painting, drawing, photography, bird-watching……

Have at least one interesting topic of conversation for someone to whom you have just been introduced, your parents‘ friends or your friends’ parents.

Swear only when you intend to and make it count. And always use good grammar unless you are making a point.

If you don’t know how, learn how to play with kids.

Don’t get drunk in public. A little tipsy can be charming but drunk is just ugly - and dangerous. Remember what Dorothy Parker said” One martini is nice, two at the very most, three I’m under the table, four I’m under the host.”

ALWAYS have a glass of water after each drink before you start the next. This will allow you to “keep up with your friends” without getting sloppy or sick. And if you really do this you may never have a hangover.

Never drink a lot of sweet alcoholic drinks of any type. Stick with beer or wine to be safe. One shot is safe - after that it gets sketchy.

Get as much sleep as possible.

Develop a good skincare regimen and never ever go to bed without cleaning your face.

Wear comfortable shoes. They don’t have to be ugly. Remember no matter how cute a pair of shoes may be if you can’t stand up in them for an hour or walk comfortably for several blocks DO NOT BUY THEM.

Buy trendy clothes in trendy inexpensive shops. Shop at thrift stores and consignment shops - especially for day-to-day things or the one- time wear stuff. Save the big bucks for investment purchases.

If you shop wisely and take care of handbags and shoes they will last for years!!!

Know how to do your own manicure and pedicure but pay for one when you can.

If your budget permits choose waxing over shaving and laser over waxing.

Get your eyebrows shaped by a very good professional.

Eat your vegetables. Skip bread and dessert whenever possible. Women have eaten that way for centuries and stayed thin.

Get over over-consuming. Want and waste is a bad model to set for your self and even worse for the world. The less you can live with the more you can enjoy life. Really, Trust me on this one.

Always have at least one outfit, a hairstyle and quick makeup routine that will have you dressed and looking cute in a flash. A famous designer once said that the difference between true beauty and just too-high-maintenance was the ability to get drop dead gorgeous in less than 15 minutes.

Don’t have sex until you are ready. That means the first time should not happen just because everything gets hot and heavy and you are convinced he is the love of your life or definitely not because he tells you that is how to prove you love him (tell that guy to fuck off!) When you feel like you can’t stand it unless it happens right now, STOP! If you wake up tomorrow and still feel the same way then the two of you should plan a perfect time and place.

As soon as you even start thinking that you might be gonna have sex get on birth control. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Your fairy godmother has been pregnant 4 times and these were the ONLY times I did it without birth control and your mother got pregnant on her honeymoon. This is not something you should mess around with. Being smart should never be embarrassing. Ask me for help if you need it.

Always, always, always use a condom. Get together with your friends and practice putting one on a banana. Seriously. If he won’t use one - lose him!

Do not do drugs. Period. They make you stupid and vulnerable.
Also, understand that I do not consider marijuana a drug. It does however reduce your inhibitions so be very careful when, where and how if you choose to use it.

NEVER NEVER get into a car driven by someone who has been drinking, smoking weed or doing drugs. This includes family members and yourself.

Keep your “space” - room, desk, handbag, book bag, whatever - neat and orderly. It reduces stress in your life in so many ways,

Learn to meditate. Seriously. Look for a teacher.

Learn to appreciate different kinds of music and art. Study it. Read about it.

Learn to dance both popularly and properly.

Look people in the eye and speak up!

Stand up straight. Nothing exudes confidence more than good posture. And this includes sitting properly too.

Learn how to properly use a fork and knife and what the other utensils are for.

Avoid any group or activity that purports to make you more popular. It is always bullshit. No exceptions. Popularity is over-rated anyway. I mean, do you even like those people that everyone is trying to be like? You are so much nicer as yourself.

Depend on your parents. They are your allies and always have your best interests at heart.

Do risky stuff like drinking or smoking weed with you sister and/or brother first. They will look out for you. They will also laugh at you if you over do and never let you forget it.

Learn to plan an amazing party. I am EXCELLENT at this.

Learn to cook. I mean really learn to cook. It is fun and everyone always appreciates it.

Read good books - not just junk fiction (although junk fiction is also good too, just not as the only thing you read)

Read a newspaper every day - and on Sundays, meet some friends at Starbucks and share the New York Times.

Learn how to properly order a drink, a beer and most importantly wine. You can drink legally at 16 in many European countries and it is awful to look like either a stupid American or an unsophisticated clod.

Learn to read menus in French, Spanish and Italian - and ,of course, English.

Travel everywhere you can. Each new place will teach you something about the world and something about yourself.

More will come as the time goes by. I love you.

Your Fairy godmother

I Should Be an Upper Class Brit…..

2010-04-24T19:06:00.000+01:00

I love hats.

Haves you ever seen a good British, or better yet, Scottish, wedding? ALL the women wear hats whether or not they are in the bridal party. Of course, the bridesmaids will all be wearing head coverings ranging from huge and patently absurd to small and dainty depending on the location and the time of day. Like in many American weddings, shoes will be died to match dresses which will be matched in color with hats.

Stand outside the church, hotel or hall and observe the guests as they exit the venue to stand around waiting for the bride and groom. Yes, stand and observe, it is part of the custom. The wedding is like a well orchestrated show for all to see, even those that weren’t invited. Feel free to gawk, make quiet comments or even snap a few pictures. I think this is all the result of years of practice observing royals do various things.

As the guests emerge it looks like a box of crayons -all brightly hued, mostly solids, in jewel tones. Even the female guests are dressed in ensembles of matching shoes, frocks and hats, standing in contrast to the dark suits or dinner jackets of the men. Often , the hats are HUGE, with veils or other embellishments as though at Ascot or a Derby party where a prize will be given for best chapeau. One wonders if these hats will be worn only once as they are so striking as to be noticeable should they reappear at the next function. Perhaps there is a “Great Hat Exchange” that I have yet to stumble upon. In any case, the guests create the peacock’s plumage around the bride dressed in white or ecru ,a meringue of tulle and lace or yards and yards of soft flowing embroidered silk, wearing a tiara and elaborate full, fluffy veil or a graceful hat cocked to one side to which a veil is attached.

Only at a full Scottish wedding is there competition - from the groom and his men in kilts with proper cravats and chalk striped morning coats or short black Prince Charlie coatees with silver buttons catching the light. Even the bride can sometimes pale by comparison.

Once back from the honeymoon the bride and groom take up residence in their new home. Although more often than not these days they would have been living there together for months or even years prior to the wedding. Each will have his or her own room and this is where I think upper class Brits have really got it right.

David and I have often discussed the relative merits of separate bedrooms. Now let’s be realistic people. We have been married for almost 30 years and are way past the fucking like rabbits stage, so sleep is the goal here. It is easy enough when planning sex to decide in whose room it should take place - if not on the kitchen table any longer. We do like to cuddle or spoon but inevitably as soon as one of us begins to drift off, the other moves away and rolls to the other side facing away.

We have friends who never had a particular side of the bed on which each slept. They had been married for years and each night whichever got to the bed first just took the side that seemed most comfortable. I think that is weird! This couple is now divorced and I have to believe that this is at least part of the reason. I mean if you haven’t even staked out your side of the bed how in the world can you negotiate anything else in the relationship?

But I ramble…

I sleep on the left side of the bed (right if you are facing from the foot) even when I sleep alone. If I am on my left side I expect to be facing the wall or door. On my right, I either have a vast expanse of bed available to me, if alone, which is rare. or I can feel David’s breath on my face.

Now here’s the rub. He snores.

I know lots of people snore and lots of others sleep though it but I am a well-tuned Mama-Machine and since the birth of my first child 25 years ago I startle at the slightest noise during the night. And after the 1:30 AM call from Detective Fazio of the New York City Police Department while Toby was living alone in NYC when he was 17, it has only gotten worse. So every time David huffs, or snorts, or blows out a long sigh, I wake and have to try again to sleep. Last night I did not sleep at all. That tends to happen at least once a week these days.

At this age sleep evades most women on a regular basis. We do not need the added disruption of a snoring bedmate to disturb our precious, coveted ZZZZZZs. So when David and I arrive at the comfortable 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo in Florida that our dear, wonderful, amazingly generous, awesome, spectacular (you get the point) friends are letting us use from late June through November, I will be claiming one of the bedroom as my own. David can choose the other room or the sofa, whichever he prefers. If this works out, where we go next will be required to have two bedrooms. A second bath is optional - I like double showers. Besides it saves water.

Oh, and Madison will be sleeping with me. I actually prefer not to sleep alone and, like a good, well-bred, upper class, wee thing, she doesn’t snore.

Daffodils

2010-04-15T16:17:00.000+01:00

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

To Infinity and Beyond.....

2010-04-05T15:49:00.001+01:00

The Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off this morning with seven astronauts aboard.

As a life-long space junkie, I was watching for the story and barely found it mentioned on NPR. However, the BBC carried a video of the blast-off with a story alongside that Soyuz had lifted off from Kazakhstan on Friday. Both stories. Hmmm, must be space envy.

Discovery is hauling equipment and supplies to the International Space Station in one of its last missions before the program is shut down at the end of the year. In a rare and wonderful sight, the space station passed over the launch site about 15 minutes before launch and was easily visible as a bright star passing by the moon. I am so sorry that I wasn't there to see that. David and I have observed several shuttle launches from our balcony in St Petersburg all the way on the other side of the state from the Space Center. It is is a chilling experience every time.

Soyuz docked with the ISS yesterday and apparently three astronauts, including one American, have transferred to the station for several months where among other things they are working on experiments left there by the Japanese. Apparently, two of Japans three astronauts are in space at this time.
I find it interesting how we can cooperate on the exploration of space and yet seem to have so much difficulty working together on the problems of earth.

There are no plans for what to do after the shuttles are parked for the last time - no proposals, no budget, not even much discussion. POTUS is planning a trip to Florida while the shuttle is still in orbit to look things over and discuss options, but he is pretty much already on record that this is waaaay down on his priority list. His trip is most likely related to addressing the 6000 jobs that will be lost when the program is ended.

Too bad no one has considered expanding the program and inviting say, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan to participate. Maybe if we were all working on the space program together we could start a dialogue that would teach us how to talk to one another about other things. I mean if it worked with the Russians, who knows? And hasn't anyone in charge of all this ever watched Star Trek?

For the first time ever there are three women on this shuttle flight that will rendezvous with a fourth woman on the ISS That is quite a change from the days of Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldren or even Sally Ride, and the sad loss of Christa McAuliffe and the astronauts on Challenger and Columbia.

A few nights ago I watched a documentary about the wives of the Apollo astronauts. I had forgotten that the disaster that took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee was the first planned three man mission in a series designed to take man to the moon.

The fire occurred during a pre-flight test. Subsequent investigations indicated that the accident was likely preventable but much was learned that allowed NASA to meet JFK‘s call for putting a man on the moon within the decade of the 1960‘s. If you are interested in how truly screwed up all the planning and processes around space flight have been and continue to be I recommend reading The Challenger Disaster. If Obama is putting off further funding until the problems with the system are fixed then he is correct and I hope we can re-instate a well planned and expertly run program soon.

Did I tell you that I have always been a space flight junkie?

I remember watching breathlessly as John Glenn circled the globe for the first time and cheering when it was announced that he was going up again in his 70s. I wish I had grown up even 10 years later when someone might have encouraged my math and science capabilities and suggested that I could strive to be an astronaut rather than just an astronaut’s wife (although the latter was never on my wish list either). Or at least a flight controller or meteorologist who helped plan the launches. Yeah, that is what I should have been - a way to combine my fascinations with weather and space.

Roger Chaffee’s widow was one of the women interviewed for the documentary (her first name was never shown) She was amazingly supportive of the other wives and space travel in general considering that her husband had been turned into toast in the capsule before his mission even got off the ground.

This was all that was left after the 100% oxygen environment ignited . The remains of the capsule have never been displayed and are warehoused near the launch site at the Cape. The launchpad itself still stands, deserted, as a grim reminder of the terrible events of that day. There is some discussion of burying the capsule there.

As I watched and listened to the film of these strong women I kept thinking how much the success of the space program had depended on their commitment to the program and to their husbands. Before the end of the Apollo program more than 75% of the astronauts’ marriages had ended in divorce, generally with the men leaving their wives for younger women.

Those were heady times for the space cowboys and many chose to take advantage of the women and even men who offered up themselves for the cause - if you know what I mean. Apparently the high oxygen filled atmosphere around all the training centers fueled lives of partying , fast cars, sex, and high risk. And through it all the wives stayed home, raised the children and kept themselves looking just right for the many TV interviews that they were expected to perform. They were even given instructions on just how they should appear at all times. No running out for milk and eggs unless your hair was done and you were wearing makeup and nice shoes.

The Apollo wives lived at a time when men could be men because the women were women in a defined, accepted and expected way. I can’t even imagine standing six miles away and watching as my husband sat atop a bomb and was blasted to god knows where while I held the hands of our children - children who by the way were afforded only standard military pay, benefits and pensions regardless of consequence. But the wives knew they had each other and that the American people were behind the extraordinary efforts that they and their husbands were making.

Those early space wives stuck by each other, providing support during the long months of training and the anguishing days when the men were in space. Americans held ticker tape parades and greeted the men as heroes and applauded the sacrifices of the wives. And today I can’t even tell you the names of the seven astronauts that are hurling through space much less whether they are married, single, gay, or divorced. In the early days knowing all of that and more was always a part of the package and after what I can only assume was space insanity that drove what’s-her-name-the-astronaut-in-diapers to drive all night to hunt down her husband’s lover, it continues to fascinate. It points out how truly stressful preparing for going into space is for both the women and men whether you are the one training to be shot into the darkness of space while strapped aside a fuel-filled rocket in an airplane covered with faulty heat- resistant tiles that are as likely to fly off as to do the job for which they were intended - or you are the one staying home to help re-pack the suitcase upon your partner’s return.

Too much has been invested and sacrificed for the space program to just S.T.O.P.

It has filled the imaginations of millions. led to amazing discoveries and holds promise for so much more. We need to go back to the moon, and beyond, and if our recently-proved- to-be-totally-stupid-Congress can’t understand it from that perspective, perhaps they could be persuaded to fund NASA out of the inflated Defense Department budget with the idea of promoting peaceful cooperation among partners on earth toward a mutual goal in space. Maybe it is time that Obama proposed a “Prime Directive"

In words similar to those of the mission director this morning,

"It is time for [us] to rise to orbit. Good luck and Godspeed."

Bangled, Tangled, Spangled and Spaghettied!

2010-03-30T21:30:00.000+01:00

Gimme a head with hair, Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming. steaming, flaxen, waxen

Gimme down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there Mama, everywhere Daddy Daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it. .Show it.
Long as God can grow it! My Hair!

The revival of Hair is moving from Broadway to the West End next week and I so want to see it. Reviews indicate that it has survived the years and seems particularly relevant today even though the few seconds of nudity are no longer shocking.

I saw the original production in New York sometime around 1970. I thought I was so cool. I went to a Broadway theatre in my ragged bellbottoms, a t-shirt with no bra (not that it mattered that much), my hair in braids and barefoot. EEWWW!!!! Barefoot on the streets of New York. Even at 15, what was I thinking??

When the cast entered from the rear of the theatre and tumbled, jumped and swung from scaffolds into the audience and then onto the stage, one of the cast members stopped in front of my seat and handed me a daisy. Obviously he did that because I was clearly one of the coolest people in the room. At least I was able to hold on to that fantasy for oh a couple of days until I returned home from Model UN and realized how totally impossible it was to be cool when living in a small Southern town and leaving three days later for church camp and going into 11th grade in a school that didn’t even require that we read Catcher in the Rye or anything by Kurt Vonnegut. I bought a book of poems by Lawrence Ferlingetti while I was in NYC and that was the only tiny little element of coolness I retained. I pressed the daisy between the pages of that book.

Since we’re talking about hair I must admit that I have never had cool hair. The closest I ever came was not too many years ago when I cut it off very very short and died it red. That sort of spiky look appealed to the slight personal rebellion I was trying to mount after leaving my job. But when we started traveling, David asked that I grow it out. I tried for a while and then cut it again and he asked again.

What is it with men and long hair? I would suggest some sort of connection with short hair and homophobia if I hadn’t started writing this post about a bunch of long haired hippy freaks - and the fact that David sued the Commandant of the Marine Corps over the hair regulations - and lived to tell about it (He won the lawsuit BTW) and I have photos of him with long hair in the 1070’s so it must be some sort of hangover from that time which probably also explains why I gave in and let it grow. Well, that and I have always thought grandmothers with hair long enough for their grandchildren to braid were kind of cool in an 80-year-old gray-haired sort of way. But Toby swears he is never having kids and Tavish has too many things to do before he even starts to think about it (and I think those are good and proper attitudes for both of them) And my hair is growing so slowly that it may never reach my shoulders much less hang down my back in a braid.

In the meantime, my hair is thin, fine, stringy, styless and as far as I’m concerned, just plain ugly. David compliments me on it frequently, I think more to keep me from cutting it than because he really thinks it looks good just now - or perhaps he looks at me through the memories of our early years together when my hair was long, my face was a lot less wrinkled, my butt was a lot, well, narrower and I still had my real boobs.

While, as I said, my hair has never been my best feature, I think some of my current hair issues are related to living in Scotland. There is a commercial on the telly with a woman in a red dress wearing 5-inch stilettos that she clearly can’t walk in. I know she can’t walk in those shoes because she is photographed lying on her stomach with her feet kicked up in the air behind her, never standing - of course, this also provides a nice view of her ample cleavage and she is talking in a posh Scottish accent about how when you live in Scotland your hair is dull, limp and lifeless. Apparently the water is very soft and certain expensive hair products are required if I want my hair to look like hers.

I am sorry but ever since I read an interview with Kristin Chenoweth where she admitted she never appears in public unless she has at least THREE hairpieces pinned in because apparently she has dull, limp and lifeless Scottish hair, even though she lives in the US… anyway, ever since I read that I do not believe for one minute that the women in hair product ads have hair that looks at all in real life like it does in the commercials. I want to see one of those women just after she has walked in out of the rain or, better yet, when she first wakes up in the morning.

I stood in front of the mirror this afternoon and contemplated cutting my hair again. I had just showered, shampooed and completed the blow dry and my hair still hung there - dull, limp and lifeless - but I decided that at least it was there since very short, dull, limp and lifeless hair would only make me look like a crazy old lady who doesn‘t care anymore. SO, tomorrow I am going to buy some of that stuff the “we girls in Scotland need to have full, beautiful, bouncy hair.” I hope it works without the stilettos.

Eat More Lunch.

2010-03-29T20:49:00.000+01:00

If there is one thing I have learned while traveling in Mexico, France and the UK during the past two years, it is that the locals do things right at midday. Lunch is a time to be enjoyed. A great respite in the middle of the day. In Mexico, the kids take two hours off from school for it. In France, even the most humble of local bistros serves a three or four course affair that everyone from workers in muddy boots to the local ladies enjoy with a free flowing bottle of wine that is placed on the table when you arrive. In Britain, weekday lunch is just as likely as in the US to be a pre-wrapped sandwich or a take-away carried back to your desk from the local fast food shop but it can also be a relaxed time at a pub with friends over cottage pie or fish and chips and a pint , or a nice business oriented sit-down affair in Edinburg or The City of London with wine and all the trimmings. And Sunday lunch, particularly the traditional Sunday Roast, is almost sacrosanct. The point is that in most cases lunch is still taken seriously.

My grandmother began cooking lunch just as soon as the breakfast dishes were cleared. There was generally a main course of some sort of meat, and potatoes or sweet potatoes, sometimes both, or maybe beans, at least one green vegetable and usually some stewed fruit or a Jell-O salad ,and maybe even macaroni and cheese or chicken and dumplings. A big pot of vegetable soup filled with chunks of beef was always a favorite. Homemade biscuits were alongside with butter and molasses, an extra one often serving as dessert.
On Sundays there was always a special cake or pie as well. Dinner was that big meal served on Sunday and supper each night was whatever was leftover from lunch Lunch was often referred to as dinner even on the weekdays. Only on Saturday might a sandwich be considered adequate at noon. And then supper might be oyster stew or fried fish or a time out at my grandfather’s club.

In the Sunday London Times, AA Gill, wrote in his regular “Table Talk” column that “We are all remembered and revitalised by food.” Having just attended the funeral of a restaurateur friend, Gill posited about food that is comforting, satisfying and evokes memories, particularly a good lunch, and he got me to thinking.

Food is all about memories for me - my grandmother’s table, the recipes my family shares, how can I adapt something I loved as a kid to fit my new healthier and perhaps even vegetarian eating preferences. Food is emotional. Just like Jews set a place at Passover for the prophet, so are each of us joined by those who came before when we sit at table. Shared food is communion. And during this week called Holy Week, Christians the world over celebrate the sharing of food at “The Last Supper” in many ways - festivals, feasts, sacraments, pageants, family dinners. Everything we take the time to put on our table says something about our heritage, our ancestors and even what we want to pass on to those who follow. Food is our history and our legacy. It is emotional, and metaphysical as well as sustaining.

So, as Gill says ,we should all “Eat more lunch.” Take that time to stop and savor what is going on around us. Listen carefully to what that co-worker or friend is really saying, Hell, give yourself time to hear what you are really thinking.

Personally, I won’t go as far as Dr. David and advocate the return of the three martini lunch. Although I do love a good martini - or two. Based on the thoughts of James M Schlessinger, Jr, “A martini is the staff of life.“ And former president Gerald Ford once said that, “The three martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a belly full and a snoot full a the same time.”

Personally I would be more likely to end up like Dorothy Parker if I had martinis at lunch,

I like to have a martini,
Two at the most.
After three I’m under the table,
After four I’m under the host.

But I do advocate a nice glass of wine, or even sharing a bottle with your lunch companion as a way of better enjoying the food, opening up the conversation and perhaps lingering a bit longer at table.

Think of how much better all our lives would be if we took those two hours midday to unwind, breathe, relax and eat lunch.

As I continue to develop my new blog Ciel’s Vegetarian Pantry, I hope to concentrate on making food a memorable and important part of every day. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
www.cielspantry.blogspot.com

It is all Marie Antoinette’s fault --or, Why I cannot be a vegan

2010-03-27T16:33:00.000Z

I do not like breakfast. Well, not at breakfast time anyway. This is at least partly my Mom’s fault because she doesn’t like breakfast right after she wakes up. She rarely cooked what most would consider a “proper” breakfast except occasionally on Sunday night for supper. My Dad liked breakfast but he also liked having it in a local restaurant with some friends where he ate things like livermush, grits and eggs and they discussed sports and politics, or after a few hours of driving at the start of a vacation, which was OK with us kids and Mom because that usually meant pancakes or waffles and chocolate milk after we’d been awake and arguing for several hours as siblings do on car rides.

On the rare occasions when we kids were younger and my mother escaped from home for a few days on a trip to the beach or some church women’s conference and we were left with my Dad, all he knew how to cook was scrambled eggs - and fried baloney (When fried. it is definitely baloNEY and not boloGNA even if Oscar Meyer made it and quite frankly except for how cute that song is when little kids sing it in commercials I think Congress should officially change the spelling to baloney since even in the commercials for B-O-L-O-G-N-A, the words are “My BALONEY has a first name…..” couldn’t some hot shot advertising exec find a word to rhyme with ‘Y’?)

But I ramble…..

On school days I preferred a few minutes of extra sleep to even a bowl of cereal and truth be told I’ve never really liked eggs unless hardboiled and mixed with exactly the correct amount of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and made into a sandwich on really good wholegrain bread with lots of seeds - and maybe a little lettuce. Because my Mom didn’t care for breakfast either she was quite satisfied if we made a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast or carried a fresh out of the toaster Pop Tart in the car on the ride to school. We had to eat something! No good mother would allow her children to go to school with an empty stomach no matter how much I might protest that if she made me eat something I was going to throw up in the car , or on the ball field during 10th grade when I had PE for first period.

How stupid is that for a 15 year old girl? Gotta get up, get dressed, including hair and makeup and then go to school and change into a gross awful smelly gym suit that we were only allowed to take home to wash once a week and then get all sweaty playing some stupid sport that I always hated and then get dressed all over again in a steamy stinky locker room. I really did want to throw up then.

But on test days - achievements tests, IQ tests, PSAT, SAT, things like that, - Mom always made us a full cooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits, toast, juice, and milk. I probably associate breakfast with the terrible stress caused by those tests and that is why as soon as I got to college I gave it up all together. It was only after I was out of graduate school and could pick up a coffee and danish on my way into the office in Manahttan that I started eating anything again before noon.

But what does all this have to do with being a vegan you ask? Well, I have just completed the 21 Day Vegan Kick Start sponsored by Physicians for Responsible Medicine. They do this several times a year and put helpful hints, menus, recipes nutritional information, doctor’s suggestions and the requisite celeb pointers (I just ignored those because I. Hate. Celeb. Pointers. - especially when they don’t know one iota more about the subject than I do.) Anyway, I think the next challenge is in September if you are interested. I am pretty damn proud of myself for making it through the 21 days. I only slipped twice and on one of those times it was because how was I to know that vegetarian chicken strips have eggs in them (well, I guess I could have read the label before I ate them but who woulda thought it? I mean, what do eggs have to do with chickens? Oh… well… now, that is part of the problem.

As I have mentioned before, living with Toby who has been a vegetarian for over 7 years convinced me that I should give it a try again. And reading all about it convinced me that if I was going to make a commitment to not eating animals I should really let them off the hook entirely for my food production and should forego eggs, milk, butter and cheese as well. Most of my friends predicted a difficulty with cheese, which surprisingly has not been the case. The problem my friends is eggs, butter and milk.

Actually, the problem is CAKE.

I am not a baker. Believe me when I tell you that Marie Antoinette did not mean that even starving peasants should ever be forced to eat a cake that I baked. (It is not relevant to this argument whether or not M.A. ever really said anything about cake or bread or even realized there were peasants outside the palace, it just makes a good point OK? So let the historical accuracy slide Dr. David)

If you want cake you should get may sister to make it for you, or her mother-in-law or any one of my friends Mary, Carol or Sarah, fabulous cake bakers all. I just like to eat it. For breakfast.

When I wake up I want a large cup of very strong (preferably Italian Roast) black coffee and a little slice of something sweet. I do not like croissants unless they are pain au chocolate and in that case I’ll have deux, s’il vous plait, and while good toast with excellent marmalade will do in a pinch it is never my first choice.

The best breakfast cake in the world is either Scottish Dundee Cake

or Claxton Fruit Cake

- well that is if you can’t get someone who really loves you to make you a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting using Flossie Harwell’s recipe.

Now that my peeps, is pure chocolate heaven!

So you see my problem. I can’t be a vegan and have cake for breakfast and I can’t be a happy person eating something else - and as I have pointed out I am a disaster at baking regular cakes so trying to hobble something together without milk, eggs or butter is just wrong. So I will be a happy vegetarian, but not a vegan. Do not misunderstand me. I. Will. Never. Eat. Meat. (or any other animal) Ever. Again. We’ll have to chat a bit about all of that at a later time.

But I will have cake for breakfast and every day I will thank the chickens and cows for their contributions.

My Recovery Plan

2010-03-26T18:35:00.001Z

I am in a 12 -step program to overcome the stress created by the health insurance reform process or whatever this debacle we have just been through is called and invite you to join me in my move toward greater sanity.

Step 1: Admit that I have a problem over which I have no control

Damn right, I have a problem and it is called idiots who listen to and watch political pundits on Fox News and similar outlets and actually believe what they hear. Didn’t these people go to school somewhere that taught them how to evaluate information and form their own conclusions?

Step 2: I believe a power greater than myself can restore sanity.

And that power is the POTUS - Barack Hussein Obama. If people will just shut up and listen to the man. He is well- educated, brilliant, lucid and peace-maker. They gave him a prize for that. Remember:?

Step 3: I have decided to turn my will over to “God” as I understand “him”

This is a little tough because I don’t believe there a God that is a him. However, I do think there is a lot of energy out there that is a lot bigger than me and I am spending as much time as I can focused on meditation and trying to pull in positive forces and push away the negative ones. Take that Bill O’Reilly.

Step 4: I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.

Yes, and I have discovered that my opinions on this issue are correct. We need a single payer health care system, health insurance companies are run by greedy bastards and the basis of all our current problems is capitalism run amok.

Step 5: I have admitted to “god”, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of the problem

See #3 above re: the god thing, #1 as to what the problem is and as for telling someone else, well you’re reading this.

Step 6: I am entirely ready to have someone remove all these defects.

Absolutely, and if Rush Limbaugh will just keep his promise and get the hell out of the country -- and take with him Glenn Beck, Sarah, “Death Squad” Palin, that blonde crazy, what’s her name ,oh yea, Anne Coulter and while they’re at it, Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush (in case he gets some hair brained idea about running in 2012) then we’ll be started in the right direction.

Step 7: I humbly ask that the shortcomings be removed

See #6 above

Step 8: There is a list of all that have been harmed and I am more than wiling to do my part to make amends to them.

As I understand it, people who could not afford or be approved for health insurance can now get it and I think that is a great use for some of my tax dollars.

Step 9: I will make direct amends to those that are injured except where to do so would hurt others

So, here it is. I will put Tavish and Toby back on my insurance as soon as the Bank of America will let me. I will pay my taxes and will contribute to the political campaigns of candidates who support a single payer health insurance plan, and I will work diligently to defeat candidates who represent and cater to the ill-formed wrongly directed religious right, or the tea baggers and who take bribes in the form of contributions from lobbyists for Big Pharma..

Step 10: I will continue to take personal inventory and admit when I am wrong

Yes, because I pride myself in exploring all sides of an issue before taking a stand and in a willingness to change my opinion when I have been proved incorrect through equally logical argument.

Step 11: I will meditate as often as possible, at least daily, to improve my clarity and develop a clear mind so that I can carry out the appropriate actions as needed in a calm and thoughtful manner ,

‘Nuf said.

Step 12: Having had a clear acknowledgement through all these steps that the idiots are still uninformed and acting and speaking in an irrational manner I will do my best not to hunt them down and try to change their minds because, obviously peeps, stupid and uninformed is incurable.

I only have one spoon left today......

2010-03-23T19:09:00.001Z

I have started several new blog posts this past week but have been unable to finish any due to distractions caused by the healthcare vote - we all know it took almost every hour to keep up with that - finishing reading a couple of books I had started simultaneously, being told David and I have no place to live this summer - three times! and having an extreme shortage of spoons.
Spoons you say. What does that have to do with anything?

Christine Miserandino, who suffers with Lupus, developed The Spoon Theory and I credit her with brilliance in describing silent illness in a way that others can understand. Below is an excerpt of her theory with a few edits to make it appropriate for MS. (Christine's writing is in italics and my additions are not. Bold is also mine)

I am carrying around just one spoon today folks.

Christine was sitting in a diner with a friend and in trying to discuss how her energy level works, the spoon theory was born.
I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have [MS]”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands.

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. [Please all my sleep deprived friends, understand that I know that you start the day with fewer spoons than most as well] For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case [MS], being in control.

I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of “spoons”. But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn’t even started yet. I’ve wanted more “spoons” for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has [MS and might not be able to pick them up]

I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said ” No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can’t take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too.” I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon [a BIG problem for me], but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon. [see my blog post on the issue]I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you [have MS]. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on and what I can tolerate. If my skin is tingling I will want tights or something firmly against my body. If my hands are weak that day buttons may be out of the question. If my balalnce is off I will need to wear something that looks OK with sneakers - so much for cute shoes. If it is hot I surely don't want to wear long sleeves, and if I have a fever from taking interferon the night before I may need a sweater to stay ward off chills and so on. If my hair is dirty and I don't have energy to wash it or I have dark circles under my eyes, I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this.

I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get [out of her bedroom], and she was left with 6 spoons. I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s “spoons”, but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less “spoons”. I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a cold comes, or an infection, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on “spoons”, because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, eating might give her one back if she selected her food carefully. Driving could cost two spoons if there was traffic or she might lose a spoon for standing on a bus or train, or even typing at her computer [or reading a book] too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently. Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night. Let's hope there is food in the cupboard.

When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to travel home safely. Then I also explained, that I didn’t even bother to add into this game, that she was so nauseous [from MS related fatigue], that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all. You are probably so tired that you will just fall asleep in front of the TV - often in your clothes . No spoon left to wash your face and brush your teeth.

I explained that some days are worse then others; some days I have more spoons. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.”

The hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything I want. I fight this every day. Just ask David, he is a better observer of how many spoons I have in reserve than I am. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to...I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day’s plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I sometimes feel angry and I hate myself for that.. I miss the freedom of never having to count “spoons”.

I do not see this as a blessing as some people would say -"Oh but don't you appreciate everything more." NO! I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons”

Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding [MS], but anyone dealing with any disability or illness or even a tough time in their life. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general.

In the next few weeks as David and I will plan what's next in this adventure we are on. I will probably call on some of you for advice, ideas or even assistance. Please do not think of me as lazy, incompetent or otherwise lame. If I ask it is because I know that if I share one of my spoons with you I will get much much more in return.

The Day the Earth Moved

2010-03-14T14:46:00.001Z

When I turn on my computer each morning it tells me the time - the time in the Eastern US, that is. David’s is set to tell Greenwich Mean Time, or the actual time shown on the clocks here in Scotland. Typically that serves us well and those of you who receive telephone calls from us, however infrequent, must certainly appreciate that it discourages us from calling you before the sun is awake in NC, FL, NY AZ or CA. But this morning is different. Does anybody really know what time it is?

Sometime during the night I can only assume that the United States drifted 600 miles to the east, making it 1 hour closer to us than when I went to bed a 11PM GMT (6PM EST) last night.

When I awoke, the 5 hour time difference had somehow magically been reduced to 4 as if by divine legislation or something. EXCEPT, I find that AZ was left behind during the shift remaining 7 hours earlier than here. California however was dragged along and now there is only a 7 hour difference where once there was 8. All very strange.

I wonder if expensive waterfront property suddenly appeared overnight in AZ?

Having also realized that this is Pi Day I must wonder if there is some irrational numerical explanation for this phenomenon. Perhaps we should all spend the day writing poetry in Pilish as a way to appease the time gods. Such poems are constructed so that the number of letters in each successive word is equal to the digits of pi. One of the most famous of Pilish poems was written by an English (cough, cough) physicist. Sir James Jeans (oh, perhaps we should all wear jeans while writing poems )

How I need a drink
Alcoholic in nature
After the heavy lectures
Involving Quantum mechanics

Oh how I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after hurting my brain, thinking about all of this (don’t bother to count the letters, it is not Pilish. I can only do that AFTER the drink!)

Or perhaps we should all bake pies (while wearing jeans, of course) after which we can calculate their imprecise circumference as a ratio of their diameter. You can never determine the precise circumference, your know - unless, of course, you just get out a tape and measure the damn thing! And even then it is confusing as hell because as we all remember the answer to the quiz question is that “pies are square” when we all know they are round and perhaps that is part of the problem we are wrestling with here today.

Square pies must cause the earth to shift. This information might be a great help to the new Chilean president who should get his people out looking for the square pie baker -- pronto. Perhaps he could send some help to Haiti for that purpose as well.

Be aware! Be very aware!!!

2010-03-13T20:16:00.002Z

This past week has been MS Awareness Week. I am pleased that the well-run and most helpful National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) conducts this week each year in an attempt to spread the word about this dreadful disease.

(BTW - there are several MS organizations out there but only the NMSS is legitimate. The others are poorly run and spend little of the money that is raised on research or client assistance. The NMSS is consistently rated as an excellent charity. So give generously but be sure you give to NMSS)

Multiple Sclerosis is the most common degenerative neurological disease in the US and Western Europe. MS primarily strikes people between the ages of 15 and 55 - the so-called prime of life and after 10 years with the disease, half of all victims are severely disabled. I was diagnosed in 1983 at the age of 29 although now that I understand the symptoms I know I was sick in high school.

After cheering at a football game, my feet would feel like they were on fire. Mom would rub and rub trying to relieve the discomfort. Once, during a game I just spaced out completely. I didn’t have the energy to jump up and down, couldn’t remember the words to the cheers and couldn’t concentrate enough to even know what was going on in the game. I just stood there sort of staring into space. I didn’t even realize anything was wrong. The following week the Pep Club gave me hell, all but calling for the forfeit of my varsity cheerleading letter because I wasn’t ‘engaged” in the game. On an intellectual level I know it is silly but I still harbor an intense level of anger about that incident that eats at me. I want to go up to the major critics and yell, “ I have MS and you were a jerk! Apologize, dammit!’

Multiple Sclerosis means “many scars”. Perhaps this is one of them.

Actually, the disease is characterized by multiple lesions on the brain, spinal cord or nerves. The lesions heal and are replaced by scar tissue, hence the name, and the affected nerve function is severely impaired or stops completely. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to complete loss of use of limbs, loss of bladder control, vision impairment or even loss, loss of cognitive function, fatigue - a loss of energy so severe that it has to be experienced to be understood. Loss, loss, loss. It is all about loss.

For me it has involved loss of my ability to run outside and play with my boys when they were little, loss of vision (once completely in my left eye), loss of bladder control, loss of the joy of sitting in the hot sun (heat causes an increase in symptoms which for me means it gets really really hard to walk) loss of the strength required to get the milk jug out of the frig, loss of the ability to process multiple stimuli which severely limits my ability to drive, loss of a job I loved, loss of the ability to concentrate, loss of the ability to be a 10 in bed, loss of cognitive function that was once good enough to get me classified, along with a bunch of wonderful NC friends, as “gifted and/or talented” and to get me admitted to MENSA, loss of access to the rolodex of names and words that used to be easily available in my brain, loss of energy to the extent that I can plan only one event a day and then hope that I will not be too fatigued to do it, loss of emotional control and EXTREME LOSS OF PATIENCE WITH THIS RIDICULOUS UNPREDICTABLE DISEASE.

It’s All About the Tatties

2010-03-07T15:36:00.000Z

In Scotland, everything is served with chips - well almost. A few things come standard with a good mash but mostly, it’s chips. And I don’t mean those thin crispy things Americans call “chips.” In Scotland, those are properly called “crisps” and come in flavors you’ve never thought of before - prawn cocktail, tomato ketchup (no more need to dip), olive oil and balsamic, sweet chili, sea salt and garlic - this list goes on and on. Everyone’s favorite, of course, is “salt and vinny.”

But I’m talking about chips here - proper thick cut slices, not wedges, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, perfectly cooked fried potatoes.

Order a pizza - comes with chips. Fancy a curry? Expect some chips on the side to dip in the sauce. Breakfast? Well, in addition to the bacon, bangers, haggis, eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, butter and marmalade that are standard with a “full Scottish” you’ll generally find some chips or if not you’ll most certainly be asked if you would like some. Chinese food, Mexican food, even Italian food, comes with chips.

David and I were dining in a rather posh Italian restaurant last Saturday. At the table next to us a couple had mussels and soup as starters followed by a large shared salad (I always watch what other diners are eating for fear that I may be missing out on something wonderful) Then one had a pasta dish and the other risotto and, sure enough, there on the table between them was a huge bowl of chips. (David and I shared a cold antipasto and a risotto de la mare filled with all sort of shellfish, plum tomatoes and chiles)

Go to a pub. Order a pint. The bartender is likely to ask if you’d like some chips as a snack. While I waited for take-away Chinese one night, four teenagers came in. Each placed an order for chips with a different sauce for dipping - one sweet and sour, ane sweet/hot chili, one brown sauce and one garlic/chile sauce. Ah, Scottish/ Chinese food. Chips and Chinese-style sauce.

In the grocery there are likely to be more types of frozen chips than anything else in the freezer. More chips than ice cream! That is just wrong. Even though, I place chips/French fries, pommes frites, whatever there are called in whatever country I happen to be, right up there with the foods of the gods, one of my absolute favorites and when on offer I can never turn them down.

(I feel in the interest of honesty here I must say that I DO NOT eat FREEDOM fries under any circumstances! - coming up with that name was just one step past ridiculous . Instead , the French should have stopped eating anything American because we were the idiots who were out of line. Oh wait. The French do not eat American food. They eat wonderful fresh beautifully prepared luscious French food. Sorry. I still DO NOT EAT FREEDOM FRIES - and have been known on two occasions to walk out of establishments that called them that.)
But I ramble..

Perfect chips must be cooked three times. First, peel the potatoes and boil them until just tender. Drain, cool and dry well, then slice into thick finger-sized pieces (sort of like really thick steak fries in the US). Heat some good non-flavored oil until hot. If you want to pretend to make these healthier, use expeller pressed canola oil. Actually, any good vegetable oil will do. It is best to cook the potatoes in a deep pot or deep fat fryer but they can also be cooked in a deep skillet in a single layer - but be sure if you choose this method not to overlap the potatoes or they will become soggy. Cook the potatoes just until they just start to color. Remove potatoes from fat, drain well on paper towels and allow to cool. Discard the fat.

At this point you may finish the cooking (see below) or store the potatoes. They will keep in the frig for 24 hours. Any longer and they oil will go rancid. Or you can freeze them.

To finish the cooking - heat some fresh oil and add the cooled or frozen potatoes (be careful of popping). Cook until golden and crispy. I like them really brown. Remove to paper towels to drain and season with coarse salt. Serve with ketchup, HP sauce, malt vinegar, garlic mayonnaise or salsa.

Guaranteed to be the best “chips” you’ve ever eaten.

Let us all stand and recite together......

2010-03-04T17:32:00.000Z

It’s that glorious time of year again, peeps. That time when “the boys of summer” take to the fields even though it is not quite Spring and the NCAA (read that ACC) is still paying basketball. That time when the young guns can strut their stuff ( did you see that homer by S-Rod yesterday?) and the old guys can find out if they still have what it takes. It’s that time when the proven stars get to sit it out a lot and only play when really needed to help the team avoid embarrassment, when the press has been called out to take photos and do interviews or when the fans are there in full force cheering against an arch rival ( Can you spell Yankees or Red Sox?)
It's that time of year when fans of my two favorite teams, the Rays and the Cubs, still dream of a pennant.

It’s that time of year when we all oil our gloves, fill our cups with beer, stand and recite our Creed:

I believe in the Church of baseball.
I’ve tried all the major religions
And most of the minor ones.
I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma,
Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms,
And Isadora Duncan.

I know things, for instance:

There are a hundred and eight beads in a Catholic rosary
And there are a hundred and eight stitches in a baseball.
….
I prefer metaphysics to theology.
You see, there is no guilt in baseball.
And it’s never boring.
Which makes it like sex.
…
Making love is like hitting a baseball.
You’ve got tot relax and concentrate.
…
It’s a long season and you’ve got to trust it.
I’ve tried them all, I really have.
And the only church that truly feeds the soul
- day in, day out - is the Church of Baseball.
        As adapted from “Bull Durham”
By Ron Shelton

PLAY BALL!!

Bacon is calorie free, right?

2010-03-03T17:24:00.000Z

If, like me, you grew up in the South, you know that bacon is a seasoning and therefore has no calories. If you feel that you must, you can remove the pancetta/parma/prosciutto and set it aside from your portion after the fish is cooked. But I dare you to try leave it there and not tuck in.

Stuffed Roasted Salmon Wrapped in Bacon

2 large filets of salmon, skinned and pin bones removed (If you know how to filet and skin a fish it is best to do it yourself and use halves of the same fish)
8 oz prosciutto, thinly sliced (pancetta or parma ham will work as well)
6 cloves garlic roasted in their skins and then skin removed
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and coarse ground black pepper
8 oz fresh or jarred pesto (drain off a bit of the oil before stirring into some chopped fresh tarragon and flat-leaf parsley to taste)
Jarred roasted red peppers, sliced into julienne strips (one of those things that just aren't worth doing yourself unless you have grown your own peppers)

Pre-heat the oven to 375 F
Cut or tear a large square of plastic and cover with overlapping pieces of prosciutto (this needs to be wide enough to wrap around the salmon filets)
Place one piece of salmon, skin-side down, in the centre of the prosciutto and cover the top with the pesto mixture being sure to keep it off the sides and the prosciutto.
Lay a line of peppers and the garlic cloves along the filet over the pesto and then lay the other fillet skin-side up on top of it.
Using the plastic wrap, wrap the fish in the prosciutto, by lifting one side and then the other and overlapping it on top and peeling the film away as the prosciutto clings to the fish and itself. You should have a fish completely wrapped in prosciutto sitting on an open square of plastic wrap.
Gently lift the fish using the wrap and roll it into a roasting pan so that the seam of prociutto is down
Dribble with olive oil and roast for 25-35 minutes. The fish should feel firm to the touch. Allow to cool.
Cut into large slices and serve with a leafy salad.

Let me know if you can actually avoid eating the bacon. I think it is impossible.

Blogging and Booking …and Booking

2010-02-26T15:06:00.000Z

I’m thinking that it is not possible to write a blog and a book at the same time - particularly while also proofreading someone else’s work and trying to make travel plans.

One of the most difficult aspects of a traveling lifestyle is deciding where to go next. Number two is booking the travel and accommodations, though rarely in that order.

Because we take advantage of space that is available when academics are on sabbatical, we are at the mercy of university budgets, grant approvals, travel costs and all sorts of things that aren’t even about us - well, until we try to book the house on offer. Fortunately we never book the actual travel until the housing arrangements are firmed up. Well, usually we don’t. We booked flights back to the States this morning with nowhere to stay. Do not be surprised if you receive a phone call asking that you make up the quest room.

I say it is fortunate that we generally don’t book the travel until we have secured a bed because all of our plans for the summer have fallen through in the past three days and I would hate to be stuck with the train, plane and ferry fares. No house in Greece, Italy, Spain or Ireland. Nada. Zilch. At least not in our price range or on our schedule.
Boo-hoo!

I am disappointed because as I have written before, the most expensive part of travel is the travel. Because we are already in Europe I wanted to stay as long as possible but that is not to be. We will be flying from Edinburgh to Amsterdam to New York to Charlotte on June 15.

The good side of this plan is that I will see my Mom and Tavish and get my wonderful Madison back. I am very excited about all of that.

There are two, or maybe three, downsides.

David thinks this is a good plan because he is very worried about my health. Hmmm, he must be reading my blog - or perhaps experiencing things first hand. Poor thing. Having health that needs to be worried about by anyone is not a good thing, I am concerned that he is concerned.. Others often notice things before we do ourselves, particularly negative things that we would prefer to deny. He thinks I need to reassess my stamina, my meds and my expectations. The stamina and meds I’m OK with but don’t mess with my reality - whether real or not.

I am afraid that once we get off the traveling train we won’t get back on. There are always excuses to be made for not traveling. I am going to have to fight hard to keep them from getting in the way. So I need to start making a plan for the next phase now and let the docs know that it is non-negotiable and their job is to get me fit to play. Athletes do that all the time, right? Just tape me up and put me in coach. (“Put me in coach, I’m ready to play, today.” Sing along. It is almost time for BASEBALL!!! And my annual sing-along showing of Bull Durham. It‘s a religious thing and red toenails are required)

But I DEFINITELY ramble….

So I am booking and planning travel, proofing the galleys for David’s book and trying to write one of my own - while attempting to separate some thoughts for this blog as well. Too much at once - particularly for my addled brain. One thing I know I need is a schedule - - and sleep. I guess that is two things. Lack of sleep can impair counting.

When the weather warms up there will be more travel stories and less about me, me, me. Until then, if I go away for awhile just know I am working on other things and I’ll definitely be back. Eventually.

Stuck!

2010-02-25T13:56:00.002Z

Just Stuck!!

Despite What You May Think, I Am Not Bi-polar

2010-02-21T15:31:00.000Z

I have lived with diagnosed multiple sclerosis since 1983. (although I know now that the disease was active even when I was in high school) According to the doctors that made the diagnosis I should have been unable to walk for at least the past 5 years. Thanks to medical advances in the mid-1990’s, when I was showing definite signs of neurological deterioration, I am still mobile and functioning. On many days, unless you know me well, you would have no idea I have MS by watching me walk or move. My hands shake and I drop things a lot but still, it is not an obvious thing. Of course, there are also days when I stay in bed. I plan my life very carefully to avoid fatigue and those advances of the ‘90s require that I take intramuscular injections of interferon on a regular basis and several pills a day to keep me up and going. I’ve had rounds of chemotherapy and more intravenous sessions with high dose steroids (1200 mg/day) than I can count.

If I am careful and take my meds I can manage most of my physical symptoms fairly well. My cognitive dysfunction is another matter entirely. For me, the most worrying and debilitating aspect of MS has been the decrease in my brain’s ability to process information properly. That, not physical limitations, is what forced me to leave my interesting and lucrative job. I could no longer process information in a linear fashion which for a project manager in the financial services industry is a big liability. Both project plans and financial statements became illegible to me. They might as well have been written in Greek. At the time I had an amazing ,brilliant, nurturing assistant who kept my head above water. She should have been receiving half my salary. When I could no longer organize things or keep information or appointments in my head she gave me notes, reminders and most importantly encouragement. To this day I owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Sometimes when I become too demanding of David or T&T they remind me they are not Mary.

Recently, David has noticed, as have I, that my speech is slowing a bit and I seem to have more periods of confusion. I do not go out alone for fear that I will be unable to find my way home. In my cooking class last week I kept losing my place, I forgot to turn off burners, I became frightened and nervous. I wanted someone I could trust to be there with me. Next time I will enroll with a patient friend. Fortunately David and I are best friends and typically make plans together. He seems to still enjoy being with me despite my limitations and he is an amazing man who helps more than any partner should be expected to.

Tests before I left the US showed that my brain function had declined to 65% of what it had been in my prime. My former boss said that just made me easier to take. Apparently in the past when I reached conclusions before others in the room it could be annoying. Imagine that. I never was good at sitting on my hands and keeping my mouth shut.
That’s not really surprising. In high school I was obnoxious like that, always a step ahead, sometimes getting to the conclusion even faster than the teacher. I thought I would live forever in a state of not fitting into the norm until I had the wonderful amazing experience of attending The Governor’s School of NC in the summer of 1971. There I learned that there were lots of people out there a lot smarter and quicker than me but most of all that what I was capable of was not something I should try to overcome but something I should learn to utilize. Now, I can’t keep up and it is driving me mad!

David’s oldest friend stutters. When they are together and he gets stuck on a word David just says it and the conversation moves on as if nothing has happened. Those years of practice are coming in handy. Now when I can’t find a word in the rolodex in my brain, if David has been paying attention, he can often fill in the blank just as quickly as he does for his friend.

I know you are thinking that we all slow down and are more forgetful and such as we age and that is definitely true. I do not want to belittle the difficulties that we all face after 50, but peeps, this is different. I space out and can’t get the concentration back. My brain just shorts out. It is not just a brain fart or a senior moment, it is a periodic blackout.

But there is something I am finding even more distressing recently. Before we left Florida I was diagnosed with pseudo-bulbar affect (Google it). I thought it was one of those things invented by drug companies to sell a medicine that didn’t work out for its original function, but I was wrong. This is the well-documented problem of emotional lability apparently repackaged to raise awareness that it crosses many neurological disorders and can be misdiagnosed as depression. There is no treatment. (Expletive!!!)

And for me it appears to be worsening and I am frightened. I do not want to alienate people, embarrass myself or anyone else in public, or be carried away by men in white coats who have no idea that PBA exists. You see, I will sit and stare into space until someone asks what I am thinking about. I will stop in mid-sentence and then just not continue with whatever I was saying (those of you who have known me for years know this was an early sign - and you all just thought I was scatter brained). My penchant for non-sequiter is a symptom. My thanks to all of you who continue to try to carry on a logical conversation with me when I jump from subject to subject for no apparent reason.

But the biggest problem is that I do not have control over my emotions. I will cry for no apparent reason. Not just little tears, but big gasping sobs. When I am angered my reaction is way over the top. Poor Toby must think that his Mom is totally whacko when I completely over-react to what is a normal disagreement. I yell. I even scream sometimes. If I am ready and you are late I can’t tolerate it. No I am not just the world’s biggest bitch. I cannot stop this. Even when I know my actions are out of proportion with the situation it will not stop. It happens with laughter too. I’m too loud, carry a joke too far, don’t understand. My brain is on overload and just keeps on going. And I am embarrassed.

I feel myself retreating. Surely those who have known me for ages will go, “Well that explains a lot.” and may still be willing to stick around. But this shit makes making new friends a real challenge and when you move from place to place like we are, it becomes debilitating.

I have fought MS, this ridiculous, unpredictable disease, with all I’ve got for 27 years. All in all I have won a lot of battles. But this one is getting me. If this is “pseudo“- bulbar I’d hate to see actual bulbar. This one is causing me to question what is next, what I can handle. This one has me listening to David when he suggests we buy a house in Maiden, just in case we need it. I imagine the unspoken part of that is “just in case he needs some help with me.” I need a new battle plan and my MS fried, pseudo-bulbar affected brain doesn’t seem capable of coming up with one.

We Don’t Have a Place in Italy for July

2010-02-20T17:44:00.000Z

As I sat surfing for a house on a Greek Island where David and I might spend the late summer, he was looking at real estate in Maiden, NC, the tiny town where I grew up. This wasn’t just incongruous it was ludicrous. Neither of us had ever considered living in Maiden, in fact we had moved from North Carolina for what we thought was the last time in 2005. What was going on?

We’re travelers, vagabonds. One friend described this as my bohemian phase. I like the concept although I don’t think I quite live up to it. We are moving from place to place to experience life, to learn about how things work outside of the US consumer bubble, And we love it!

But now I was hit in the face with the knowledge that I agreed with what he was doing. The idea of moving to Maiden would take some real brain adjustment for me but I understood his desire to identify a retirement location that could be paid for and ready for us should we decide to get off the road or if our tentative health decides to knock either of us flat. I know that could happen at any time but I live in total denial of it.

We look wistfully at photos of San Miguel de Allende where we spent most of a year and wonder if we should head back. We write about and organize pictures from our time in France and know that it was a good experience but not one we would like to repeat. We plan for what to do during the remainder of out stay in Scotland - travel to the Isle of Mull, visit friends in Thornhill and Aberdeen, spend a day in Glasgow, eat some Loch Fyne oysters before the end of April when the months no longer have an “r”.

We must leave Britain by the end of our visa on June 23 or the British Border Bitch will surely have her minions out searching for us. We might be staying over to put liquid explosives in excess of 4 oz in our shoes or something. We can reenter the Schengen visa territory of the EU (basically everywhere in Europe except the UK, Ireland, Bulgaria and other eastern European countries that I can’t remember) after that date but can only stay for 90 days. Because we would like to travel back to the US on a repositioning cruise that leaves on Oct 4 we must identify somewhere to park ourselves for a little over three weeks either at the beginning or the end of our time in mainland Europe.

We are staying on because we are here and the most costly part of traveling is, well, the traveling part. Basically, wherever you go, there you are and we are here and would like stay until we are forced by ridiculous regulations to give up playing the system and just get the hell out of Dodge for awhile.

So we’re thinking of going to Ireland for a few weeks before we head back across the Channel and then spending a week in Istanbul on the back end before we fly to London to get the boat. In between we were planning to train across France and down the coast of Italy where we had located a lovely flat overlooking the Mediterranean in Salerno. And then last night I got an email that the flat wouldn’t be available after all. (Expletive!!!)

There is still the villa on the Greek island of Thassos for August and September but we are waiting for final confirmation on that and now I am nervous that our summer plans will just fall apart. That is how my brain works. I’ve learned to live in perpetual white water so I must always be prepared for the worst and then enjoy the best when it emerges..

Time for Plan B, a backup plan, a do-over, something that sticks. But I’m not sure it is moving to Maiden.

I love the idea of coming full-circle, spending time with my Mom, getting to know my soon-to-arrive baby niece, nephew and cousin, being there to help out with all those family things that need helping out with -- but I am equally nervous about boredom, getting stuck in a rut, having religion pushed in my face, not having enough intellectual challenge, being surrounded by conservative thought and being made fun of for thinking differently - the things that pushed me away from there in the first place.

My sister said that nothing I could do would surprise her anymore. I didn’t like hearing that. She did not intend it kindly and she lumped me in with my brother which is not a place where anyone would want to reside. But it is also where I have landed by intention as much as by default.

I am reading “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I must be the last female in the western world to do this. She is getting divorced and as a result is assessing her feelings about family and children and her life. As I read I totally identified with what she was saying . Hope she will forgive that I have made a few changes to fit my situation.

[It is the potential] shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever…. I discover this truth every time I go to a big reunion of my mother’s family in [North Carolina] and I see how everyone is so reassuringly in their position over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent [although not always in that order in my family in recent years], then you are a grandparent, then you are retired - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is, and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children. or teenagers or young parents or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the [75] year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem, you are the one that created all of this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate and what’s more, it’s universally recognized.

At our reunions someone often tells the story of my grandfather as he sat looking at all of us and said to my grandmother, “Bertha, can you believe we started all of this”

But I chose to live outside that circle of continuity and certainty. Oh, I return from time to time to dip my foot back in and observe the world my grandparents created. But that world of tradition and orderly disorder with controlling rules and expectations frightens me away every time. I prefer a little chaos. Perpetual white water is easier for me to manage than a comfortable life of convention. I need adventure, change, excitement. I crave an interesting existence.

But I can’t be foolish and ignore health and long term financial considerations and as another good friend has said, I probably need a place for centering. Yes, a place where I am grounded and understand what is going on around me. A comfort zone. But can I find that in the place I rejected so vehemently when I was younger. The place that in all senses pushed me away. I have changed and mellowed somewhat. Has the same happened there?

So I will continue to look for the next travel destination while David peruses real estate. We’ve expanded our search a bit but keep being pulled back to Maiden. Wherever we travel we search out a quiet existence. We are no longer party animals. Age is slowing us down and we spend more time in quiet pursuits - writing, reading, listening to music, watching movies, sewing, crocheting . Perhaps we should add a little gardening to that. Perhaps we can create our own quiet island in that sea of extra baggage that would surely haunt me there.

For Lent - I am giving up Being Fat

2010-02-18T15:14:00.000Z

Lent is about rising from the old and embracing the new. The Rule of Benedict says Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge (I’ve got a lot of that)off a life turned slipshod, taking stock of time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the stamina to say yes to its twists and turns with hope. Hmmm, sounds like a diet to me.

I was raised in the United Methodist Church where Lent meant changing the church vestments to my favorite purple ( I think - or maybe that was Advent - I always get them confused - or maybe it was both) and filling up a slotted card with pennies and later dimes and quarters (inflation) to give to some mission or charity. I guess the money was supposed to come out of my allowance or something but I just remember my Dad giving me the coin to insert each week, no real sacrifice. There must have been a lesson in there somewhere, right? All in all it was just a run up to Easter which meant a new dress and shoes (and until I was old enough to win the protests, a ridiculous hat) and a huge basket full of candy deposited in our living room (right where Santa always left the presents) by some giant furry animal that by all rights should have scared the be-jeezus out of kids.

We were never asked to make a Lenten sacrifice by giving up something significant like I learned later in life was a big thing in the Catholic families of many of my friends. And even my Jewish friends make sacrifices during Passover- which interestingly coincides.
( That is a whole discussion on religion that I do not want to get into just now. Suffice it to say that there are way too many similarities in all the major religions for it to be a coincidence. Someone is borrowing traditions :)

Actually, I love the Lenten season. Early spring! It is all about fresh starts and rebirth and new growth and hope and light. Imagine way back when and the earth had grown darker and darker each day and suddenly people began to notice that it was getting lighter and crocuses, jonquils and hyacinths began to peek through the melting snow and buds appeared on the trees and they realized that perhaps they were being given a second chance, a new opportunity.   So they made a sacrifice to the gods to say thanks for letting us off this time or they celebrated that whatever sacrifice they may have made a few weeks earlier was paying off. In some cultures the sacrifice was a personal one, like we do no chocolate or alcohol (although it would more likely have been a piece of gold or an animal that would otherwise have been a much needed dinner) In other cultures, it was very personal for the one young male or female that was sacrificed for the good of the community. Thank goodness most cultures in the world today are past that one - although many still make a pretty big deal out of some of those earlier sacrifices with religious ceremonies and even re-enactments, but where no one living is actually hung from a cross or anything.

I have noticed in recent years that like many religious observances - Christmas, Easter, New Moon, Super Bowl, Opening Day of Major League Baseball - the Lenten sacrifice has become secularized and even people who have never darkened the door of a church are participating. I’m sure we all have at least one friend who is giving up alcohol or chocolate or whatever they want to abstain from for awhile and most are motivated not by religious conviction but by a desire to do something good for themselves - not a bad thing all in all. I just wish we were a bit more honest about it with ourselves and others. Well, you know me so I know that you know ( that I know that you know……) at least one such person because I am giving up Being Fat for Lent.

I’m not celebrating Lent exactly, it is just that a prescribed 40 day period with a designated start and end date seems doable

(and BTW why are all the Easters of different religious sects and Passover on a different date each year? You’d think we could come to some compromise solution ,like President’s Day, that would really simplify all our lives and make school calendars much easier to plan)
But I ramble….

Doable for what, you ask? For doing everything I possibly can to start the scales trending in the other direction. And let me tell you that starting this on the day after I just paid beaucoup bucks to take an amazing cooking class is a REAL SACRIFICE!!!
So I am devising the Lenten Diet (are you listening Mark Herman?) which I will publish, probably weekly. It is a bastardized Atkins ( my past successful weight loss and something David can live with) , Kimkins, Weight-watchers, Scarsdale, Slimfast, non-starvation but definitely controlled eating plan for 40 days only - lo-carb, lo-fat, lo-sugar, lo-calorie, and no doubt with a high bitchiness factor.

If you read it and think, this is not a healthy eating plan, you are right. (too much cheese and not enough dessert ) But please don’t feel compelled to lecture me about it. It is for 40. Days. Only. And it is a DIET intended to cause my body to get angry at parts of itself and start sending them away, not a life-long healthy eating plan which hopefully I can return to in April.

I will NOT be drinking alcohol and instead drinking more water (mostly sparkling), herbal tea, and my morning coffee and eating the following (including a small Activia yogurt each day - I need the calcium J) and snacking on carrots, celery, and lo-fat cheese sticks:*

Day 1 (W 2/17) - that was actually yesterday when I ate what I cooked at Cook School and probably put myself farther behind than ahead ( see upcoming post about that remarkable day)

Day 2 - protein smoothie (fat free)
             Chicken/veggie chili, coleslaw with light dressing
             Roasted chicken, sautéed spinach, cumin carrots

Day 3 - Eggy w/w French toast with no-sugar jam
             Tuna salad on lots of lettuce with tomatoes and cucumber
             Chicken broccoli bake (chicken and cheese - no pasta), garlic greens

Day 4 -Eggy “blintzes“ filled with cottage cheese and no sugar jam
            Vegetable soup, salad
            Stuffed peppers (mince, veggies and cheese), salad

Day 5 - Cheesy eggs, veggie sausage
             Chopped chicken ,lettuce, carrot, celery salad
             Roast Turkey breast, cauliflower mash, spinach salad

Day 6 -. Denver omelet w/ turkey
               Taco salad w/ veggie mince & lo-fat cheese
               Salmon w/ lemon-dill sauce.. coleslaw, broccoli

Day 7. Smoothie
           Broccoli soup, salad
           Chicken breast on tomato & cucumber, romaine salad

* No that I look at it, it is not so unhealthy if I keep the fat low, but it is really BORING!!! for someone who just learned to cook a perfectly medium-rare duck breast with a veal marrow sauce, wild mushrooms and pancetta.

I feel a bit like Oprah having it all out there in front of all of you. So if two days from now I change my mind, just don’t give me a hard time about it OK? It’s not like it is some religious thing.

OMG - The Things I Learned in Cook School

2010-02-17T16:58:00.000Z

I am not yet down from the mountaintop, having just spent the day at the Martin Wishart Cook School. I learned so much that I am busily making notes even as I write so that I don’t forget. Here are a few of the takeaways from the day:

To make a creamy soup lighter, yet more satisfying in smaller quantities, like you might serve as a first course or an amuse bouche, whip it with a wire whisk or immersion blender until frothy and serve in a tea cup for a first course or a demitasse cup as an amuse bouche.

To cook anything in butter, heat the pan slowly first then add the butter and melt until foamy, do not let separate, keep at an even temp

The best general cooking oil is pumiced olive oil - generally sold as light olive oil - it is made from an additional pressing after the virgin and regular oils have been extracted. It heats to the perfect temp and won’t add flavor to the food

For the best scallops you will ever eat, try whenever possible to get them in the shell and hand dived to eliminate the grit in dredged ones or the white preservative in frozen or shelled ones - but in any case, halve them across the grain and a salt the cut side. Cook them in foaming butter in a hot skillet cut side down until caramelization starts to show around the edges, turn just briefly and then remove to blotting paper, squeeze lemon over.

Chicken stock: Ask the butcher for about 8 chicken carcasses or buy a lot of wings on sale. Fill a stock pot cramming in as much chicken as will fit. Fill pot with water to cover chicken. Bring to a boil and cook for 40 minutes skimming constantly until reduced by 1/3. Strain and store in frig or freeze in small quantities until ready to use (add no seasonings or aromatics!)

Veal or beef stock: Ask butcher for marrow bones and roast in 375 F oven for one hour; sauté mirapoix (celery, carrot and onion) in pumiced oil until just starting to turn color; deglaze pan with red wine; add bones and tomato puree; cover with water; bring to boil and skim several times until broth starts to clear; Lower heat to lowest setting or put in slow over and cook for 24 hours until reduced by 2/3; Strain and store. Put veggies and bones back in pot, cover with water and repeat to make second batch

Any meat of poultry should rest for 50% of the cooking time before carving ( so a turkey cooked for 4 hours should rest for 2 hours or a 2” thick filet steak cooked for 5 minutes on each side to perfect medium rare should rest for 5 minutes) Don’t fear it getting cold. If served on a warm plate with a warm sauce it should be perfect eating temp.

For a wonderful, easy dessert, make sweetened French toast with a good loaf cake of any type, sprinkle a few berries about, drizzle with warmed honey butter, dust with powdered sugar and top with a dollop of crème fraiche

Always use a warm spoon to serve whipped cream or cream fraiche

There is so much more that my head is spinning. I will write all about the menu, how to cook a perfect duck breast and good inexpensive wines after I come down off this cloud of wonderfulness.

Age Cannot Wither Me - although it may wrinkle me…

2010-02-15T17:39:00.001Z

I just had a birthday (did you know that?)

which means, whether I want to be or not, I am another year older, another year closer to “over the hill.”

I am not yet over the hill nor do I intend to be any time soon - despite what some might have begun to insinuate when I turned 40 by giving me all sorts of ridiculous black gifts, tonics and creams for warding off the signs of aging and making really bad jokes. What was the commercial, “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better “ - and I damn well am getting better all the time.

I’m more comfortable with who I am than I was 20 years ago or as is sometimes said, “I am more comfortable in my own skin.”

That is sort of true as I can’t imagine being in someone else’s skin but I’m not totally content with the extra tonnage I am carrying around nor the wrinkles that keep appearing all over my body, not just on my face. I’m trying to “love the skin [I’m} in “ and, hopefully, as soon as I can motivate myself to do the shopping I recently convinced myself was OK I should look pretty effing good. There is a show on British telly called “How to look good naked.” I’m thinking that if new clothes and makeup don’t work - I already have the new haircut - then I may audition for the show.

In the meantime, I keep an eye on my idol, Dame Judi Dench,for motivation.

She is 76. She is wrinkled. She is short (she prefers “petite”). She is “cuddly” (doesn’t that sound ever so much nicer than “fat”). And she still looks fabulous! She steals the show in the Bond movies not just from gorgeous Pierce Brosnan or that amazing 6- pack of Daniel Craig, but from the Bond girls, too. I love her!! She won an Oscar for being the Queen. I want to be her when I grow up.

You see, I am already just like her. Her specialty is being adored. So is mine (well, it will be as soon as I convince the three men in my life that their job is to adore me). She was married to the same man (now deceased) for 30 years. I’ve been married to the same man for 28+ years and he is still around, thank goodness. Dame Judi was totally dependent on her Mikey (the actor Michael Williams), as I am on David. She has been heard to say that “I can’t do anything on my own.” Ditto! I need my men around.

She is always looking for the next good thing to do - which in her case is a new film or stage production just as I’m always looking for the next adventure. She didn’t make her first film until late in life

so I am inspired that the next great thing for me may still be out there.

The problem with aging isn’t all me, it’s the attitudes and expectations of other people. Our culture does not value the lives of older people because, well, they will soon be dead. The feelings of older people can’t possibly have the depth or significance of the feelings of let’s say, teenagers. The real problem here is that we are the ones that started all that youth culture stuff and now we are having to deal with the monster we created. I am smack in the middle of the baby boomers and, unfortunately, the birth rate just hasn’t kept up. There just aren’t enough young’uns to support us in our old age.

But there should be an upside to an aging population - and to being a part of it. I’m sorry Jane Fonda, I don’t want to be a GlamMa - too much work. I have earned the right to go without all that makeup and still like myself. And who wants to “feel the burn” at 60. Arthritis is bad enough without exacerbating it.

After all that adolescent angst of the last half of the 20th century, perhaps it will be good for things to settle down a bit. Who can disagree that the world could benefit from the calmer, wiser, more studied approach that comes with age? Maybe it is what is needed to save the planet. As historian Theodore Roszak said, “Aging is the best thing that has happened in the modern world, a cultural and ethical shift that looks a lot like sanity.”

Now I’m not saying that I won’t bitch about getting older from time to time. And certainly, it doesn’t look like the media is poised to change from total youth orientation to an appreciation of geezers. Have you ever noticed how in our often overly PC world it is not acceptable to make jokes about Blacks, Jews, the disabled, Muslims, even Poles and such but it is still perfectly acceptable to joke about or even ridicule old age?

I liked it when I could be the center of attention.at any function.

Being married to someone nearly 10 years my senior has often made me the youngest woman in the room.. No more. But, I am learning that it is good sometimes to be the wise one rather than the cute one.
Time to grow up. Just so long as I can do it as elegantly as Dame Judi.

My Life and Work

2010-02-14T15:35:00.001Z

A poem so very on-target about my life and work right now (thanks Becky)......

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

~ Mary Oliver

Why the US Really, Really Really Needs Single-Payer Universal Health Care - or how Ciel went to the doctor in Scotland and was once again amazed at the British system

2010-02-11T19:16:00.000Z

I take a lot of drugs - uh, meds. So many in fact that I actually have a two-sided zippered case in which to carry the pill bottles and a separate thermal thingie for the injectable interferon. When going through airport security or customs I am always nervous that I will be hauled off for smuggling or something but, you know what, I have never even been asked about all the pills and needles and little bottles of liquid and stuff. Proving yet again how TSA is keeping us all so very secure.

But, just in case, I carry photocopies of all my prescriptions and those print outs you get from the pharmacist about what each drug is for and a list from my doc about what I take and why and a copy of my medical records, including the pathology report from my cancer surgery, a disk with the results of my most recent MRI and a print out of my latest blood test results. I never know when someone is going to want to know something about all the many, many parts of my body that are missing, broken, plastic, or not in proper working order and what chemicals are required to keep me functioning day-to-day. Best to be prepared, right?

Before we left the US last fall I visited all my doctors (I have 7) and got new year-long scrips for everything I take - daily, bi-weekly and monthly. Then I called my insurance company and asked, no begged, for an override so I could bring my medication with me. After explaining that I would be out of the country for at least 6 months I was told that I could get 3 months of meds to take along.

Hello, can you count? I am going away for more than 6 months.
Don’t you have one three month supply already?
Well, yes, but I have been using it for the past month- and-a half so there won’t be enough to last for the trip.
Are you going on business?
No.
Oh, that’s too bad because if you were going on business we could give you up to a year’s supply in advance.
So, if I am traveling on my own and BTW pay for my own insurance, I can’t get approval to take medication with me for the entire trip but if I am working and my employer is paying for at least a part if not all of my health insurance, I can get meds for a year? Oh now it all makes so much sense……

But if I buy meds overseas I can file a claim when I get back right?
No, you aren’t covered outside of the US unless there is an emergency.
Oh, if I run out of my anti-depressants there will definitely be an emergency alright.
(Then I’ll just take it off my taxes. Wait, it has to total over something like 7% of my income to do that. Good ol’ IRS)

So, this morning I am up at the crack of dawn -on the morning after my birthday celebration so you know I really needed to sleep in - but I am up to go to a Scottish Doctor so I can get a prescription to buy meds in Edinburgh. Mind you, I pay over $400 a month for health insurance in the US ,even though I am not using it ,because there is no way to put it on hold (like there would be under a tax supported plan where if I go out of the country I am not paying taxes for that period, understand? ) and if I stop it I will be considered uninsurable by US health insurance companies and denied coverage when I return because I am one of those people who actually needs health insurance because I have MS, cancer , hypothyroidism, hypertension and hyperlipidemia and did I mention need a lot of meds to control it all and, oh, keep me alive. I know this because my 24-year-old healthy as a horse son can’t get insurance because he is -are you ready for it- short.

So, here I am in Scotland, about to run out of thyroid medication and having gained 30 pounds since this ridiculous condition was diagnosed I dare not go without it. I call the local surgery (clinic) and ask if I can see the doctor. But , I am not on the NHS (National Health Service) because if I was I would go to the doctor and pay NOTHING, NADA, ZERO, A BIG FAT GOOSEGG. Because in Britain they believe that health care is a right not an option and everyone is taxed equally to pay for it so no one can be denied and everyone gets care when they need it. Novel idea don’t you think. ( and don’t tell me “but it’s rationed because the only thing you wait for here is elective surgery like boob jobs and sex change operations - seriously. And if you are sick you will be seen by a doctor on the same day- guaranteed)

Actually, I have an NHS card from 2003 when David was a student here and we were paying taxes here but try as I might it can’t be renewed. So I am a private pay patient. That will be 40 pounds for the visit, 15 pounds for having a prescription written and 40 pounds for the blood test. Even though I do not have a card the NHS will pay for my swine flu jab (shot) because it is cheaper for them to give me the vaccine since I am living here than it is to treat all the people I might infect were I to get the flu. Wow, someone is actually thinking about health care costs and WELLNESS here.

SO, I will pay more than my co pays would have been in the States but I am paying for the full price of the service. How much would it cost an uninsured person in the US to see a doctor, get a prescription, have blood tested for kidney and liver function, blood sugar, thyroid hormone levels and the regular stuff like hemoglobin? The blood test alone would cost more in the US than my entire visit in the UK.

And if billed to insurance the US charge would be even higher. Did you know that? US doctors and hospitals bill insurance companies more than the actual cost of the service. Why? Well, there must be enough to pay for the doctor, his/her staff., the medical transcriptionist (sorry Cynthea), the lab, the building owner, the decorator, the art on the walls, the person who waters all those plants or feeds the fish in that big tank, the cable bill for the waiting room TV, magazine subscriptions, cleaning service, and then there is a cut for the insurer, to pay the lobbyist, to donate to the candidates. And if it is medication that is being billed, there is Big pharma’s cut and the cost of marketing prescription medication

What is that about anyway - marketing prescription meds? Shouldn’t the doctor be the one who decides if I need a medicine? Isn’t that why he went to med school and gets the big bucks? Am I really supposed to make an appointment to tell him/her that I saw an ad on TV and think I need that new drug “what’s it called” for that condition I didn’t know I was supposed to be worried about. BTW you still don’t need to be worried about it because chances are Big Pharma created the disease to fit some drug they manufactured that didn’t work for what it was designed for and now they need to sell the stuff to somebody with say, restless leg syndrome which Does. Not. Exist. No surprise, there are no drug ads on TV in Britain.

But I ramble….

At the Scottish doctor’s office, I checked in with the one receptionist who worked for 6 docs. (For the sake of complete accuracy, there were also two medical file clerks working.) The receptionist took my payment which she had previously quoted to me on the phone so I could bring cash because they do not take credit cards (something else US docs pay for) and asked me to take a seat in the waiting room until “the DOCTOR comes for you”(more on that in a bit) On the wall was a sign “ If you have waited longer than 25 minutes for a booked appointment, please inform the receptionist so she can remedy the situation.” I don’t know about you, peeps, but I have never seen a sign like that in any of my US doctors’ offices where I have sometimes waited an hour or more. And all that was on the rest of the walls was posters about health care and information about the doctors. No pictures. No TV. No plants. No fish. No corner for the kiddies filled with germ covered toys. There were a lot of reasonably comfortable chairs but no plush sofas and on the tables were the magazines that come free in the Sunday paper (expecting this perhaps, most people had brought a book) and, you know what, I neither got sicker nor felt better as a result, Imagine that. The waiting room décor did nothing for me in terms of my health care. It was a clean, comfortable well-lighted space. What a concept. And if you had flu symptoms they asked that you tell them at check-in so you could be placed in isolation. I was particularly fond of that bit since I can’t tell you how many colds I have contracted while waiting to see the doctor with sick people sneezing all over me in the well-decorated waiting room.

Now it gets scary. In a few minutes, like 5 minutes after my appointment time, the doctor came to the door and called my name. Yes, THE DOCTOR. He led me down the hall to the one room where he sees patients and asked that I take a seat in the chair by his desk, On one side of the desk were a full-page size flat computer screen and keyboard which he later used to verify my prescription drugs, on the other end next to my chair was a blood pressure gauge and a gainst the opposite wall was an examining table. All in one room.

THE DOCTOR put the blood pressurecuff on and pushed the button while HE asked questions and made notes about my medical history. Where was the nurse that would have been there in the US to do all this and then left me there with an old magazine until the doctor showed up maybe 15 or 20 minutes later??? THE DOCTOR was actually hearing what I had to say and writing it all down. No chance that he might not have the time to read some nurses notes made before he arrived in the room so that he might not know that I am allergic to doxycycline and surgical tape or that I have high blood pressure and since my Mom, Dad and grandmother all had strokes it sort if freaks me out. And THE DOCTOR took my blood pressure not once but three times and sort of averaged them out and then said I should come back once a week for three weeks so he could see the trend since one time is never sufficient. Has that ever happened at a US doc’s office. NO!!

He asked if I smoked or ever had but not if I drink. This is Scotland. He assumed I drink. He asked if I have more than 21 drinks in a week. I asked how much that was and he told me 21 pints of beer (are you kidding - I would be floating or living in the bathroom), 21 - 6 ounce glasses of wine (that’s like 6 bottles all by myself) or 21 large whiskies (who could afford that or still be standing) Uh, no, I don’t think so. And my screen name is martinis2nite! Ok then he said, the booze isn’t hurting me. Hooray Scotland! He didn’t even seem to think that not drinking was going to help me lose weight. What? Someone pass me a glass.

Then he ordered blood tests and they did them right there, right away. Well, actually I had to walk down the hall with the “lab nurse” who took me into a doctor’s office where her “trolley” (cart) of supplies was located. Rather than a big ol’ expensive room with lots of chairs where people sit and wait their turn, she lets them wait in the waiting room and each day uses the office of whichever doc is on hospital duty,

Are you seeing the pattern here? Think of all the waste in the US healthcare system. The Scottish doctor had a laugh when he had to determine how much to charge for the blood tests. He said “We doctors are lucky here. We don’t have to think about money like the Americans. They actually need a business management course in medical school. What does that have to do with practicing medicine. I have to think it affects their patient care.”

Can you imagine??

P.S. My prescription cost less than 10 dollars to fill. That is the actual cost of the drug. My US co-pay is $20.

I'm Going Shopping for a Tiara

2010-02-03T16:54:00.001Z

My new online friend and blogging consigliere, Rougie, owns three tiaras and isn't afraid to use them. I've seen recent photos of her in a bar, in Hickory I think, with a sparkly on her head, so I know this is not just an urban myth. www.chezrougie.com

Since the age of 4, I have had a crown of my own - which I did not have to buy I might add (sorry Rougie). It was placed on my head in a coronation of sorts in Paul's Palace at Maiden Elementary School around 1958 or 1959. My Uncle Stanley took the photographs. Three of my other uncles called me "Little Miss Maiden" well into my thirties and as I've mentioned before, David (he wasn't a Dr. yet) had a photo of me at my coronation published in local papers on my 40th birthday. I have always known that I was royalty. In addition to the crown, I have a trophy that says "Queen." From time to time I have needed to point to one or both to remind Dr. David and T&T who is really in charge despite their meager but sometimes frequent efforts at a coup.

My Mom taught me how to be a princess. I think she was crowned by her father at an early age. She also owned a tiara. My younger cousin aspired to follow me to into royalty. A photo of her debutante presentation at age 18 looks like she made it and since her return from self-imposed exile in California, we have made a point of sharing the center of the universe. We are now having some internal royal struggles as Rougie and Lauren think they also deserve a turn, little Taryn is growing impatient as a Lady in Waiting and Ella is about to burst onto the scene. Somehow, I expect Ella to demand a full HRH title on the day of her birth. Patience is not a virtue that Royals like us possess.

As I was on my Saturday Edinburgh Walkabout last weekend I passed a fabulous shop with windows filed with tiaras. I think I may go back and buy one, it being The 10 Days of Cindy and all.

Crowns are a big deal in Britain. England and Scotland have fought wars over who should wear them and there are some pretty amazing collections of crowns and the associated jewels in the Tower of London

and here in Edinburgh at Holyroodhouse Palace.

Why belly-ache about being excluded from this year's honors list , as my co-nate Doug and Dr.Dave are wont to do each year, when I am entitled to wear my own personal crown. OK OK, I have to admit it, attempts to borrow one from the Palace have been unsuccessful so buying one may be required. My head has grown a bit, along with the rest of me, in the past 52 years.

Did you know that the monarchy has its own website? They must be getting a handle on that whole PR thing.www.royal.gov.uk . I highly recommend a visit. They actually answer e-mails!

But I ramble...
Just across the Royal Mile from the tiara shop, is a Scottish Dress maker and Kilt shop that displays two frocks I also might need.

The skirt is the draw here.

Of course, since I have at least 5 tartans that I can claim as my own, I wouldn't be so tasteless as to have this dress made in Royal Stewart. Besides, I look awful in red.

Rose - I'd use the Hunting (Blue/Green) Somewhere there are two parsons chairs upholstered in #3 that used to be at the head and foot of my dining room table.

McMullen/MacMillan - I have a kilted skirt in the garnet and gold for FSU events. Otherwise, it is all about the ancient (#2) Our friend, Sir George, Chief of Clan MacMillan doesn't actually like my favorite because it is too often confused with Buchanan. Too bad George. I am royalty so I get to choose.

Brodie - The dress I wore as First Lady at Burn's Night in Charlotte was done in #2 but in a more muted shade and the gold threads were metallic. Fabulous!

A MacDonald woman from the Isle of Skye married an English Wilkinson man - probably against the sage advice of her parents. Those are my ancestors. I'm still waiting for the inheritance from the swodr manufacturing business. But then my brother would probably just steal it anyway so why worry.

Lindsay - This comes down through David's mother's family line. I once had napkins, placemats and coasters in #1

There is also Ellis

but I think that may be Welsh or something and I am just not going there - well, I have been there - Wales I mean. They say if you can't see the mountains, it's raining and if you can see the mountains it is going to rain. But what I mean is I am not even going to consider that I may have some Welsh ancestors because I know only one Welshman - a very good friend but a total right wing crazy and if that is what being Welsh is about then I won't even consider it. Besides I don't think they have their own crown jewels so why bother.
(At least I'm not German and married to a Greek racist.)

But why am I thinking about all things Royal you wonder? Well, I have been in a really bad funk recently about my thyroid-induced weight gain. I have been reading, consulting specialists, posting questions on webpages ,asking friends for tips to find out how the hell to lose some weight. Peeps, this is a big deal! I have quit drinking (well, there was that one pint on Sat) I have cut out carbs, I have lowered fat, I count calories, I am walking miles (when my body allows it) and still I continue put on weight. In other words, I am depressed, I feel ugly, I am tired all the time, I have a constant headache, I can't sleep (which does wonders for the complexion) and I have a birthday coming up. Hooray me!

As you have probably noticed I try to focus on the good things about birthdays like presents and attention and presents and celebrations and presents and cake and presents and such. But, how am I going to eat cake when I could actually watch it go into my mouth and appear instantly visible at my waist? Cooking is my favorite sport and making reservations at good restaurants is my favorite hobby. I read cookbooks like novels.

Yesterday, Dear Dr. David brought me wonderful Edinburgh fudge for Day 2. Three amazing flavors - rum raisin, mocha with chocolate glaze and a totally decadent pitaschio with white chocolate. I was thrilled at his thoughtfulness and yet I cried. How could I eat fudge in my current condition? He was bewildered and when I explained my plight he told me how beautiful he thinks I am and how I need to learn to accept that my body has been my worst enemy for years wreaking havoc in all aspects of my life and I need to accept it and get on with those things I enjoy and quit feeling sorry for myself and blah blah blah and go shopping. ( No he is not available) I was still a bitch. I mean the shopping thing is appealing but then I would have to deal with the whole 100 Things Challenge and my advocacy of simplicity and.....

...and then this morning the dear Dr. forwarded me an e-mail that helped me begin to get a grip and start to put things in perspective. I am royalty after all and with a crown comes both rights and responsibilities. I have responsibilities as the High Priestess of Fun - yet another of my royal titles bestowed several years ago by an interesting friend who definitely understands the definition of a good time - he is also blogging www.talesofarestaurantwarrior.wordpress.com

I have the responsibility of setting an example of the correct way to celebrate a birthday. Hey, Queen Lizbet does it twice a year, once for real and once just so her subjects can celebrate. Now there's a plan almost as good as the 10 days of me. And I have some rights. Like the right as Toby would say to go "fucking shopping" - 100 things be damned. ( I will certainly need to spend some time working through that one so you will probably get a chance to read about it )

But before I can do that I have to come to term with being me as I am now - almost 56 years old and a lot different from who I was 52 years ago when I was first crowned queen or even 16 years ago when the event was re-visited. I should be more poised, more polished, more - well OK with there being more of me.

Elizabeth was crowned Queen before I was born. She has aged from 25 to 80 under the harsh microscope of worldwide publicity - and she has done it with style and grace. Even our American royal, Jacqueline Kennedy, had that awful Onassis phase. And Queenie has gained weight - a lot of it by the looks of the photos. Is she down about it? I don't think so. When the scales tilt a bit upward she just buys a new dress - with a matching hat. And you know what, I have better taste than she does (and a much better hairstyle - OMG no wonder she wears hats!), although I have a much smaller budget I am afraid. But regardless, Day 4 will find me "down the shops" running up some card balances and hopefully coming home with an improved attitude.

This old gal gives new meaning to the phrase "Long Live the Queen"

I don't know about you, but I went OMG somewhere between Eisenhower and Truman.

10 Days of Cindy

2010-02-01T18:35:00.000Z

Today is the first day of my birthday month!

I was taught that by my mother who always declares her birthday month each year. Of course, you can’t blame her since she shared with my Dad for years. He was born 5 days after her and for those 5 days each year he gave her a really hard time for being older. And she shares the month (September) with three of her grandchildren and two of their cousins, her daughter’s mother-in-law, her great-grandson and a few other relatives and friends. Every year there is usually one big party for all. What a jip! No wonder she made her own personal birthday month declaration. ( I always wondered why everyone in our family seemed to be born in September until I was old enough to understand Christmas sex.)

I do not share my month with many, although my sister’s birthday is exactly two weeks before mine. Mom always held one big party for the two of us on the intervening weekend and baked an amazing cake that usually had two parts, one for each of us - but we hated sharing anything - especially birthdays. And you’d think Mom would have understood since she always made a big deal out of her own birthday month so she wouldn’t have to share too much. Suzette and I even had joint slumber parties to celebrate. Yucck!

But not anymore. This is my birthday, my month and my 10 days. I envy anyone born near the end of the month who can justify a month-long celebration - unless you are like poor Toby, Becky, Taryn and my grandfather with birthdays at the end of December that get usurped by Christmas. That just sucks!

But back to me. My birthday is in 10 days and as a result these are officially the 10 days of ME! That means I get to choose what I want to do, with whom, where, when - or not - and there should be presents, and special meals, and treats, and lots of surpirses - and well, whatever is fun!. Hooray! It is the middle of winter and I expect something sunny and special on each of the ten days. David and T&T have come to understand their very important roles in the celebration and generally do fairly well at it. There is a lot to live up to as my father set quite a high standard. (But David has done quite well over the years I might add)

Daddy adored my Mom and always gave her wonderful gifts for all occasions. I particularly remember their 25th wedding anniversary which was just 5 days before Christmas. On the morning of December 20th, Daddy lined up 5 gifts on the dining room table. Each was beautifully wrapped. They ranged from tall to small in a descending order and were intended to be opened one on each of the days from the anniversary to Christmas morning. The first, opened on Day 1, was a cut-crystal pitcher for Mom to add to her collection. Gifts 2 & 3 were a leather wrapped decanter (she also collected decanters) and a piano-playing gnome from the artist in Davidson whose name I can’t recall. Gift 4 was a string of black pearls and on Christmas morning Mom opened a beautiful little pinky ring - a gold cube standing on its corner, each side encrusted in diamonds like a single dice.

For the most part my birthdays have always been pretty amazing, too - well, except for my second one when I learned that I would have to share the rest of my life with a sister. (just kidding Suzette - sort of) I got a puppy for my 6th. On my 13th I had my ears pierced (after pitching a really ugly fit about not accepting anything else as a gift. I guess my payback for that big snit was that my arch nemesis wore the same dress as me to my party.) On my 16th there were engraved invitations and a dinner party. I was away at college for my 18th ( I got drunk for the first time) and I was already married for my 21st (MISTAKE!) For my 25th, my friends took me to a frozen bar outside of Ithaca, NY where it was cold enough to store the Carvel ice cream cake in the car trunk until it was time to light the candles. David surprised me with a weekend in NYC for my 30th (he even packed!)

I thought 35 was the worst year ever. I was depressed. Who wants to be 35? It is too old to be considered young anymore and too young to have any sort of real, well, style. Let’s face it. At 35 you think it is all over when in fact you have only just begun to figure out what “it” is. David made it tolerable by giving me an antique teapot to ease the pain. The pottery mark on the bottom indicated that the place in England where the teapot was made went out of business in 1854. The card read, “No matter how old you are, this teapot will always be at least 100 years older.” Very clever!

At 40 it was my turn to receive the infamous Rose cousins’ rubber chicken. I was determined to outwit the tradition so didn’t go to Maiden for three weeks. A lot of good that did. David published a photo of me at 4-years-old as Little Miss Maiden in the Charlotte Observer and the Hickory Daily record compliments of “Friends of the Rubber Chicken.“ A group of female friends took me for drinks and made a lavish presentation of a framed copy of the ad. Rather embarrassing ,but I thought I had at least escaped the chicken gift. NOT! On Saturday night, a friend at Lake Wylie gave a formal dinner party - guys in black tie, even a friend flown in from New York. The first course was individual crocks of chicken en croute. As I pierced the lovely crust of my portion there it was, baked under the crust, that damn rubber chicken. Hilarious!

For my 50th, 10 of my “favoritest” women in the world met me in London for a week. I am not sure there will ever be a birthday celebration better than that one but I will certainly keep trying.

But I ramble -

Today, David started this year’s 10 Days of Cindy brilliantly by presenting me with a wonderful personal 2-cup coffee press pot - or as they say in Britain, coffee plunger. (The only time I have ever used a plunger associated with coffee was when my kitchen sink was clogged by coffee grounds. I learned from the plumber that we had to call that only “hard” things should go down the disposal: lettuce or cabbage leaves, green onion or leek tops, coffee grounds and such should be composted. Oops!)

But this adorable little plunger made two perfect cups of coffee ( I can't survive without my morning coffee) and is definitely worthy of becoming one of my 100 things. I can’t wait to see what the remaining 9 of the 10 days will bring.

Saturday Edinburgh Walkabout - with pictures

2010-01-31T23:00:00.000Z

We live in the crater of a volcano. Really.

Supposedly it is an extinct volcano but are volcanoes ever really extinct?

Thomas Jefferson said that Edinburgh is a city “that no place in the world can pretend to equal.” On the southern shore of the Firth of Forth where the estuary meets the North Sea, Edinburgh sits on seven hills.

Castle rock is actually a volcanic plug at a such height that you can use it to get your bearings almost anywhere you are in the city.

Only 500,000 people live here but there are many more than that here all the time - university students, world financial leaders, members of the Scottish parliament, and tourists. Oh, and people like us who wish the British government would let us live here full-time but must pass through as occasional ex.-pats when we can work it out. The crowds, the accomplishments, the historical significance, the cultural maelstrom - books, comedy, plays, music, lectures - belie Edinburgh’s relatively small size. It is a place like no other on earth and its influence can be felt around the world.

And fortunately not because the volcano is erupting.

As I walked around the city with David on Saturday afternoon I kept having a “pinch me, I really live here” experience again and again.

It started as we walked out our front door. I looked down the street to the left.

And then as we turned right, crossed London Road and started up Calton Hill, I could see Arthur’s Seat, the largest remaing part of the volcano - right there.

Arthur’s Seat and Calton Hill are two of the seven hills in the city. All are remnants of the volcano.

As we walked up the Hill past the beautiful Georgian Houses that line the streets of Calton Terrace and London Road Gardens,

I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that I was climbing one part of what must have been a HUMONGOUSLY BIG volcano and looking over at another part. When the top blew off this one it must have been massive - a sort of Mt St Helens or Vesuvius on steroids. Fortunately, the last eruption was 325 million years ago.

But geologists can trace the development of rock formations all around the city and pinpoint specific marks where the cone erupted. Often, when you look down at where you are walking it is obvious that it is volcanic rock beneath your feet. Hardened lava.

From the top of Calton Hill looking over at Arthur’s Seat 823 feet in the air, you can see great distances in all directions.

Holyroodhouse - Queen of Scotland's official residence

Our Dynamic Earth

The new Scottish Parliament Building

Easter Rd Stadium - about 3 blocks from our flat - Go Hibs!

And just below you can see the beautiful streets of the city.

Looking down Princes Street

On top of the Hill there is an unfinished replica of the Parthenon called the Monument. Begun during Edinburgh’s Age of Enlightenment construction was halted due to lack of funds.

There was a cute Scotsman standing there

Also, up on the Hill are the original Scottish Observatory, a monument to Lord Nelson and the city’s first park.

It is a steep climb but well worth the aching calves that result.

We walked up the side nearest our flat and then down on the other side ending on Princes Street.

The Scottish National Archives with Wellington on Horseback standing guard

A few blocks further on we crossed the North Bridge to the center of the Royal Mile, Edinburgh’s most famous street.

North Bridge

The street was crowded with tourists even on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon as we walked down the mile to the tea shop.

No seats and a long wait - so we turned and walked back up the Mile, passing pub after pub with barely room for standing and eventually found a seat in Deacon Brodies, one of the oldest pubs in town.

It's always 5 o'clock in an Edinburgh pub!

After we had thawed out a bit over a pint, we walked around the corner and up the stairs for a light supper. Bundled up again we decided to make the walk back across town to our flat rather than stand in the biting wind and wait for the bus. We walked back across the bridge as darkness fell.

The amazing full moon was so low and large in the sky that it looked like you could reach out and touch it.

And it seemed to follow us home reappearing around every corner.

Our teeth were chattering so we stopped about half-way to warm up a bit in the Theatre Bar and while I watched all the people who had popped in for a drink before the evening performance David has a swift pint.

Bundled up again we walked the remaining blocks down London Road in the moonlight under the Shadow of Calton Hill where just hours before we had stood looking down.

What To Do With a Chicken When Not Throwing It At the TV

2010-01-29T10:49:00.001Z

(Warning: This post contains political statements that may offend your sensibilities. Please do not let that stop you from reading all the way through where I think it may all come together )*

I was asleep during the State of the Union speech (it was 2AM in Scotland) or I would definitely have been watching. My father made a point of encouraging us to watch those sorts of things. Somehow I was always there listening to his editorial comments and making many of my own while my siblings managed to escape. I am glad he instilled in me an interest in how our democracy works. As boring and self-serving as these speeches may seem they are an integral part of how our exceptional government works. Please understand that by “exceptional government’ I mean by design not necessarily as executed at any time in our history.

And I think the wonderful back and forth, and sometimes even angered, posts I read on facebook that were written during and after the speech are as important a part of the current process as those ridiculous television broadcast pundits. It is actually nice to know that some people care enough to get angry.

I grew up in a small Southern town where everyone I knew was a Democrat - even my ranting father. After all, Republicans were the party of Lincoln and hadn’t he defeated the South in the Civil War? And then suddenly there was Ronald Reagan and the Democrats of my youth were transformed into die-hard, flag waving born-again Republicans. Wow, that actor knew how to win over an audience.

Never mind that his policies and those of many of subsequent Republicans generally are harmful to the working person and put more money in the hands of the rich -where I am sorry it does not go to create more jobs but goes to buy more houses, cars and vacations for them and into the trust funds and inheritances of children who will have an immediate leg up over any of our kids - and wouldn’t you like for your friends to tell you what stocks to buy when they have the inside track on which ones are going up.

Reagan told us that “Gub-ment” is bad and “bid-ness” is good. Somehow we were convinced that a government which we can vote in our out is worse than an employer that determines how and even where we live by controlling our income, health care, work hours, leisure time, vacation - in short, our lives - and over whom we exert absolutely no control ( and to whom the Supreme Court has now granted the right to control the government as well,) Am I cynical about this -yes. Do I believe what I just wrote - absolutely! I firmly believe that the single worst thing that has happened and continues to happen in the US is the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

In the FB posts, e-mails and even op-ed pieces that I read, it was clear that as Obama spoke people came down harder and firmer on whichever side they were on at the start of the speech.

No one was really listening to what was said or in any way evaluating the overall impact of his proposed policies. Everyone was either self-congratulating or just throwing tomatoes or rubber chickens at the TV (or words at the computer screen) in a symbolic gesture of disgust.

And what of that rubber chicken? Well aside from the one that is handed down in my family to mark significant birthdays (definitely worthy of a future post) according to Answers.com “’Chicken in Every Pot’” is a quotation that is perhaps one of the most misassigned in American political history. Variously attributed to each of four presidents serving between 1920 and 1936, it is most often associated with Herbert Hoover. In fact, the phrase has its origins in seventeenth century France; Henry IV reputedly wished that each of his peasants would enjoy "a chicken in his pot every Sunday." Although Hoover never uttered the phrase, the Republican Party did use it in a 1928 campaign advertisement touting a period of "Republican prosperity" that had provided a ‘chicken in every pot. And a car in every backyard, to boot.’ Hmmm. Prosperity a la Herbert Hoover? Equality as touted by Henry IV? I don’t think so. But isn’t it interesting that we are still arguing over who supplies the chicken and how we pay for the cars - both their manufacture and their purchase in the current case.

But I ramble -
Let’s get back to that chicken - and I sincerely hope it does not turn out rubbery. As I scrolled through the political banter I was pleased to see dear Andrea discussing the wonderful goodness of homemade chicken broth. Mmmmm. Can’t you just smell it on the stove now?

And it reminded me of something I read before - probably an outgrowth of the misattributed comment and certainly a reaction to our strained economy- that every family/household should roast a large chicken every Sunday and it would feed them all through the rest of the week. With apologies to my vegetarian friends I must say that the idea intrigued me and in the current economic environment, suggesting that there be a chicken in every oven might be a really good idea. Chicken is inexpensive relative to a lot of other things. It is delicious, generally low in fat so healthier than much of what we eat in the west, and easy to prepare for even a novice cook.

Not to say that there aren’t lots of things that can go wrong in the process - a too fast oven can produce a dry bird (that sounds like the end of some fable), an underdone chicken can make all who eat it really sick and so forth. But there are wonderful kosher chickens, organic chickens, free-range chickens all bred for deliciousness and healthy eating.

I once saw Julia Child and Jacques Pepin argue over the proper technique for chicken roasting. It basically came down to this - if you set the temperature correctly, take the cooked bird out of the oven in time and let it set for 15 minutes before carving it really doesn’t matter if you rub a mustard garlic mash under the skin or slather it with butter, it is gonna taste good.

So, I decided to do an experiment - Is it really possible to feed a family all week from a chicken well-roasted on Sunday? One caveat. There were only two of us eating chicken during my experiment but I started with a rather small pre-roasted bird so I feel comfortable extrapolating my results to a family of four with a large roaster - perhaps one of Perdue’s “Oven Stuffers.”

While we were living in Mexico we often purchased wonderful roasted chickens for a few dollars. They came with tortillas, pickled onions and a choice of homemade red or green salsa. To start my experiment I purchased one of these chickens and had the clerk cut it into four pieces with the cleaver.

Back at the apartment, I put two of the chicken pieces in bags in the freezer. Likewise, I stored the salsa and onions for later in the week. I deboned the third piece of chicken and stored the meat in the refrigerator. I sliced the meat off the fourth piece for nicer presentation and then filled a roasting pan with vegetables - potatoes, turnips, chayote, peeled garlic, carrots and onions - drizzled some olive oil over all of them and put the pan in a hot oven. In a second pan I put a lot of broccoli florets that I had tossed in olive oil, some more onions and a few more cloves of garlic on one side and on the other side I placed a lot of cherry tomatoes and that all went on the other rack in the oven.

While the veggies roasted I put the chicken bones in a bag and tossed it in the freezer. Didn’t want to risk encouraging the growth of bacteria that has given chicken a bad name with some people. I tossed big salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and arranged the sliced chicken on a platter, When the veggies were done I mounded ½ of them beside the chicken and dinner 1 was served. David likes a little good homemade mayo or Hellmann’s on the side.
The broccoli, tomatoes and remaining veggies were stored in separate containers in the frig.

Monday/Dinner 2 - Using the tortillas that came with the chicken ( you would probably hav eto buy yours - I recommend corn tortillas) I moistened them in a little hot oil (you can use water but it is not as good) wrapped some of the deboned chicken , black beans, roasted onions, some green chiles and cheese in each and placed them in a baking dish. I poured the salsa over everything and sprinkled some more cheese on top and baked until it was bubbly and brown. I served the enchiladas with rice (cook twice as much rice as you need and store the extra in the frig for later) and sour cream and sprinkled sliced olives and jalapenos on top. There was a big salad too.

Tuesday/Dinner 3 - I thawed one of the chicken pieces from the freezer and deboned it, putting the bones back in the frig (can’t refreeze!) I mixed the chicken with the leftover roasted veggies from Sunday and made a gravy ( easy - sauté sliced onions in butter until translucent, sprinkle with herbs de Provence and flour and cook until the roux starts to brown, pour in some canned vegetable or chicken stock and cook until gravy forms) Stir the chicken and veg into the gravy and add a small can of green peas, well drained. Line a deep dish pie plate with crust (purchased or homemade) and fill with chicken veggie mixture. Top with second crust and bake until browned and bubbly. Serve with salad. Good with a little HP sauce on the side.

Wednesday/Dinner 4 - Take the last piece of chicken and the bones out of the freezer and allow to thaw in the refrigerator. Debone the chicken, and put ½ of the meat back in the frig. Cook your favorite pasta, drain and reserve some cooking liquid. Put some olive oil in a large skillet, stir in the roasted broccoli, onions, garlic and tomatoes, sprinkle liberally with Italian herbs, stir in the chicken and cook until heated through. (If you prefer a creamy sauce - remove from heat and stir in some butter, cream and a pinch of nutmeg) Toss the sauce with the pasta and add a little cooking liquid if needed to moisten. Serve with garlic bread and salad.

Thursday/ Dinner 5 - Make the chicken stock! Put all the bones (hope you saved any skin too), several stalks of celery, some carrots, a few onions and a bouquet garni in a large soup pot. Cover with water and cook until a wonderful rich broth results. Add some butter to enrich if you want. Strain and reserve any bits of chicken and the veggies. Discard bones and cartilage. Put half the broth back in the pot and store the other half in the frig. Slice up the vegetables and add them to the broth. In a skillet, cook whatever vegetables you like for soup in some butter until tender. Add everything with chicken and leftover rice to the pot. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Enrich with butter if needed. Serve with crispy bread and salad.

Friday/Dinner 6 - Now it starts to get a little tricky. You’ve got some broth and a little chicken left. Make a creamy mushroom soup using the broth (recipes are everywhere) or a really good French Onion Soup and serve it with chicken nachos - warm tortilla chips (homemade preferably), chicken, refried beans, olives, jalapenos, cheese, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and anything else you like.

Saturday/Dinner 7 - I didn’t make our chicken last a whole week but if I had thought about it I could have done something like grilled pimento cheese with Friday night’s soup and made a huge pile of nachos** with a salad on Saturday. Maybe next time.

** dear Andrea “has decided that making chicken broth is the most fulfilling task a non-child-having-person can do.”
In addition, she made “a mole sauce, added some chicken, put it on top of some homemade corn tortilla chips and topped with cheese! (She)called them Enchilada Nachos. They were pretty much awesome!”
“I don't know how to make a "real" mole I guess.” She says. “That's just what I call it. I start with a little oil in a pot, add some flour (a running roux) pour in a can of tomato sauce stir then add cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder and coco to taste. Oh and a bit of salt to bring it together. It's simple, takes about 15 minutes (of course the longer you let it simmer the better) and yummy!”
Sounds like a real mole to Ciel and with a lot less work than the day long project I undertook while in San Miguel.

* This post is dedicated to Papa Rose who must be throwing rubber chickens down at any of his progeny who trash his beloved Democrats and who loved a good roasted chicken - usually after he had rung the chicken's neck himself.

Sing along with Neil Sedaka

2010-01-28T14:33:00.000Z

Getting dressed is hard to do… Well, maybe those aren’t Sedaka’s words exactly but they work with the tune and are just as true as what he had to say.

Now that I think of it “breaking up” is easier than getting dressed. To break up all that’s required is a phone call which you could make in your pajamas, without even brushing your teeth. But getting dressed requires changing out of those same comfortable pajamas, taking a shower - which includes washing hair, body, face (each with something different), shaving, drying, moisturizing, brushing and flossing teeth and putting on makeup.

Now depending on your personal style this makeup thing can be a snap or take up to 45 minutes. When you go to the Trish counter, before they sell you anything they determine your makeup style. I am a 10-minute or less type but on most days that still means a little foundation or concealer (hmmm, forgot that this morning, better go check for dark circles - BRB),

OK I’m back and FYI concealer was required. - damn those new martini glasses

….some carefully applied blush or bronzer, eyebrow color and combing, a little eyeshadow, eyeliner, eyelash curler, mascara, lip balm, lip stick and liner. Whew! When I write it all down like that it seems ridiculous!

Now it’s time to style your hair - comb, brush, blow dryer, styling products if you use them, perhaps a curling iron, straightener or a curler or two, and then maybe even some hairspray. Check it all out in the mirror.

Check your mani and pedi and make any necessary repairs. This mean removing any chipped polish and scheduling an appointment for a re-paint if necessary. Absolutely no touching up that one big toe or pointer finger. (Some leeway here is you will be wearing closed toed shoes .)

Now It’s on to choosing something to wear (which could take hours - you know the process so I don‘t have to spell it out. When I was working I used to choose my clothes the night before and then the next day I would not feel like wearing what I had selected so might as well have waited until the morning anyway, and I have a question. Does anyone iron anymore? Because I always seem to need to iron whatever I choose to wear even if it was unwrinkled when I put it away but there are no ironing boards in any of the places we live)

…and then you have to get into whatever you’ve chosen (and hopefully that doesn’t require that you stuff yourself into tights in addition to bra and panties because that is a really bad way to have to start a day and please oh please tell me you‘re not still wearing controltop pantyhose. I‘m not even discussing Spanx and the like - used to call them girdles until women got smart - and now Oprah has dummed us down again like it really makes any difference for her anyhow), now choose jewelry to go with what you are wearing, and then, of course, decide that different earrings will work better so change those.

Hopefully, you can just slip on your shoes and maybe buckle and ankle strap because at those times when I have to actually bend down and tie them, well, I figure that is enough exercise right there.

And speaking of exercise, because usually if you are tying shoes they are sneakers and unless you like the look of large white shoes sticking out from beneath the hem of your jeans (which I personally think is a look that requires a citation from the fashion police)*, if you are tying shoe laces you are probably heading out to exercise and you wouldn’t have gone through all the steps above in preparation. Well, if you are headed to a gym you may have put on makeup because some of the women there look like they have dressed for a date - which I assume they are at least attempting to attract. Personally, I prefer to sweat barefaced and I don’t really pay a lot of attention to what I wear since my exercise of preference is yoga. I just care that I am comfortable and since you take off your shoes anyway there is generally no tying involved as I wear flip-flops to class. But what I can’t stand is that usually I have gone through the dressing thing earlier in the day and then after yoga class I have to do it all again. There is something totally wrong with that!

But I ramble…

Time to check out the total package in a full-length mirror (and, Please, turn around and check out your backside - a change of clothing may be required) because you do not want to go out of the house looking like those people at WalMart who obviously do not own a full-length mirror because if they do and they went out looking like that anyway they should be shot. So if you don’t own a full length mirror then get thee to WalMart and buy one - NOW!

I mean since you are going out anyway. At least I assume you are going out or else why would you be getting dressed since you were wearing comfortable pajamas when all this started and no one in their right mind would change out of pajamas just to stay at home - unless of course you are expecting guests but even then there are pajamas designed for wearing while entertaining and since it’s your house you don’t have to get dressed unless you want to.

After dinner each night, my grandfather would undress down to his boxers and t-shirt - which were probably his pajamas -and sit in his favorite chair to watch TV. He smoked and on the side table were always an ashtray, a lighter and a box of chocolates (no real connection to the story just an interesting tidbit about the chocolates I think) Anyway, if someone called to say they were coming over he would usually just go to bed to keep from having to get dressed again (smart man!) but if you dropped by without calling he would just sit there in his “pajamas” because it was his house and he could wear what he wanted particularly in front of someone too ill-mannered to call before coming over.

Which brings me to the political point of my story. I think Mao was right, well actually he was left but he was a very smart man.

Anyone who knows me knows that my politics tend to be far left however I do take issue with some of the points in the Little Red Book but that is not what I am talking about here.

The man wore his pajamas. All the time.

And he mandated that everyone else do the same. I say, what is wrong with that?

We don’t have to think just communist gray, black or khaki. We could wear colors or stripes or paisley or foulard. On casual Friday maybe even break out our favorite cartoon character jim-jams and hit the street. Think of the time savings - and all that improved morale - not to mention the energy available to put to the task at hand rather than wasted on that ridiculous dressing routine. (But wear shoes peeps)

Real shoes!

There used to be a restaurant in Chicago where the waiters served brunch in their pajamas every Sunday and the customers were invited to wear theirs as well. What a concept! Why save it only for Sunday?

Mao was onto something and I think we would all be well-served to follow suit (pun intended).

And now that I am dressed and exhausted, I need a nap to recover from the effort. Where did I put those PJs.

* Clearly the description of dressing is directed to my female friends but guys have their own routine as well - although when they decide to forego all that effort, and not shower or shave for instance, we just chalk it up to being male and don’t seem to worry about it. And as for the white sneakers - a guy can look really good in a nice fitting pair of jeans and clean white sneakers. Clean is the operative word here.

Tallying up my life

2010-01-26T15:49:00.000Z

As 2010 starts a new decade I thought it might be interesting to take a count of my life.

Relatives:
5 grandparents (2 grandfathers and 3 grandmothers)
2 parents, 1 sister and 1 brother
2 spouses
4 brothers-in-law and 5 sisters-in-law
2 children
3 nieces and 8 nephews
1 great-nephew
7 uncles, 9 aunts
14 first cousins, 35 spouses or partners between us
(My aunt Dot always wanted to have a party with all the spouses, partners and ex’s)
To many other relatives, greats, grands, once or twice removed to count

Pets: 8 (6 dogs - 2 Cocker Spaniels, 1 Cairn Terrier, 3 Maltese - 2 cats)
Lady, Buffy, Pfefferneuse, Tribble, Tasha, Madison, Marmalade, Mrs. Dorothy Parker

Schools, colleges or universities: 5 in 2 states - 1 diploma, 1 degree
Maiden Elementary, Maiden High, Pfeiffer College, Wake Forest, Syracuse

Jobs : 19 with 12 employers (if you count NCNB/NationsBank/Bank of America as one) - not including wife/mother or the fabulous one I have now

Addresses: 31 in 16 cities, 11 states, 5 countries and 1 cruise ship
Cars: 11 ( including 7 Hondas, 2 Volkswagens, and MG and an RX-7)

Piercings: 7
Tattoos: 0
Haircolors: 5
Surgeries: 13, including Plastic surgery: 7
Diseases - 5 (non-contagious)

Travel : 46 states ( not Washington, North Dakota, Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico)
8 countries

Friends: Fortunately too many to count all over the world

Any questions? How do you tally up?

Gie her a Haggis - even if she toasts the President

2010-01-25T13:03:00.000Z

Some hae meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

- Traditional Selfkirk Grace

Today, January 25, is the 251st anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s national Bard, Robert Burns, or Rabbie as he is affectionately called and Scots are celebrating. A few years after Burns death in 1796 the ritual of the Burns Supper was started by a few of his close friends as a tribute to his memory and tonight (or perhaps this past Saturday night) all over the world wherever the Scottish diaspora has landed, ex-patriate Scots, simple admirers of the famous “Ploughman’s Poet” and the many who just wish they were Scottish because they know that Scots really know how to party will be celebrating. Of course, nowhere will there be more Burns Suppers, ceilidhs and similar celebrations than in Scotland itself and in Edinburgh, in particular

The kilt-hire shops will do a roaring trade, haggis will take center stage and speeches will be made as all the celebrations, no matter where they are, follow a standard. Some Suppers will be quite formal, some simple family affairs, many will be held in hotels and restaurants and will certainly be loud, bawdy and drunken.

The basic format has remained relatively unchanged since the end of the 18th century. It begins with a few welcoming words from the host and the Selkirk Grace (see above).

Then the participants are invited to stand to receive the haggis.

A piper leads the chef, carrying the haggis to a head table, followed by a sword carrier and a whisky carrier (David’s favorite role), the hosts and honored guests. As they process the other guests accompany them with a slow handclap.

Then, the highlight of the evening as someone recites recites Burns' famous poem To a Haggis. When the brave speaker reaches the line "an cut you up wi' ready slight", he cuts open the haggis with a sharp knife. Steam escapes, the poem is finished, the company applauds and the host stands. Using a small silver cup, the name of which escapes me, he will“Pay the Piper” with a wee dram and then lead the group in a toast to the haggis with a glass of whisky. Participants take their seats and prepare to enjoy the feast. The menu will likely consist of cock-a-leekie soup and cranachan before and after the showpiece main course of haggis, neeps and tatties, and there's nothing much wrong with that.

As the food is served, the toasts and speeches begin. An invited guest gives a toast to The Immortal Memory of Burns. It may be light and fun or literary and historical, but the purpose is the same - to describe the greatness and relevance of Burns today.

The Immortal Memory speech is followed by a more light-hearted toast to the women in the room generally made by an invited make guest. Originally this was a thank you to the ladies for preparing the food and a toast to all the 'lasses' in Burns' life. The tone is witty, but never offensive, and always ends on a conciliatory note. In response, a lass takes a turn detailing men's foibles in a humorous fashion and the women all stand for a Toast to the Laddies.

There is a Toast to the Queen (or King as the case may be) for which David and others believe a good Scot should never stand until there is once again a Scottish monarch. I could argue that as the daughter of such a beloved Scot as Mary, the Queen Mum, Elizabeth II deserves a bit of leeway.

A Toast to the President follows which can get a bit sticky depending on the pervading political climate and the general red or blue alliance of the guests.

Before each toast of the evening, all the guests are asked to “Charge you glasses and be upstanding.” After so many charged glasses, the upstanding part can become difficult!
But the formal program always ends with everyone standing (and swaying), linking hands and singing Auld Lang Syne.
As the plates are cleared there is usually some form of entertainment and then dancing, especially Scottish country dancing.

When we lived in N.C. we celebrated each year along with other members of the Robert Burns Society of Charlotte on the Saturday night closest to the 25th. I hope our dear friends had a wonderful time Saturday night. How better to party than in a room filled with men in skirts! (And why do their knees always look more bonnie than women’s as they age?)

The year David was president of the Charlotte Burns group Bill and Monica had been called out for doing whatever it was they were doing with a cigar in the oval office. Now, given that at that time the average age of the participants in Burns Night was over 55 (we were always the young’uns of the group) and we were in NC where the likelihood of finding someone over 50 who had voted for Clinton was just a little less than ‘nil, finding someone to give the traditional Toast to the President was rather difficult. Being both a loyal Democrat and a Bill Clinton fan (still am), and never one to pass up a chance to be in the spotlight, I volunteered.

I worked for days on the short speech trying hard to make it a toast to the OFFICE of the President rather than the person holding the office in hopes that at least a few people would stand and clink their glasses. It all went off OK until all the speeches were over and I was cornered by one of the Grand Dames of the society who told me in very explicit, and very loud, terms that I was not only an embarrassment to the group but should be ashamed to show my face in public. And here I was, the First Lady of the Society dressed in a fabulous formal Alexander McQueen frock of black velvet and silk satin Brody tartan, the tartan of my grandmother’s family. Off- the- shoulder with a boned bodice - I looked good peeps! Who was this badly-dressed matronly woman with gray helmet hair to tell me when to shut up?

(BTW, we had a full table of friends at the dinner who applauded my speech. Gotta love my peeps!)

Our now deceased good friend Donald Piver delivered the ode To a Haggis. I can’t imagine it ever sounding better than when delivered in Scots Gaelic with Don’s thick Southern drawl as he waived his Claymore over the warm reekin‘ rich glorious site. A real treat.

But I ramble…

Tonight we will sup on both original and vegetarian haggis and partake of some good whisky. We will miss Don’s wonderful toast but I have downloaded one so we won’t miss the tradition.

http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/burns-address-to-a-haggis-read-by-gavin-christie/

Address to a Haggis
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!

It's Harvey Nichols I'm talking about...

2010-01-22T20:56:00.000Z

I have been to the mountain ( and I am gong back.) Actually I have been there before and had a truly religious experience but David, due to his ridiculous level of Scottish frugality, has managed to steer me away since we arrived in Edinburgh this time.

I am talking about Harvey Nichols.

Harvey Nicks can put even Neiman-Marcus to shame. This is shopping heaven - or hell if you are someone like me who has committed to living with only 100 things.

Just to walk into the place is bliss. Need a personal shopper? Want to have a facial? How about a five-star lunch on the fourth floor? I am convinced that if you can ask for it, they can make it happen.

I first visited here just after they opened in Scotland. I am a true devotee of Trish McEvoy cosmetics and when we were living in Aberdeen in 2002-2003 she was not represented in Scotland anywhere. When Harvey Nichols opened, with the Trish counter just inside on the right as you come in the door, I planned a trip. Good ol’ Scottish Dr. Dave almost choked at the damage. I loved it!!

I looked at every sample, tried all the new colors and checked out the new packaging. I sat for a full makeover - a level of beauty I have never been able to recreate -and I bought lots of new goodies to put in my planner.

If you have never had the Trish experience I highly recommend that you throw out all your current cosmetics, put at least $300 in your wallet and hurry to the nearest Saks, Nordstrom, Neimans or Harvey Nicks and get your fix. (In Charlotte, the best source used to be Coplon’s) Every woman I have ever introduced to her has been transfixed.

I first learned of Trish McEvoy in Phoenix when my BFF Tina took me and her soon to be 8th grade graduate, Cate, to Sax for a makeover just a few hours before the graduation ceremony. The sales person was an artist, as they all are, trained by Trish in NY to use the stuff she makes and sells to best advantage. Here we were, a teen, and two 40-somethings on different ends of the decade and we each came out looking right on the mark, not too much, not too little.

I was a Trish virgin at the time. It was here that I learned the secret of the “windshield wiper brush” ( and bought my first.) I learned how to apply eyeliner in a touch, move, touch manner that looks so natural I was amazed. ( It is a little difficult when my hands have the MS shake, but I am working on getting David to learn how to do it! Hey, he gives me a weekly shot, why not learn to line my eyes? No matter how infirm, I will never go out without eyeliner, lipstick and perfume!)

I bought my first planner and filled it up at Coplon’s the next week after an internet search to find out where I could buy Trish in the hinterlands of NC ( It really was the hinterlands back then - no Nordstrom)

And so I have been looking forward to Harvey Nichol’s ever since we crossed the pond.
After making your way through cosmetics heaven, just travel to any of the floors above for a fashion experience par excellance. You can browse, try and compare. The salespeople seem to care less if you are buying than that you are having a good experience. (I am! Iam!) I never buy at retail so I even take notes and no one questions me. But it’s January, and EVERYTHING is on sale. Like a Marc Jacobs skirt that fits perfectly for, are you sitting down, $20 on the last chance rack! Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective or in my case the time of day as I change my mind hourly about keeping more than 100 things ,there are equivalent bargains all around. And if you are shopping till you drop, you can always take out a loan from the strategically placed Bank of Scotland next door.

Alice Redux

2010-01-22T14:15:00.000Z

A re-post of my most recent contribution to our writing blog Conscious Particles. Check it out to read some really good stuff. www.cpartblog.wordpress.com
I was inspired by the writing prompt we all worked from (first sentence) and a poster I saw of Johnny Depp on my walk - my, oh my.

ALICE REDUX
Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. Perhaps someone at the realty group weekly meeting could shed some light. She had shown several houses the day before for one of her associates so maybe that was the answer. As she hurried down the hall toward the conference room, late as usual, she turned the key over in her hand but it simply did not look familiar.

Entering the room, Alice poured a cup of coffee and took the only empty seat at the glass topped table that was littered with papers and photos of houses. She took a large gulp of coffee and felt as though she was shrinking under the glare of her co-workers for arriving after the discussion had started.

Each person in the room, by turn, described their recent listings, contracts and closings. Alice took copious notes of any new information. She was new at this and still trying to understand what was important and what didn’t really matter. She reached for a cookie from the tray on the table and as she took a bite, she heard her name called. Swallowing quickly, she talked proudly about her new project and felt herself regaining stature in the room. Alice described the housing development she had been contracted to represent. She would be showing properties throughout the next week in a series of open houses. Queen of Hearts Estates it was called and she hoped her associates would drop in for a look around.

The British investors in “the Queen” as they liked to call it had done a remarkable job studying the market and understanding the buying and selling habits of suburban Americans. The houses were spacious and sat on large lots. Yet, each had a bit of whimsy about it – a cupola, a widows walk, a two story conservatory. One particularly lovely design had a broad roof that seemed to wrap around the house with one large bay window jutting through it in the front. It looked like a story book cottage on steroids.

The streets, laid out in a maze, were lined with manicured hedges and flower gardens so well-groomed that they appeared to have been growing for years. Alice made a note to get the name of the landscape designer. Streets branched off as soon as you entered the large wrought iron gates giving a sense that each house was almost its own estate. Brilliant. That alone would raise the prices for the homes by 10%. While many were struggling to buy and keep homes in a dreadful real estate market, the potential buyers for these properties were well-heeled with no problem making the purchase. They would relish the sense of eliteness exuded by the neighborhood design. Even the street names played into the plan, Ace of Spades Street, King of Clubs Circle, Jack of Diamonds Drive. Discreetly built just to the right of the gates was a row of smaller sized examples of each home model built exactly to scale, like a street of large dollhouses.

Alice drove through the area to get a feel for the very best way to tour potential buyers She got lost at nearly every turn and had to re-think her direction. Most of the lots were still empty but each had a lovely painted sign like a large playing card showing the best house model for that particular parcel. The houses under construction were in various stages of completion, from just sprouting up from the foundation, to that wonderful state where the new owner could choose all the little details themselves. A few were completely finished and ready for someone to just turn the key and move in.

The key. Alice reached for it in her blazer pocket where she had put it before leaving her condo. When she looked up she was directly in front of the model home/office and made a quick, dangerous swerve to pull in the driveway, almost hitting a rabbit that was scampering across the street. She’d seen that rabbit before a few houses away munching on the flowers. As she stopped her car, she made a note to mention to her management contact that something needed to be done about animal pests. Her clients liked the idea of living in the woods but would not want to deal with hyperactive rabbits running all around and eating their plants.

The management had left detailed instructions and all the needed supplies for her little tea parties as they referred to them. There was a lovely tea service and silver spoons. In the kitchen she found an electric kettle, various sorts of tea in a wooden caddy and nice cookies on a tray. The note indicated there were lawn games out back for the children. Alice laughed out loud when she looked through the kitchen window and saw croquet wickets set up. She wondered if the American children would even know what the game was. Note: teach a local teenager to play croquet and pay $8. an hour for her to hang out back on Saturday and Sunday and entertain the kiddies. Be sure she wears all white. Keeping up the image of the place would be good and the game’s large set up gave a good sense of the huge expanse of the back garden as she had been instructed to refer to it.

Alice filled and turned on the tea kettle, picked up the tray of cookies and returned to the drawing room, its name another affectation of the Brits. She straightened the stack of linen napkins and set a few cups on saucers. It was almost time for her first group of associates to come through. It was important that they want to bring their clients back.

Alice took a compact from her bag and looked in the mirror as she applied fresh lipstick. Reflected through the front window behind her she could see a large cat perched on the porch railing. Quite fluffy and an interesting shade of orange with darker stripes, he was busy grooming himself. As Alice turned to look at him directly, he lazily raised his head and stared back as if to say, “Who are you?” Perfect Alice thought, finishing her touch-up, a smart-ass cat. When she turned back around he was gone.

The first realtor to arrive was the last one Alice wanted to see. Frederick March was a thorn in her side. Always jumping on her leads to get listings, sometimes stealing clients from her, it seemed she often did the work for his rewards. He had been with the agency for years and was well known and respected in the community. March lived in a large house he inherited from his wealthy parents and threw lavish parties that kept him well-connected. Despite his prominent social position he needed to bring in additional money to support his lifestyle. And he hated to work.

Fortunately, March was followed by Sadie Madder, as always wearing one of her signature hats. Alice envied Sadie’s sense of style and self-confidence. Madder and March made quite a pair. Alice poured tea as they glanced through brochures and made notes. Remembering the key, Alice pulled it from her pocket and asked if it looked familiar to either of them. It did not.

The remainder of the day was a blur of activity. At one point a large group of realtors she had never met stopped by and Alice felt very pleased that she had led a car tour of the Queen’s Estates without getting lost. When they returned to the row of models she passed out keys that allowed the realtors to explore some of the finished properties on their own. There were even some potential buyers on this first day – a rather nervous and obviously newly wealthy couple that Alice joked to herself appeared to be looking for where to invest the recent lottery winnings or for a way to launder stolen cash and an older couple moving out of the city for retirement.

Near the end of the day a well-dressed woman came up the drive with two children, one holding each hand. When Alice opened the door for them she realized that the children matched. Exactly. Not only were they dressed alike but they looked, spoke and walked the same. Alice thought of directing them to the backyard but they occupied themselves going from display to display and talking to themselves while their mother made an appointment to come back with her husband later in the week. Alice laughed as the twins bounded across the front garden toward their mother’s car, matching stride for stride.

Exhausted and ready to call it a day, Alice glanced around the room to see what she needed to tidy up. In the mirror over the mantle she could see that the orange cat was back on the porch staring in at her. But when she turned around , once again, he had vanished. She made a note to ask if he belonged to anyone in the area. If he was a stray she might just try to take him home. His inquisitive nature had enamored her.

Having put away the remnants of the tea party, it wasn’t yet dark as Alice closed and locked the front door of the office. Looking down the row of home models being built for display she decided to take a quick look into each. As she stepped off the porch, a rabbit hurried past. It couldn’t possibly be the same one she thought. These nasty nibblers as her gardening friend called them could be a problem.

At each front door, Alice turned her massive ring of keys around until she found the one with the number matching the lock. She felt a bit like a princess as she walked through the houses and pretended she would ever be able to afford such luxury for herself. The first two houses were fairly well completed but as she moved from one to the next she encountered more and more construction. When she reached the last house on the lane she remembered; The site manager had given her the key just days before. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the key. The numbers engraved on it matched those on the lock. As she inserted the key and opened the door she was startled as a rabbit ran out past her. I wonder how long he has been locked in there she thought as her eyes followed his quick exit. Still looking over her shoulder she stepped inside onto an unfinished floor which collapsed beneath her. She fell into a black abyss and the rabbit hopped in after her.

25 of 100 things and Mince and Tatties

2010-01-20T20:05:00.000Z

My first 25 things

Last summer after reading the 100 thing challenge at aguynameddave.com I began my ongoing effort to get my belongings down to 100. This is made easier of course because I do not have to count the furnishings and household items where we live because they are not mine. Even Dave took this into account and only counted things that were HIS is excsee of the family house and all it included.

On my list you will immediately notice that all items with accessories indicate that they are included in the item count. If it won't work without it then it all counts as one. Likewise things like Jewelry, Makeup and such that do not end in "s" I have counted as one thing. Hey, it's my list. There are even some things that end in "s" that just don't make sense to count individually, like travel toiletries. If it all fits in one 1 quart bag then I count it as one 1 quart bag.

This is the first 25 things on my list. From here it starts to get complicated.

1. Kindle and accessories
2. Netbook and accessories including thumb drive and external hard drive
3 Jewelry - that will fit in one 6”x10”x 2 “ plastic tackle box
4. Makeup and brushes - that will fit into one zippered cosmetic case
5. Journal/Notebook, mechanical pencil & leads (purple or black Pentel P207 0.7 or .0.9mm lead); Fountain pen (medium nib) and purple ink ( pen is no good with out paper and vice versa)
6. Wallet - - Leather pouch style with zippered compartments and card insert;ouside pocket for ID and change/tokens
7. Stationery - Monogrammed correspondence cards and envelopes; personal cards
8. Sunglasses w/ bi-focals
9. Ipod and accessories
10. Digital Camera - with accessories and small carrying case.
11. Reading Light /Flashlight/Headlamp - one of these that does all three functions
12. Rechargeable batteries and charger
13. International converter/adapter
14. Batter powered toothbrush with attachments
15. Razor - rechargeable electric preferrred
16. Large check-in size rolling suitcase or duffle
17. Leather or micro fiber Travel/Work Bag/Handbag- to carry netbook, iPod, Kindle, camera and other carry-on items when traveling, use as a tote bag/handbag weekender - not too heavy. With small purse inside for evening or to carry-on travel items
18. Toilet articles - toothpaste, face wash., moisturizer, shampoo, hairspray,lip balm, etc in small sizes to fit in 1 quart clear zipper bag
19. Folding shopping bag
20. Corkscrew
21. Water Bottle
22. Warm hat (winter) Sun hat (summer/warm climates) - foldable
23. Leather gloves
24. Eyeglasses
25. Waterproof overcoat with zip-in warm lining and detachable hood

Now, for your cooking and eating pleasure:

Traditional Scottish Mince and Tatties

2 rashers of smoked bacon, diced (or 1 Tbsp olive oil)
One large onion, chopped
1 lb of high quality ground beef (or Boca crumbles)
½ c oatmeal moistened with a few spoons of water
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce (omit and double brown sauce for veg version)
1 Tbsp brown sauce (HP is traditional but A-1 will work)
1 Tbsp ketchup
1 tsp each thyme and rosemary
Salt and pepper

For the mash:
4 large potatoes, unpeeled and diced
Cream or milk
butter
6 carrots, peeled and chopped

½ cup of brown gravy (make your own or purchase)
- Serve vegetarian or onion gray with the Boca

Extra brown sauce to serve

In a large skillet, sauté bacon until fat is released; add onion and cook just until it starts to get tender; add beef and oatmeal and cook until beef begins to brown ;add sauces and herbs and cook until liquid is absorbed; salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes and carrots separately until tender. Mash potatoes coarsely and add milk salt and pepper until desired consistency; enrich with butter

Mash carrots and whip until smooth: stir in butter and salt and pepper

Traditional Mince is served with tatties and neeps (mashed turnips - delicious!) I prefer carrots because it adds color to the plate.