LAWN TEA

HOMEBODIES

2012-02-09T09:53:00.011-05:00

This haunting angel is one of many photographed by Janie at Southern Lagniappe. I was struck immediately by the name---straight out of Faulkner, and by the age of the young woman---just twenty-seven, and by the words “daughter of” on the stone. My imagination jumped to several women I have known, forever known as daughters of, for they lived out their entire lives in the house they were born in, cared for by or taking care of, their parents.

Some were not well from birth, in body or mind or both, and some were simply what was known as “dutiful daughters” to the people who had raised them. Every small town seems to have one or more of these sweet women, home by choice or chance or need, and I remember well the ones who were my friends. One dear soul, for forty-five years the teacher of Cradle Roll at her church, referred to her Mama as a “semi-invalid”---always; I assumed it was the family’s word, and certainly not a medical term.

I knew her mother, and understood the exact derivation---she lounged her days away on the daybed or the long metal porch "glider," watching her STOW-ries, receiving visitors with a wan smile and a limp hand, and enjoying having her meals brought on a tray, but became remarkably energized and able to sit upright at the Eastern Star luncheons, bridal showers, weddings and quite a few funerals and dinners-on-the-grounds. Somehow putting on a pretty hat conveyed extra strength and vigor to her demeanor, and though she couldn’t possibly be expected to bring a covered dish, her enjoyment of the collations and buffets and prettily arranged "luncheon plates" was always remarked upon amongst the hostesses. My Mason/Dixonary should have a picture of Mrs. Snow beside the word “Tolerable.”

In my little heart-town of Paxton lives Mary Calyx (CAL-ix) Diebold---her Mama thought "Mary Alice" was too plain, and she saw calyx in a book and thought it was some kind of flower, not a PART of one.

Mary Calyx wears blouses and skirts---great wide gathered or gored ones, with plenty of room to get on and off her bicycle without her slip a-showin'. Her gray Soft-Spots and turned-down white anklets can be seen pumping that big Schwinn all over town, especially to the site of any local happenings.

She will never learn to drive a car---her nerves won't allow it. A thick headband holds her wiry browny-gray hair back from her face; a big ole shelf of it sticks straight out over the tight elastic where it touches the nape of her neck, and depending on when she trimmed her bangs last, a spiky ruff sometimes stands across the top of her head like a turkey-tail.

We’ve all known them---these soft whispers of women. The quiet demeanor and unobtrusive persona of many a Mary Calyx has graced the lives of almost everyone in the South. They’re homebodies---not necessarily by choice, but linked to HOME by a physical or psychological thread which holds them like a magnet to the nest. Perhaps they’re the last chick IN the nest, coddled for their late-in-life arrival or pedestaled as the baby-of-the-bunch. Maybe Mama and Daddy chose THIS ONE for her domestic skills or shy manner or just because she coddles THEM, and will be an asset in their age. In some cases, they exert a soft coercion to keep her close, uneducated, shorn of the capacity to choose her own way.

Like Cousin Glee, hip-joined to her Mama, they go to WMU, Missionary Society, Club---where they murmur and sip and listen, sorting Scripture cards or quilt squares, sampling the tiny sandwiches and asking, "Now, did you use lemon or vanilla puddin' in the Bundt?"

Their hair, clothes, powdery skin---all seem to be made of dry fabric, as if they spend their days pinned on a line in the wind. And their SELVES are as elusive---sweet and unknowable, like wisps of clouds disappearing as you gaze.

BEANS, BRITS, AND BUGS

2012-02-07T11:55:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Sweetpea’s Mama had a day off, and it was an odd Monday, without Our Girl in the house. I took advantage of the day a little bit, to get some tabletops cleared and polished, all the accumulated-out-here groceries stashed in the cool store-room, quite a few loads of laundry done, and as much clearing-out of the utility-room drain as a whole quart of Liquid Plumr would accomplish.

The cold of Sunday night and the bag of leftover-from-the-carving ham bits just called for setting a big pot of Pintos to soak for Monday, and so the house was filled all day with the scents of bubbling beans, savory, smoky ham, garlic and onion and a good little bit of L&P and some Louisiana Hot Sauce, just like Justin Wilson used to make.

Didn’t you just LOVE him?

Caro slept in late yesterday, for her nights leading up to that HUMONGOUS House-Party that was our city were filled to the brim with making three-times-usual of their output. We set 4:30 as our time to meet downstairs for a glass of Peach Tea and Sunday night’s Downton Abbey---we’re both hooked. It was just lovely, to have the supper done---I’d made the cornbread, and cooked a pot of rice, and she’d made up her usual five or six TUPS of her meals for the coming week, and we’re always welcome to sashay up the stairs for a serving of anything available.

She and I just sat and watched our show, with all those good scents wafting, and the table set for Chris’ arrival, and the beans still simmering on the big black Franklin.

Of course, the hour-long-program took TWO, for before we started, we immediately had to discuss who-do-YOU-think the unknown man IZZZ, and interruptions for “WHAT DID HE SAY?” and all sorts of questions and comments to each other, with whoever was driving the clicker pausing whilst we thoroughly discussed, re-wound, and/or went all the way back to Episode ONE to confirm a fact or conversation.

Then, when Chris came home, we all sat down to bowls of beans, each fixing a bowl to personal taste (mine stirred with lots more L&P and hot sauce, then crumbled cornbread stirred in, a slice of crisp sweet onion on the side), Caro with hers taken out of the pot to cool a bit before we sat down, and Chris with separate bowls of beans (minced onion and cornbread), and a little rice with a tiny smitch of butter stirred in.

The conversation was about her work, his work, my day, as always, segueing into one of our usual zany offshoots with everybody chiming in. We reminisced about Sweetpea's first encounter with a frog last year, with Caro re-enacting SP’s caution as she headed out to work, with wide eyes and breathless voice imitated exactly: "BE CAREFUL, Caro!! There’s a FROGGGG out there!”

Then from there, it was all downhill.

Me: “At least it wasn’t a bug---last Fall, she yelped and ran when just a FLY flew past her arm, and then I couldn’t even get her to watch Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch any more, because there are animation BUGS in it.”

Chris: “But she still likes that one about the Stinkbug that goes to camp. What was his name----HERMIE???”

Caro: “No. STANLEY was the Stinkbug. Hermie was the worm.”

Me. “I thought Hermie was the Love Bug.”

Caro: “That’s HERBIE---a Volkswagen. But somehow you’re making YOUR KIND OF sense.”

And on THAT hopeful note, moiré non.

MAGGIE DREAMS

2012-02-05T13:55:00.000-05:00

A sweet note just now, from my cousin Maggie, down in Alabama, to brighten these cold climes. My sunshine outside today belies the chilly temperatures, and yesterday’s icy drizzle was a gray day only to get-in-out-of and into warm comfy clothes, with a quick trip to the kitchen to send the scent of brewing coffee through the house.

Maggie’s garden may well be doing all these lovely things, for it’s far south of us, and because she has a touch---for plants and flowers, a capacity for love that’s absolute and complete, and a talent for the perfect bend to put her sweet face right on the level with the littlest ones, assuring their total thrall and devotion to this dearest of Grandmothers.

And she always writes in columns, slender bits of pure poetry, though she intends a mere newsy letter, and a description of the simplest, most ordinary things becomes an ode to the joys of seeing and experiencing and believing.

Just a note from my Dear Maggie:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dearest,

Each morning I step out

into a dew-speckled

garden, each drop a

rainbow-studded

diamond adorning

rosemary, tiny lettuces,

pencil thin asparagus

shoots raising their

heads to the sun, baby

carrots growing beneath

the earth, lemon,

orange, and cherry red

tomatoes--a whole salad

bar bedazzled in

morningʼs solar glory.

(Dreaming again)

When February greets

us, as it has, with

sunshine and warm

days, I get lost in a

daydream--thinking of

spring and anxious to

plant a little garden spot.

I can almost taste the

tiny asparagus drenched

in olive oil and sprinkled

with lavendar sea salt.

Folks are saying, if this

warm weather remains,

we will have bugs and

mosquitoes galore in the

summer, but I so love

the warmth of the

sunshine on my face that

Iʼm simply savoring the

beauty of the days.

I just got back from the

early service at church--

stopped by the river on

the way home to sit a

spell and listen to the

waters rushing over the

rocks. Came home and

watched deer roaming in

the woods behind the

house. Now have a

very large pot of

spaghetti sauce

simmering on the oven.

Smells lovely. Oh the

joy of the day!

How are you

sweetheart? Would love

a short note.

Love you to the moon

and back

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Joy of the day, indeed!!

Sands and drops of the ocean, Maggie---moons and stars. And the Simple Savor, which is greater than all.

CILLA AT SEVENTEEN

2012-02-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

Sis sent me this picture from her Family Wall, after reading my memories of Aunt Cilla and Uncle Jed, and, as Sis said Daddy would have said about the picture, she's "just about the prettiest thang you've ever seen."

Those shiny little shoes, and the dress, the Cupid's Bow lipstick---she still has a girl's side-part in that stylish bob, but the definite family brow and eyes---she's ours, all right.

And the lapel pin!! She was marvelous at styling an outfit even at that age.

Isn't she just as lovely as I said?

CHAPTER II---AUNT MEGGIE'S FAMILY

2012-01-31T15:53:00.007-05:00

Daddy’s next-in-line sister Aunt Meggie had a less fortunate life than the other two girls---her husband did not have such a prosperous occupation, and they moved often. She was a pretty blonde woman, with the dark family brow and eyes, but faded young, with a hardening of her features with each succeeding year. I remember her in drab white short-shorts and those sleeveless cotton blouses that button down the front, with an ever-present Kool grasped in her yellowing fingers. Her nails showed an effort, but not upkeep, with chipped red polish, and indeed, I don’t know how she found time to do any sort of grooming at all, with that great riot of five children always underfoot.

Bonnie Gail was the oldest, perhaps three years older than me, and helped out with the four younger---all fists-and-elbows boys, barefoot and bursting through life in great leaps and shouts. She was blonde like her mother, and slender-strong, with wiry muscles like her brothers, and a great laugh. I remember her and Aunt Meg, all three of us cross-legged on my bed, all doing our nails, (very odd for me, for I’ve never, ever been of that communal-grooming bent). There was one other time when Bonnie Gail and I and all the Memphis girl cousins went out into Aunt Billie’s yard and stripped the head off nearly every aster and dahlia on the bushes in order for all of us to make great coronets around each others’ updos, with the boys going off into jibing hilarity at our unwieldy crowns, and offering to “water our heads” before the day was out.

The family once moved from out-in-the-country into a tiny house---perhaps four rooms--- in a neighbor's back yard less than a block from us. The place was of a type called a “servant-house” by several of the folks in town, whose maids and yard-men had lived on the place in memory, but the small dwellings were then mostly junk-houses for cast-off furniture and lawnmowers.

I can remember going over to visit the kids on occasion, and as my Mammaw used to say---“they lived all OVER that house.” What little furniture they had crowded the rooms, and with five children and both adults at home---I STILL can’t imagine how they moved around, let alone where they all slept. Bonnie Gail offered to make fudge when I visited one afternoon, for they DID have sugar and cocoa and a can of Pet milk, and I ran home for a stick of Parkay.

I know it was Wintertime, for we all crammed into the tiny kitchen as she lit the stove, and stood sniffing our hearts’ content of the enticing scents, as the mixture began to boil and send out the unequalled redolence of simmering sweet chocolate. I washed my hands and greased the waiting platter with a tiny pat of the oleo, and since there was only cold water to the sink, I well remember the vain scrubbing as I held my hands back under the faucet, trying to scrub and scrape off that clinging grease, so as not to smear it off onto the only clean dishrag I could see.

The platter was an old white crockery one like everybody had, kind of oval, with slightly pointed ends, and we all held our breaths as Bonnie Gail dropped a little drip of the syrup into a cup of cold water. That was the test for READY, and we sighed as we watched the first two tries dissolve and float away like wispy dreams. And when we saw the third try forming the requisite soft ball, I think we all cheered, as she poured that thick panful onto the tray. The tiniest hairline of a yellow oleo moat formed and edged the spreading pool, and somehow, the flow stopped magically just at the brimming rim of the plate.

I don’t know if anybody got burned by their impatience, for I fully remember Bonnie Gail holding back the boys' grabbing hands by shouldering them away---I can still hear the scruffle of her shoe soles across that kitchen floor as she evaded their pushing by pushing back---and I don’t think the stuff had time to cool and set up, for those grubby fingers barely waited til the knife made the first cuts. They scooped up and pulled stretches and blew on their fingers, making those indrawn sss-sss-sss cooling sounds as they gobbled up the candy. I think it was one of my first exposures to a “grab what you can get” episode, and I can remember a little tingle of shock to see them almost fighting over the treat.

And I did get to taste a tiny crumb, after she loudly reminded them of their manners---it was sweet and rich and still warm, but already going to that wonderful old-fashioned sugary texture that happened about two times out of three with that old recipe. I'm so glad that it WAS that way---the authentic kids-in-the-kitchen, slightly off-kilter goodness that's probably much better in memory than in actuality. For that moment, it recalls as perfect.

I have no idea why this small time made such an impression on me---I was probably about ten, and had been making candy and cakes for a long time already. It was just the interest and the avid waiting, and the impromptu delight of creating something so unexpected on a dull day, in a house without books or games or television, and where a great part of the entertainment was punching each other in the arm or wrestling across the floor. I had such a great sympathy for Bonnie Gail, to have to live a girl’s life in that rowdy roil of boys---they weren’t BAD, but the suffocating energy and tide of preposterone in that little house were overwhelming---no wonder she married at fifteen and moved on.

And all those boys---all of them grew up to be kind, hard-working men, dedicated husbands and fathers---one a minister. Perhaps in the scheme of life, there’s turning out well because of the life you were dealt---and then there’s making something of yourself in spite of it.

OTHER SIDE OF THE FOREST, PART I

2012-01-28T17:17:00.011-05:00

AUNT CILLA AND UNCLE JED

Daddy’s sister AUNT CILLA was a Classy, charming, good-natured woman---a true-life shorter version of Wallis Simpson in appearance, with her smart clothes and center-parted, wing-turned black hair.

(internet photos)

(imagine a rounder, sweeter face, with ever-so-much-more kindness in the eyes---and a Southern accent, of course).

She smelled pleasantly of Chanel and Chesterfields, longer-than-Mother-and-Daddy’s Kools, which she cinched into a tiny white holder to keep her immaculately-manicured hands isolated from the dread yellow-finger which afflicted confirmed smokers.

Perhaps it’s all the sepia and black-and-white Kodak moments captured in the big black-paged scrapbooks, but I see

her always in Forties fashions---the twill skirts and neat peplumed jackets, the shoulder-pad dresses of expensive fabrics unsuited to our Southern climate, all purchased at Goldsmith’s and Lowenstein’s in Memphis, or at Marshall Field on one of their frequent trips to Chicago.

Whereas my Mother made most of her own dresses, in cottons and piques and one spectacular dark-brown dotted-Swiss, Aunt Cilla mostly wore suits---slim skirts or neatly-fitted trousers with pale silky blouses, with chunky, striking costume jewelry, and always with a pin or brooch on the jacket lapels. Or sometimes, she'd perch a little jewelly bird or dragon or frog up on her shoulder, looking out at the world. She was the only woman I’d ever known who came to breakfast in a hostessy-gown, with real little mules-with-feathers on her tiny feet. We teased her and another aunt that they must shop in the children’s shoe departments, though all those smart little ankle-strap peeptoes and wedges belied that source.

She was also the only woman I knew who put on stockings in the morning when she wasn’t going anywhere. She’d straighten up, bend, lick her finger, reach for the seam, and give it a perfect tug into alignment several times during the day. She’d bathe and dress in the morning---getting into an outfit we’d save for church or for going shopping in one of the stores you felt you had to DRESS for---just to hang out with all of us, helping cook the noon dinner, or whiling away the afternoon with crochet or crosswords, as we all enjoyed each others’ company for several days.

She was such a sweet woman, small and dark, with a natural tan shade to her skin, black hair and deep brown eyes, like her grandmother, who was one-half Choctaw-on-her-Mama's side. She had a way of saying “SHHHHHooot!” in a deprecating whisper at any compliment, blowing a wisp of smoke skyward and smiling a bit, when we spoke of her lovely clothes, her ever- shining, intricately coifed hair, her marvelous cooking.

Uncle Jed of the crisp-creased pants, center-parted hair, and slow smile had a shy, diffident air and great kindness to all the nieces and nephews. He wore the same smooth kinds of clothing as made up most of Aunt Cilla’s wardrobe, just as neatly and with equal flair.

There was a certain gesture made by all men in those days, lost somewhere in the succeeding decades of jeans and bell-bottoms and double-knits, in which the gentleman backed up to the sofa or chair, made a small finger-and-thumb pinch of his front trouser crease with each hand just where the waist-pleats met the neat crease down the leg, and gave a gentle upward tug, which brought enough of the fabric up free so that the bend of the knee would not knee-spring the cloth.

(from internet)

They’d drive up in their tiny Studebaker Starlite---a vivid green one, as I remember, almost the exact color of the peridot ring they gave me for my eleventh birthday---alighting in the front drive with the élan of a jet-set couple beneath a Monaco marquee. She'd step out of the car, casually tossing a stole or scarf around her shoulder with a gloved hand, take take hold of her bandbox and purse, and prance her way up that gravel drive in those tiny high-heeled shoes, like Marilyn sashaying through the train-steam.

Her luggage was beyond covet, for it was a glowing golden-brown leather, all matched, down to the round hatbox into which she circled her three-fox neckpiece around the matching hat in Wintertime. And long before my Samsonite Train Case, her own makeup case emitted an enchanting scent of good perfume, lovely powders and the special soaps scented with lavender and lime, enclosed in elegant wrappers printed in French.

That moment of their arrival created Fairyland for me---for many years, I was an only child, and they, my occasional playmates---they were the most marvelous conversationalists and would sit right down and color or draw or cut out endless paper-dolls (some free-hand, with clothes to color and fit).

Some afternoons, I’d get out my embroidery hoop, as she and Mother got their crochet, and we’d talk the afternoon away with Guiding Light or Helen Trent on the old Stromberg-Carlson.

Their own home was like a magazine spread---perfection in everything from the slender, graceful Chippendale in the living room, to their own bedroom, with the first-I’d-ever-seen-in-person twin beds. Lucy and Ricky and other movie couples might have such an odd arrangement, but no bedroom of a friend’s parents or any other married couple EVER had aught but the double bedroom SUIT, with dresser and chiffarobe to match.

And her CLOSET!! It had different levels, with things hanging in compartments just the right size, and dozens-upon-dozens of the padded hangers I’d only dreamt of---pale satins holding suits and dresses and a whole sheaf of “dinner dresses” and evening gowns.

We always ate in their dining room, trying out new recipes she’d found in Redbook or Woman’s Day---such things as pineapple salads with cottage cheese and a cherry on top like a sundae, instead of the clop-of-Blue-Plate, pinch-of-Hoop-Cheese we made at home, or Arabian Pork Chops, with their savory tomato sauce, exotically flavored with bay leaves and served in a chafing dish, and the big combination salad served from a matching set: huge wooden bowl, fork and spoon, and a smaller bowl at each place. It was elegant and gracious, and probably the genesis of my own love of setting a pretty table, though I can remember distributing acorn caps and matching twigs onto a plank of mud-pies long before.

I know I’ve dwelt somehow on the fabric of them, of remembered textures and scents and the atmosphere that they seemed to carry with them. They were not OF our world, mostly, but of a lovely other place, in which ladies dressed for the day, and shopped and lunched before it was a verb. And there, gentlemen did not go out clad in drab khakis or come home sweaty and begrimed from their labors. They lived the only enchanted lives I knew---in a beautiful place of cool green rooms and muted colors and magical music, of an entire windowed room filled with cages holding bright parakeets and lovebirds and canaries, of evenings of quiet conversation and gentle murmurs of content. I loved their presence and their perfection, and remember them always as beautifully dressed, pleasant and eternally kind---they WERE the fabric of my life---or at least the one I longed to live.

CASSEROLES AND COMFORT

2012-01-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

A cold, rain-turning-to-ice night like last night called for something from the oven like THIS.   Just the scent of the bubbly sauce and those toasty chip-crumbs lent a warmth and homeyness to the house, and just taking it out of the oven, strolling over to the counter and adding little dabs of kidney bean salad and tiny peas to the plate was almost like being guests .

I'm sorry to resort to OLD posts so often lately, but my ideas to talk about are thin on the ground.   Anything Southern anybody would like to hear/ask/talk about---maybe a recipe I've forgotten to include?   I'd welcome any suggestions, cause it's mostly the thinking-up that stalls me.   You KNOW how I can get going once there's a subject to elaborate on.

Customs?   Idioms?   Old times/new ones---food---places---people?

Any responses welcome.

A BIGGER HAMMER

2012-01-22T15:38:00.001-05:00

We received one of these Peppermint Piggies from a friend, several Christmases ago. It came in a lovely red-velvet bag, complete with a tiny silver hammer. The enclosed little tag said that it was an old Christmas tradition, and the idea was to pass the Pig around the table after Christmas Dinner, and each person should shatter off a little shard of peppermint, for a sweet ending to the day.

So we did, and I think that year four of the GRANDS were here, as well as their parents, so we had errants bits and chips flying wildly past the centerpiece and tea glasses, with eager little fingers capturing bits and crumbs from the tablecloth and our shirt-fronts and their sister's hair.

Later, we put the little hammer up on the "old stuff" shelf, with spy-glasses and cameras and bits of our and other people's pasts. Then Chris took to carrying it in his big black leather Dr. bag, with all his other computer and printer-fixing tools.

He's caused many a grin at worksites, when he'd meet a recalcitrant machine and finally flourish Little Hammer, give the machine an infinitesimal tap, and warn, "Don't make me go get a BIGGER hammer."

And we've CERTAINLY needed a big hammer lately---something has been causing a great glitch in the COMMENTS section, with lots of us trying to comment on each other's blogs, but having much trouble trying to sign on, or having to sign on numerous times, or just getting a blank white page, with no recourse but to go away unwritten and unsung.

I've not been able to SEE any comments on here for a couple of weeks,without going WAY round-about through the whole dashboard thing, for clicking on the usual spot would shimmer the comment on the screen for a micro-second, long enough to see a tantalizing word or two, then jerk it away like a schoolyard bully with a little boy's hat.

And now, there's LIGHT in this tunnel, and I think the problem's solved, courtesy of my friend at PAINTORDIG. She posted a solution on her own blog today, and it's worked like a charm, so far, just yielding up those friendly words and brightening my day considerable.

If you're having trouble from either communication front, sending or receiving, DO have a look and give it a try.

And Hooray for a BIGGER HAMMER!

FROST FOR THE TEA CAKES

2012-01-20T11:47:00.001-05:00

No LAWN TEA in the immediate future, unless you like REAL FROST-ing on your Tea Cakes!!

This is the view way out back to the poor, denuded arbor---with the only green a hardy yucca which catches you unaware in Summer when you head for the herbs around the corner. That thing came with the house (along with one Hosta, seven tulips---still coming up these fifteen years later---but barely blooming, lots of trees and bushes, and the Luck-bush).

We're headed out to pick up Sweetpea at school, and then for a late lunch, thence back home to transfer Christmas Canary to his new smaller home, which will fit upstairs so he can have lots of sunshine. (When). (If).

Stay well and warm, my Dearies---we're off to be the Wizard!

DID YOU EVER. . .

2012-01-17T10:52:00.001-05:00

. . . .wish you hadn't seen something?

You know, I always loved the Miss

America

pageant---those glowing young ladies seemed set apart, somehow, with all their talents and their shining, beautiful faces and the glimmer of their unattainable gowns---it was a special evening that we looked forward to with envy and delight---we grubby children of the hot, dusty South.

I’ve been going way back into my childhood and teens, relating little snippets of life-as-I-knew it, the small hometown goings-on, the lessons and the activities and some of the customs which made up interests and manners and daily life of a little Southern town, and I was recently reminded that one of the most anticipated events of a year to us smalltown girls---and indeed, to all our families, for watching such a looked-forward-to program, like some of the big sporting events must be today, was that September Saturday when we’d all gather around our black-and-white Motorolas, avidly watching from first moment to last, as the Miss America contestants brought their best and brightest smiles and talents and all the pageantry of another time and place.

We’d talk about it for days ahead (and after), even sometimes gathering at each other's houses to make paper crowns and tiaras, ironing long swags of leftover ribbon or butcher paper for our “state sashes” and making sure to pin-curl our Halo-and-Tame tresses early in the day, so they’d be dried and brushed out into shining ‘dos to befit the grandeur of the occasion.

We’d watch and cheer, calling out our “winners,” and applauding as our favorites were moved forward again and again toward the finale. Even our parents got into the spirit of things, for every household we knew set aside that Saturday night for a special viewing of that annual bit of beautiful---the best and the brightest from each state, with their ideals and their ambitions and eager ideas of how they’d better the world.

We cheered and wept as our own Mary Ann swept away the crown, and then the very next year, our Lynda Lee graciously accepted the title, as well. Two years in a ROW---wow. State pride reached a new high, and even license plates and billboards proclaimed “State of Beautiful Women.” That last one was a little boastful, but we accepted it---the highway department had put those signs all over the place, after all. Mississippi had several more winners through the years.

And Mr. Bert Parks---the epitome of gentleman and perfect emcee---smart and witty and gracious, and when that lucky girl went floating down the runway, laden with crown and flowers and nerves and tears, big old satin sash flapping in the flashbulbs, the first mellow notes of “There she IZZZZ. . .” would send us all into happy swoons and dreams of what it must be like walking on air of our own.

Miss Wisconsin won again this year, some forty years after this clip, but THIS is how it should be.

Bert was replaced somewhere in the seventies, I remember, with an incongruous twinkle-of-the-moment, and somehow, it’s been all downhill from there. The quality of the talent and the aspirations and purposes of all those bright young women hasn’t changed a whit, but whosoever is in CHARGE---what have they been THINKING?

They’ve taken an American staple, an event as anticipated as our birthdays, and somehow transformed it into some sort of deteriorating reality/sideshow that is but a fleeting echo of what it’s all about. The hopeful ladies are the same, but the succession of vacuous second-rate showbiz faces and voices and dull remarks holding microphones has absolutely driven this wonderful tradition into a boring, embarrassing spectacle in the worst meaning of the word.

I happened upon the latest edition on Saturday night, finding it late in the second hour, and just seeing the words on the index, “Miss America Pageant, 2012” kindled a little lift of the heart, a smile of remembrance, and a quick click of the remote.

Is anybody familiar with the Southern term “Goat-ropin’?” That’s a kind of generic encompass-all for the sort of activities and entertainment you wouldn’t be caught DEAD at, or a brouhaha of such puny proportions and bad planning, execution and manners as to make your Mammaw blush in the telling---nice people might GO to such, but only under duress, and even then, they’d never let on.

This “pageant” was the most pathetic descent from greatness I can remember in quite some while. The lighting was atrocious, the “questions” were absolutely inane, and the talent, vibrant and impressive, was buried in a rush between “jump up and run onstage breathless when your name is called,” and the crushing news that “the NEXT name I call WON’T be performing---she’s been EEE-LIMMM-i-Nated!!”

All this announced by two of the most wooden announcers in the history of TV---the woman WON Dancing With the Stars, so I KNOW her feet must move, but above the neck---not a muscle. Her immobile lips just might have curved into something of a smile whenever she thrust the mike into the faces of the unfortunates, asking over and over, “And how did YOU feel when you found you were out/eliminated/voted off the island?”

And some Brain Trust must have gotten together to think, ‘Let’s make this REAL!’ for they set all those waiting to perform/be cast out on long low sofas, and must have told them to “do something,” for one was doing splits to warm up, a tiny ballerina was en-pointe-ing her heart out---I swear, when the camera panned past once, a young lady in red had her head flung back, and was putting drops in her eyes! I expected the next frame to catch some unwary contestant shrugging into her pantyhose.

People, it was AWFUL. And not because I’m old enough to remember the Glory Days, of anticipation and preparation and Atlantic City and live music and BERT PARKS and such a feeling in the air. This farce would have made the Gong Show look like Cirque de Soleil.

I know this is quite a departure from my usual don't say anything mean stance, but this was such a travesty of a precious memory that it brings out my Ouiser side, and I ain’t as SWEET as I useta be.

And they DID play that age-old recording of Bert singing the theme song, and that was an uplifting moment, when the memories flooded back and it could have been 1959 again. But Y'all, I’m tellin’ you---dear Bert Parks could have done the whole thing better, hosting solo, straight from his repose at Forest Lawn.

THE GLITCHESS

2012-01-13T06:31:00.000-05:00

I again seem to be the Glitchess of all things Internet, and there's now something going on with the "comments" page---it will flash one tantalizing little glimpse, then go white-page in a most irritating fashion.

I have read the two which managed to conquer the obstacle course, but I can get to them only through a circuitous route behind the scenes into the archives, and then I cannot answer from there.

I'm so sorry, and I pray you all not to give up entirely. Your patience has been wonderfully gratifying and comforting, and I thank you all for everything. Please don't give up---we feel like family, and I've SO missed you..

rachel

#800 CATCHING CHEER

2012-01-12T15:17:00.001-05:00

Sweetpea ran out of the school-doors again yesterday, like that Santa-day in December, only this time, it was into very cool dribs of rain; we did splash in a few parking-lot puddles, just because, but it was hoods-up all the way, and into the car in a hurry. We headed again for her favorite place and had a lovely lunch of warm, savory chicken sandwiches and waffle-fries and slaw.

We sat near the glass of the climbing-area, and since the place was late-day deserted, she went into the playground alone. Later I went in to sit on the bench inside, my back to the restaurant, but in a moment, the corner of my eye caught the impact of a customer’s entry into the front doors.

As I turned to look, he was laughing a big hearty head-back laugh, unheard in my cocoon, but with enough body language to telegraph the infectious fun of it---it must have ricocheted around that tiled space like a handful of thrown BBs.

I was mostly seeing him outlined in profile, against the rainy-day light of all the windows around, and he must have caught a glimpse of me against my own panes, for he lifted both hands high and waved and grinned again. Caught up in the moment, I raised both hands and waggled them back, as he laughed again and went toward the counter, greeting people at tables, and talking to all the counter-folks.

He was a big raucous rufous man---like Paul Bunyan come to life---tall and muscular and striding through the door in big wet boots, with a huge tweedy coat like Barney Fife’s dream of Heaven. Bristly, curly hair was a reddish-brown, and I swear, his beard even had that little forward-tilt at the bottom, like leaning back-into-a-Nor’Easter.

I turned back to Sweetpea and her little doings, and when I came out for a moment to say something to Chris, the scent of that rich coffee brewing on a cold day called me to the counter, so I got a large cup, with French Vanilla cream. Getting back to our own table, I sat and sipped, not noticing for a moment that the man was sitting at the diagonal booth, with two big sandwiches, two coffees, and a big pile of mustard and ketchup and sauce packets. He seemed to have a big appetite for everything and a capacity to match.

And people kept coming over to talk to him---each greeted with a big smile as he munched heartily and talked with equal enthusiasm. Between visitors, he was writing on a long yellow pad, and I was hoping he was writing down such a pleasant afternoon, for I was mentally making notes as I sipped my coffee, waved at Sweetpea, chatted with Chris.

It’s been a long cold Winter already---twenty-three days of it, and more-time-than-that of an absolutely dry spell of anything to write, and no energy or inclination to try. But an hour in a warm setting, with the cold drizzle outside, with good food and happy companions and such an energetic and genial presence lighting up the place---that’s a cheerer-upper, for sure, and just what I needed.

And late in the night, the thought came to me that Chris, who is usually so cordial and chatty and striking up conversations with folks at all tables around us, never did say a word to him or even acknowledge the

presence of that guy so loaded with charisma and welcome.

And now I wonder if I might have imagined him. Either way, whosoever sent good thoughts and prayers and good feelings my way, or if he was a figment of YOUR imagination floated across the miles on my behalf, I’m really glad to have had the impetus of that rowdy Viking’s warm personality and infectious bonhomie to get me back on track.

It’s really good to know that CHEER is catching, like a cold---that puts a much better slant on things, don’t you think?

SEVEN-NINETY-NINE

2011-12-21T11:13:00.001-05:00

This happens to be Post #799, since I first began in 2008, and I keep telling myself that I HAVE to offer something besides a camera angle pointed down into a dish of FOOD.   But it is what it is---a lovely box of Caro's Christmas Wonderfuls, packed in pretty boxes all lined up on the counter, and right now out and being delivered by Chris.

I can take no credit for any of these, save for one batch of fudge, with the squares nestled beneath all of Caro's painstaking work.

They both love spreading the joy, all year long, and their dear caring hearts are amongst my Major Gratefuls in Life.

And I wish you all a SWEET, warm wonderful day.

MONDAY MORNING

2011-12-19T11:44:00.001-05:00

Just checking in, and hoping everybody's well and warm out there, and enjoying all the wonders of this glorious season.

You know, I've never tried out any of those blogs which list each and every moment of the blogger's life, nor would I EVER inflict such a litany of all our dull doings upon anyone kind and interested enough to visit here.

But, maybe just THIS ONCE:

TRUE CONFESSION:

I've spent the morning holed up in the Cough Corner over there, with a big roll of tissue, the Halls, a soft banky, and the three-hour season finale of SONS OF ANARCHY.

There. The secret's out. Well, Y'ALL---it's HAMLET with HARLEYS. What's not to love?

Perhaps I'll repent when I get all this Nyquil out of my system.

SOMETHING SWEET

2011-12-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

SOMETHING SWEET FOR YOU!!

I'm just a bit swampy here, Y'all, with an almost-conquered cold and LOTS still not done for Christmas or the company to follow. Luckily, before I came down with this grunge, I made and wrapped one pan of fudge. So, in addition to that huge treasure-trove up in Caro's kitchen, that ought to do for any holiday crowd that might visit.

This is the easiest, best recipe I've ever found, so I hope you'll try it (and trust that you won't mind a bit of a re-run, til I'm up to posting again).

The BEST, EASIEST FUDGE.

CHRISTMAS TEA---2011

2011-12-13T12:26:00.003-05:00

Six of us ladies gathered in the upstairs sitting room, just about candlelight time on Sunday. The guests chatted with Caro whilst I came downstairs to put the final little touches on the table, take a couple of things out of the oven, and light the candles.

I know burgundy and pink aren't QUITE the standard Christmas colors, but I love the combination, with the whites and silvers of the china and napery.

My Mother's china---she had two sets-almost-alike, and many's the time I borrowed them for a pretty luncheon party or dinner. I love the simple shine and all the memories of lovely times they evoke. Like my own Mammaw and my Mother---I have a Walk-and-Pat Will, in which I point out things NOW to all the children, and make sure they know they're to have all the lovely things which I've enjoyed and remembered so well. (Or could probably take them home with them, if they were so a-mind).

Caro is the Break-of Dawn Elf---I never know WHAT beautiful or thoughtful or tasty thing I'll find when I wake. The chandelier and the downstairs tree were my greetings one day this past week. The little burgundy bird atop is privy to LOTS of Christmas Secrets.

Our Tea Table. From the back, a bowl of crisp pita chips, one of some really delicious gluten-free crackers, the crudite, Devilled Eggs and a mound of Paminna Cheese. In front is a big thermal bowl of Caro's Asian Meatballs with soy, cilantro, sesame, garlic and sliced water chestnuts. Then a plate of chicken salad in croissants, some twee little cream-cheese-and-cucumber Christmas Tree Sandwiches---the only bow to a REAL Afternoon Tea, I suppose.

Next is a bowl of shrimp with a Cajun Mayonnaise for dipping, and in the center are a bowl of Hummus, some Scoops, and the copper dish holds a sizzly gratin of hot Artichoke Dip, with lots of grated Parmesan.

Caro's Asian Meatballs.

Crudite---blanched snow peas, three-color peppers, fresh crisp sugar-snaps, cauliflower, baby English cukes, grape tomatoes, with a Ranch dip.

Cucumber trees with Philly Garden Spread.

Chicken Salad Croissants.

Hot Artichoke Dip. In back is Hummus with Scoops.

And what Southern Party is complete without Devilled Eggs and Paminna Cheese?

As a matter if fact, every dish on the table was gluten-free except for the cucumber sandwiches and the croissants. I served my friend a scoop of the chicken salad (breast of chicken, minced celery and apples, boiled egg and Hellman's) out of the dish in the fridge, and she gladly partook of everything else but the bread items.

She sat, chirping happily over the lovely plate of party food, for she usually eats at home before they go out. "Oh, I've been DREAMING of your Pimiento Cheese!" she exclaimed, and we gently taught her the Southern pronunciation, echoed all around the table by all the ladies at once--all of us chiming in Puhhhh-minnnnna, like an old-fashioned spelling class. And I think everyone took seconds of almost everything.

The Cheese Plate: From one--Pecorino Romano, a Triple Cream Brie, Morbier, and Gorgonzola. Also included, 2 types of dried figs, apricots, dates, green grapes and Seckel pears. On the side, not pictured, a new jar of Adriatic fig spread. The Morbier had a duskier, more ashy rind to it than usual.

It was a relaxing, laughing time with good friends, and of the exchange of all the Christmas Sweets we made and exchanged---moire non, perhaps on Friday.

OF TEA. . .MOIRE NON

2011-12-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

HAPPY MONDAY!!

I wish you could have all been right here for our Tea Party yesterday, and when I'm all finished with all the putting away and all the re-tellings of our fun to Sweetpea, I'd love to share some of our evening.

Until . . . Moire Non,

SANTA HATS

2011-12-09T20:30:00.002-05:00

Caro has already made I-Don’t-Know-How-Much candy and baked goods---all sorts of barks---with whole almonds, poured onto the platter with my mistakenly saying,“Whose plateful of Northern Beans is this?” There are also other batches snugged into two high stacks of long Glad Boxes---with crushed Oreos, with crushed Nutter Butters, with crumbs of peppermint pinkening the entire puddle.

She’s made Heath bar and chocolate chip and one batch with Heath-chips-and-mini-M&M’s gaudifying the whole top of the chocolate pool, like every child’s candiest dreams. There are great pans of seven-layer bars and dozens of pretty candy-papers holding coconut haystacks. I think I remember one big pan of a kid-version of Rocky Road, with only the marshmallows.

She’s stood in that kitchen for hours, and as soon as I make these three five-pound batches of fudge, we hope to be boxing and sending a sample of all the goodies to all the chillun around the country. Plus, we're having a very small tea party/cookie exchange on Sunday afternoon.

Somewhere in all that great counterful of sweetness are five gallon-Ziplocs of “Crack”---the Chex/pretzel/peanut/M&M’s dipped into white or dark chocolate and broken apart into the munchiest, cravingest stuff to come out of Candyland. I’d suggested the addition of Bugles this year, thinking they’d look enough like little elf-hats mingling into the mix, but she’d seen these little cuties online, and this is what I woke to this morning:

She had held them by the sharp tip, dipped them into red Wilton Candy-Melts, then dipped the little damp horn-bell into the tee-nineciest sand-sized nonpareil dust. She laid them onto parchment, where a lot of them would balance on the open ends. When they were dry, she held them by the fluff-ends, dipped the sharp ever-so-slightly into the red melt, then pressed a little marshmallow onto the end.

I have no idea what they’re destined for, but our tea party/cookie exchange on Sunday will feature some peeking out from the candy trays, I’m sure, and our little ones will receive the fairy-size little morsels in their packages. They'll surely marvel and admire---for a brief moment at least, I imagine, before they munch.

I certainly admired and oohed and aahed, and though she hates the cutesy-poo word, I teased her by uttering an under-my-breath “squeee!” as I left the room.

I wish you could each and every one join us for Tea on Sunday!

REPRIEVE?

2011-12-06T15:04:00.002-05:00

You know that little sigh of relief you sometimes get when you find that an event or appointment or social gathering---especially company coming--- has been cancelled or postponed, even though you were REALLY looking forward to it? You know how it feels to simply have the time back, and the evening or day or week to do normal stuff and just let down and not wax the floors this week, or get all those boxes out of the guest room just yet, or not have to wear those Spanx and can take off those uncomfortable shoes in favor of comfy old slippers, and go what-the-heck and plunder the fridge for supper?

That letting go, that leaving off of preparation, that escape from the scurry to get things done in time---that REPRIEVE. I think I’m in one of those---for our Thanksgiving group had to postpone their trip until after Christmas. And so, we’ve had the days to put up one of the trees, plus we’re SIMPLIFYING everything this year---especially the décor (less is less and MORE is banished to the storage room). We’ll have lots of lively young folks filling up the rooms, so we want to clear away all the geegaws and tabletops and sofa-cushions---just to fill the space with good times and plenty of room for the fun stuff.

And I didn’t in ANY way need a reprieve from THEM---I could just scoop up their cheery presences with a SPOON---it’s the fact that I haven’t yet had to move THAT chair to vacuum behind for the stray Poppycock, or run all the clean bankies through a lovely warm freshening cycle, readying all the beds for all the storytimes and sweet sleeps.

Or get this pickup load of stocking-stuffers and bags of books and camping stuff out of the kids’ bedroom.

So, instead of taking a leisurely pace at the readying, we decided to have a tea-party this coming Sunday. I’m perfuming the house with Old English and Windex and Pine Sol and Scott’s Liquid Gold, and blessing those little Mr. Clean sponge-thingies, a mighty step-stool for fridge-tops, some big ole pink gloves and an endless coffeepot.

If I don’t faint from the fumes, I’ll see you at the Tea-Table. One lump or two?

Endive with chevre, dried cherries, and walnuts candied in Port.

BOSOM BUDDIES

2011-12-04T15:57:00.000-05:00

The rainy patch on the weather map stretches from the Coast to the Great Lakes, and apparently the GREEN is going to cover us for several days. And so for all of us who need a little sunshine, a smile, and a little BRIGHT---

Here are two of the brightest spots in the Show-Biz Firm-a-Ment: Angela and Bea.

CHECKIN' IT TWICE

2011-12-03T14:13:00.003-05:00

A little girl came out of school into the bright wind, running into the breeze, delighted with the freedom and the prospects of meeting her Mommy for lunch at her favorite restaurant---the one with the big playroom with all its colorful slides and stairs and big windows and fun things to do.

She got into the car with her grandparents, and they all met at the restaurant, ordered, and ate their lunch. As they sat, they saw several children go in and out of the doors to the playroom, and once, a beautiful little girl in a black leotard and tutu came out, her face streaked with tears, and ran toward her Mother. She pointed back at the doors, was comforted, and stayed with the others at her table.

Our own little girl finished her lunch, and asked to go inside and play. Her Grandmother got out the washcloth, washed her face and hands, and they went into the playroom, at that time filled with a loud tangle of little boys and girls. Grandmother sat, and little one went into the staircase-tube to climb up; she reached the little balcony, and began to turn the big bright cogs of the wheel on the window.

“Listen to my MUSIC!” she said, the words muffled a bit by the plastic shield. Her Grandmother nodded and smiled, as our little girl’s Mommy came in the door. “Please go finish your lunch,” she said, and Grandmother responded, “In a moment; I’m enjoying this.”

They sat for a few moments, as Mommies called their children out for Time to Go, and other kids wandered in and out. In just a bit, the Grandmother noticed that our Little Girl was still up HIGH on the balcony, along with a couple other children---two little silvery-haired boys, perhaps four and five. Another minute and there was a wail from Our Girl, then a full-out CRY, as Mommy and Grandmother jumped up from their bench.

Mommy called out, asking what was wrong---answered by more and more loud crying.

Mommy shouted at the biggest boy to let Our Girl get by, and at the other one to stop blocking the slide so she could come down. It took quite some time, and quite a few loud words from Mommy, but they finally moved and Our Girl finally came down the slide, tears dripping and her cheeks pink with the crying, and was taken gently out the door by Mommy.

Grandmother remained behind, placidly sitting on the bench, as the two little boys slid down and halted at the bottom of the slide, turning their backs to her. “Oh, My,” she said, in her soft, kind voice, with its southern accent still apparent despite her long years in the North. “Do you not know who that IS?”

She pointed out through the glass at the Little Girl, sitting on the lap of a round, jolly fellow, with kind eyes and twinkly glasses and rosy cheeks and his red shirt setting off his snowy hair and beard, as he wiped away Our Girl’s tears.

The little boys peeped, then looked at Grandmother with WIDE eyes. “He’s her GRANDDADDY,” said the round lady softly, her own rosy cheeks and small gold glasses twinkling beneath her little bun of pale hair.

The boys took another look, eyes big as plums, and did not move as the Grandmother turned and left the room, gently closing the door behind her.

THE THROWS OF CHRISTMAS

2011-11-30T16:58:00.005-05:00

My dear online friend Kat just said on her blog that she had boxes and decorations and glitter in every room of the house and was in the “throw” of decorating (quotes hers) for Christmas.

That one brought a smile---for first I thought of her lovely home, always perfection, always beautiful and neat, with all those cardboards and cartons and spills of sparkly stuff---probably the only clutter allowed to grace that well-ordered space all year.

THEN came the remembrance: My first SIL and the ICICLES! We used to buy those little flat packs of the thin-thin shredded aluminum/lead foil, to be draped onto the limbs of the tree to represent silvery, quivery shards of ice. They came in a slim flat box, were thinner than tissue, with a dull gleam, and, since they were probably a foot-and-a-half long and folded in half around a little shirt-cardboard for convenience---they fell apart at a whisper, leaving you with a little mingy half-drape across the limb.

We’d separate carefully, taking them out one at a time---sometimes one person taking out and holding out, and the other gently removing the strand and laying it over the limb. There were several camps on the decorating front: Ours had careful one-string placement amongst the green, like this:

photo from jillsbooks

There were the ones who believed in decking the limb-tips only; the lavish grab of several, with the centers welded together by the pressure, placed around amongst the ornaments, and the one person I ever saw who loved the forest primeval look, and so grabbed them by the very end and squeezed an inch or so around the branch, so that they trailed down long and smooth.

And then there was SIL’s Method. She believed in making it “look natural”---as natural as a lead-encrusted evergreen could look, with big handfuls tossed upward toward the tree, so that they fell as nature would have intended, had the skies showered great Pern-clumps of metal strings.

Whatever hit, wherever it hit---that was the intended spot. And whatever landed on the floor was picked up, gathered into another, messier handful, and given another shot at it. The whole thing looked like droves of drunken spiders had been spinning droopy, disconnected webs all up and down the tree. Great bare spots were flanked by big ole crinkly wads of the things, and whole sections dropped their unbalanced little burdens onto the carpet, the tree-skirt, and all the presents below.

And family lore still has it that you could set the Christmas Day clock by SIL’s front yard---the minute she licked the last scrape of Sweet-Tater Pie off her fork, she’d head home, and in a bit there would be a green mound out by the garbage pickup site, winking silver twinkles in the sunshine before the rest of us could finish the Dinner Dishes.

Did you ever use these? What was your application method?

And someday----SOMEDAY---when I get to know you better, I’ll tell the story of our very first Christmas here, and the very interesting decorations on the perfectly-good little tree we pulled out of the Dumpster the week before Christmas.

A HAPPY DECEMBER TO EVERYONE!!

YOU'RE MY FAMILY

2011-11-26T13:38:00.007-05:00

Thanksgiving was a quiet, homey day, with two slow, gentle days of getting-ready, of getting out the cloths and the goblets and which-bowl-for-what, knowing full well that the snap beans would go into Mother’s silver-rimmed little Harmony House bowl, as always, and the chocolate chess pie into Mammaw’s old chipped Homer Laughlin pieplate, brought out just for the honor, once a year, like an old faithful servant still asked to fumble a dish or two onto the table, because of their splendid service of the past.

Somehow, when I took out the two tablecloths, a sorta pinkish tan, with deep shades of fruit and flowers, bought at a yard sale several years ago for two dollars apiece, I just automatically reached for the heavy old pink goblets. After all, they would GO, and I DO have five of them, and there WERE five adults. Besides, the dozen bigger, older Mammaw goblets we usually use were snugged WAY in the back of the shelf, with a little sherbet dish nestled into each, to make space.

And so, Our Pink Thanksgiving table came to be---even a last-minute prink by our Sweetpea, who gently re-arranged the silverware and made sure the tea things were ALREADY set and waiting---well, those matched just dandy, too.

The plates were heavy burgundy crockery, handed round hot into our napkins after we sang the Blessing, and we had most of the old favorites from Mammaw’s and Mother’s tables.

The fresh-snapped beans, “canned” the day before by my first Mother-in-Law’s recipe of vinegar and sugar brine, then drained and cooked down low with onion and bacon:

The cornbread dressing, rich with Caro’s homemade chicken stock, studded with tiny mince of onion and celery, with the Mammaw's Kitchen scents of sage and black pepper. Two kinds of gravy peeking over the top.

The sweet potatoes---not our usual custard with marshmallows, but the tiny “patties” usually only available this time of year in the “meat” aisle. They were layered into a buttered dish and a thick-reduced simple syrup of brown/white sugar and vanilla poured on before baking. They were still bubbling heartily when they were set down on the table, and were one of the favorite dishes of the day.

A simple plate of steamed broccoli and cauliflower, with a little dish of cheese sauce beside, and Sweetpea’s Mac and Cheese.

Of course, the devilled eggs, the two kinds of cranberry---one homemade, the other the standard Ocean Spray, with the little can-pleats still showing, and a dish of DDIL’s famous (and that is literal---people call and want that recipe every year, and Sis says it’s become “her” family tradition in Texas, as well) broccoli/cauliflower salad, with bacon and cheese.

And that gorgeous

Turkey

---brined and then cooked in the just-so-regulated grill for hours that morning, to come out with the burnished mahogany sheen of a well-loved Camaro.

Shining and magnificent---the drumsticks just woggled around in the crisp skin, and came out warm and juicy:

Sweetpea finished early, of course, and named off people around the table---"You’re my family, and YOU’RE my Family, and YOU’RE my Family." Then she went around giving hugs all around, because “You’re my FAMILY!”

There was cheesecake with cherry sauce, and a Chocolate Chess pie, and we finger-ate all the big ole grapes out of the centerpiece. After most of the dessert things were cleared, Sweetpea started handing round all sorts of percussion instruments: A tomtom, a small drum, a tambourine, plus the two sets of drumsticks and odd items for striking: She gave Caro a drumstick and a small pastry-brush from the drawer, and my big ole melmac cup “drum” was presented with a wooden spoon, so I licked my pie-fork clean and we started up the Rhythm Band.

We sang and tapped and bammed, and perhaps it was because I was getting so tired and turkey-lethargic just sitting there at the table for so long, but I started the TAP TAP KNOCK! TAP TAP KNOCK! with all of us adults joining in and then coming in right on cue: "WEEEE WILLLL, WEEEE WILLLL ROCK YOU!!" to Sweetpea’s bewildered, then delighted face.

Oh, my. Don't know the words, and never much cared for a rappy style, but nothin' like some seventies Queen to set the tone for nice genteel people, after a lovely repast, rockin’ out and banging on the crockery.

After we wound down with THAT, she wanted the “Kitchen song” which I quickly realized was that twangy version of “You are my Sunshine” on the O Brother soundtrack---I sometimes play the CD on the Bose.

When we all got up from the table, it was like my dream of Holidays---like the scene in The Big Chill after the big dinner, when they’re all rockin’ to music and dancing in the kitchen as they clear away the dishes and put away the food.

I hope yours was wonderful, as well. I'm moving SLOW, but after this good family time, and yesterday's long hike, I think I'm back.

THANKSGIVING, 2011

2011-11-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

You've all come to be like my Family, all the year round, and I wish Y'all ALL the very best blessings on this Thankful, Thankful day.

and moire non,

rachel

THREE YEARS OF LAWN TEA

2011-11-12T11:07:00.005-05:00

Three years ago today, I tentatively sent out the first post of these almost-eight-hundred, just flinging thoughts and memories out there to the whole universe, and now here we are---later in time and life, with many changes and new happenings happened and written and shared.

Still not up to posting as I'd like to, but I thought today should have at least one little Hello and a very large Thank You to all of you who have joined in and shared the moments of our days.   I appreciate and love you all, and am so grateful for all the wonderful sweet friends who have come to be such a part of my life.

So---just a small moment---a morning walk with Sweetpea, as we walked and marveled and looked at the world with wonder---the ordinary and the marvelous.

ADVENTURE WALK

We came upon a broken bag at the curb, bits of someone's plastic recycle scattered for several yards, the colors and the shapes splayed in the sunshine.   A paint tray, coat of pale yellow in the bottom, with a small waterline of soft blue to attest its former use.   We talked about the smell of fresh paint, how it brightens up things, how the roller rolls smooth through the thick colors and transforms walls with a swipe of the arm.   We speculated on places which might now BE those lovely colors---a cozy kitchen in the soft butter yellow of my own, or a baby's room in either that or the pale blue.

The rollers, some small bright cylinders which had been the V-legs of what looked like a child's easel, bits of crumbled pearly egg cartons scurrying in the breeze, a deep quad container which had held four hefty pots of new plants, long blue ribbons of painting-tape, dotted with color and furled into the bows and twists of Mardi Gras---all testament to New Beginnings---lay sprawled on the pavement like scattered toys.

I explained how it was to be refurbishing a house, trying to imagine the cool silence and vast expectant rooms, stripped to the echoes, awaiting transformation and renewal.    And I tried to imagine all those NEWS---the starting outs, the clearing aways, the brightenings and the cleanings.

We came home and sat down at the dollhouse, which has accumulated WAY more than its share of needfuls---there always seems to be a new denizen for the never-ending backyard menagerie flowing from Ganner's pocket, and what started as a few little farm animals has progressed past farm, through Noah, and into Open Range/Jungle/Pampas/Veldt stage.   The little herd of cows, the couple of chickens, the goat and the lambs---those have blossomed, beginning with the yak, I think.   After all, after a YAK, the sky's the limit.

And now we have monkeys and an elephant and a raccoon, many cats, from snobbish little pillow-puffs to a whole fleet of fast jungle ones, a dozen dogs, a kangaroo. All sizes of fat pink piggies, a whole stableful of mis-matched horses, with such a giant steed standing eaves-high guard outside the patio, folks are gonna be driving up craving Dan Dan Noodles.

The latest is a white tiger, which she triumphantly claimed and crowed, "A SNOW Leopard!!" And could not be dissuaded, though we explained spots and stripes, so Ganner proposed that perhaps this leopard got caught out in the rain and his colors ran.

We scooped everything out of the bright plastic rooms; we put our faces deep into the tiny spaces, shouting a little HAH! into each small emptiness, as she always does when we enter a building, to hear the resounding in any vestibule, especially those little entry-ways with two sets of glass doors and nothing but space between.

A little Pine-Sol spray, a few paper towels, a pretty piece of border from a sticker-book cut into a cunning carpet-runner and matching valance and stuck in the little dining room, and our tiny house is refreshed.

And so, with several days since to work on my own house, I have been slowly going floor-to-ceiling, round the room down here, scattering debris, putting the fear into dust bunnies, finding a lost brooch, the top to the tiniest teapot, a long-despaired-of shoe---in rightening these rooms for the great arrival of five-to-stay and more to visit.

Moving slowly, and looking forward, still shouting a little "Hah!" out into the world, hoping for an echo.

A SWEET MEMORY

2011-11-09T11:49:00.000-05:00

Another memory from the past---from when I first began posting---this is an "old family" recipe, by default, anyway, by dint of having been used by FOUR generations already (though actual time elapsed is only twenty years or so). I hope to be back when things quiet down, when the world is not so much with us, and when I can post without cussin' the molasses in the gears of this machine.

Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts---I can feel the lift.

+++++++++++MOTHER'S APPLE DUMPLIN'S++++++++++++

Photo by squidoo

I don't believe I've made my Mother's recipe for Apple Dumplings in several years. My memory of the date I cooked any given thing is not so keen any more---I do remember the Thanksgiving the year after her death, when we had all gathered back at the family home for one last time. Daddy had called us all and said that he had sold the house, and he'd be back in town for a wedding that weekend, so if we wanted anything out of the house, we needed to get a truck and come on down.

And so we gathered, the ten of us, and packed and remembered, losing time and work in the reminiscences, and the stories attached to many of the things of our upbringings. My sister's son is a chef, so he and I cooked the Thanksgiving dinner, beginning sort of long distance, with my bringing a lot of the ingredients and several dishes already made and in coolers, the five hundred miles down the Interstate. He and I stood at the same stove, on the same gold-patterned linoleum on which which I'd stood to bake and stir and fry all those years that I lived there, and where his tiny pamper-bottomed self had scampered amongst our feet.

This recipe is just as written down for me by DS #2, who has made this old standard for our Christmas Dinner for a long time, now; I had made it before, and had it memorized, but that’s faded, and I wanted the exact measurements.

Way back then, in that old familiar kitchen, with its Brady-orange countertops and copper EVERYTHING, I dictated quickly to the tall young man---now a chef in his own right:

“Make a Simple---1/3 white, 1/3 brown. Melt stick of butter in pan. Peel, quarter, wrap, pour, 350, 35/45.” And his chef’s training took over. He made a lovely pan that we enjoyed one last time around that familiar table, all of us together under that roof for a final Thanksgiving before the house belonged to other people, other traditions.

Mother’s Recipe, written down for me by my son, who makes them for all our occasions:

Granny Smith Apples---4
2 packs Pillsbury Rolls---Pack makes 8
Brown sugar 1/3 cup
Sugar 1/3 cup
Stick of Butter
Water
A cup of juice or Cider
Melt stick of butter in 9x13 Corning ware pan. Core and peel Granny Smiths in 1/4th. Separate rolls. Wrap and pull rolls around ¼ of apple. Place in pan.

*Evenly Sprinkle brown sugar and reg. Sugar over top and around Dumplings. Take a spoon and drizzle a little water over each one. Pour about a cup of cider or apple juice into the bottom of the pan to make the syrup and it will thicken around the bottoms of the rolls. Bake on 350 for 35 to 45 minutes until golden brown.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is exactly what I want to do---bake these wonderful pastries with DS next time he's here---when days are not so entwined, and the scent of Old Times can fill the house with memories.

ROOTS, REDUX

2011-11-08T08:45:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for the kind words and thoughts and prayers. While things are still down here, a re-run from the blog's beginnings. We could all use a fresh start now and then:

Deep Roots, March, 2009

I've been looking into some of the names of my forebears, just Googling a surname now and then, running an eye down the lists and the branches, finding kin, finding even from this remove an unexpected sprinkling of names of friends-back-home whose lineage parallels or channels with my own, merely by dint of a far-ago marriage in the place we both are from.

Memories kindled, smiles of recognition and astonishment at our links in the long chain---it's been fun to scroll across the names of old friends and acquaintances whose names echo mine in the long past. Something about being from the South, of the near-and-dear relationships, the kinship of place as strong as of family---it's a heart-thing, absorbed through the air and the heat and the long vistas of flat Delta gumbo, from that primal scent of first-plowing to the nip of Fall, with Winter delineated by getting out jackets and gazing on the drab scape of gray fields shorn to stubble.

My own raising, deep in the moist heat of that fertile flatness, was centered around family gatherings---Sunday dinner and birthdays and holidays and reunions and sitting together in the shade, waiting for the ice cream freezer to do its magic to the custard whose recipe was older than anybody present. The old recipes and jotted-downs and clipped-outs and the mainstays---we repeat the gestures, the measures, the tastes.

I cook Southern, but have been known to throw foie gras or caviar onto a table with crawfish, catfish, mallard, mountain oysters, rooster fries, buffalo and wild hog. I cook whatever we feel like at the moment, whatever is freshest from the garden or the Farmers' Market, or whatever was just brought back from a trip South. Food and cooking and the cultivation of both have been a greater part of the Southern perspective for time beyond memory, and the dedication and methods from the old ways have hung on longer in the South, it seems.

I own white gloves, lacy hankies, opera glasses, a well-sharpened hoe, a TALL ladder and a Troy-Bilt. A lifetime of food raising, hoeing, picking, canning, pickling, freezing and preserving has given me a deep appreciation for all methods of hunting and gathering. Deer, duck, crappie, barbecue and gumbo have appeared as often on our table as pasta, hamburgers or Mapo tofu.

The ladylike rosy shade of my own nape was earned honestly, bending over the beanrows, pea-vines, cornstalks and squash hills in that extremely HOT Delta sun. Redneck is as redneck does, I reckon.

But sometimes it would be nice not to have to waste so much time dispelling the notion that the lowest IQ in the room necessarily must belong to the person with the Southern accent.

Hello

2011-11-05T12:11:00.000-04:00

Still out of kilter/touch/abilities right now. Hope all is well out there.

Any prayers and good thoughts sent this way greatly appreciated.

rachel

FLY SWATTERS

2011-10-27T16:00:00.002-04:00

How we have risen in the world, from the flappy old screens of feed-store giveaways, bent with vigorous use, hanging behind everybody’s door, to shapes and colors and materials of another age, while the flies go merrily onward, unchanged in a million years.

My long-time e-mail friend in Arkansas sent me a picture of her fly-swatter, a little grab-bag gift from one of those home parties, and she asked one of those “Do you remember the time . . ?” questions about our high-school days---this one concerning homecoming, a flat-bed trailer and miles of crepe paper. I replied with quite a few memories of such and similar fun small-town outings from my own bulgy memory banks.

Then, somehow I segued into fly-swatters themselves---about as dry a subject as a regent's horsehair chownree---but I enjoyed delving into the little silly memories. All our Grands have just LOVED them, beginning with Gracie quite a few years ago. I bought a hot-pink one, fresh and pliable, for her use when she was still chewing drippily on everything she could raise to her mouth, and wanted so badly to get those itchy little gums on the big one hanging in the utility room.

So she had her own never-used, never-flapped one, and she gnawed it stem to stern, even leaving little tooth-dents all up the handle after she sprouted incisors.

THEN she discovered a horde of little moths which had invaded the house about this time of year---they somehow arrived, swooped about the downstairs, lit on walls and other pale surfaces (the more stupid they, since they are most visible and killable there). She named the bugs FLOOS for some reason---sounds reasonable to me---and chased them for DAYS, dispatching them unmercifully. She’d go get her floo-flapper and have at it. She climbed chairs, she jumped and swung, she left gray smudges on every wall in the house.

I followed her from room to room with a Lysol spray and a handful of paper towels. Now I wish I’d left just ONE little smudged reminder. I could have just hung a little picture over it, so as to uncover and remember now and again.

She did NOT, however, use her dear Pinkie for this purpose. It is still sacred, and hangs on a special nail, high up in the utility room, so no one will use it by mistake. It has taken on the status of a well-loved bankie and will probably travel with her to college and into her first home as part of her trousseau.

I, on the other hand, have a first-class green one, a gift from Chris when he saw her enjoyment of hers. MINE has teensy plastic teeth like a very delicate single line of Astroturf, sticking off the wide end, and is to be used as a fly-scooper-upper, in conjunction with the too-too precious two-inch dustpan which snaps on just where flap meets handle. It is the Rolls Royce of flappers, with its own little Susie Homemaker Barbie tools.

So, my friend has a fun bit of froufrou; Gracie has a piece of history from her infancy, and I, the plebeian bug-getter, have the utilitarian work-horse.

And now Sweetpea has had her own for quite a while---a little doll-face in a stiff bonnet. No flies for her, either---Flappy sits erect and attentive in her small chair as Sweetpea teaches numbers and letters to all her compadres from the toy tub.

HELPING HAND

2011-10-25T10:06:00.001-04:00

In these days of hustle-bustle and going our own way and looking out for our own, with reports of passers-by just passing on by, even in the face of need and danger and injury---I’ve been thinking of a sweet little memory I have of a visit to England. It was an everyday little happening---a fleeting thing-of-a-moment, but it’s stood as one of my fondest remembrances of the trip.

We were walking down a little street in Bristol, and my three companions stopped in a store. I sat down inside a handy bus-wait shelter to get out of the proverbial noon-day sun---one of those huge clear molded plastic half-rooms, with a plastic seat molded in, and a perfect spot for people-gazing.

We were right outside a good-sized grocery store---one of the purveyors of choice in all the towns and cities large enough---their version of a supermarket, containing quite a few other types of items, as do our own. It’s the mesh-bag-with-carrot-tops type of grocery, though they also offer 400 cheeses and more types of wine, but many of the customers emerged with the green plastic shopping bags imprinted with the store’s name in the most refined script.

I watched the crowds approach, go up the two steps into the widewide door, and my eye was caught by a pair of perfectly British ladies clad in skirts and tucked-in blouses and cardigans, their stockinged feet in entirely sensible shoes and their shopping bags hanging neatly on their arms. One came toward the store doors smiling, looking upward at someone standing out of my view. Her fresh-shined face with its unrestrained eyebrows, and the ever-so-small smudge of lipstick parted over her slightly-protruding teeth just gleamed with gladness to meet the unseen person.

She was a perfect complement to her companion, a twin in wide glasses and square-cropped hair---two from-the-pages denizens of St. Mary Mead of any era, both looking up pleasantly at the still-out-of-sight person perhaps a foot above them. First Lady reached the door, stood at the foot of the steps and reached upward, and since both of the ladies right in front of me were of a certain age, I assumed that someone upon the top step had reached down to assist her up.

She kept smiling and spoke to the unseen one, then helped an even-more-delicate and aged dear soul to descend the steps, as she slowly and carefully put one laced-oxford foot down beside the other. That dearie was smiling in return, and when she was safely deposited on the sidewalk, beamed back, “I’m ev-va so grateful deahr,” and made her way down the sidewalk with her own mesh bag containing two oranges and a cauliflower. The lack of further conversation led me to believe that they had not met before.

It was just a tiny moment, but forever cast in amber for me---a memory of a time and place which may soon be as past as the tumbled wall which repelled the hordes, and now is hearth and home. Just that beaming smile, the pleasure on her face in meeting a friend, or perhaps just someone who needed her at a time when her own need was to BE needed. I’ll always remember her cheery little uplook-smile with the little teeth just peeping out, and the small moment of gratitude expressed by the recipient. I wish them both well, and may they feel a warmth from a stranger’s memory and impression of their kindness and lovely manners.

THE LION KING

2011-10-24T09:04:00.005-04:00

Last weekend, we took Sweetpea to see The Lion King, and I'd never seen it. Sitting there in the 3-D glasses like Fifties Folks, eating ten-dollar popcorn---we were UPTOWN! (Plus, it took us the third time's charm to GET there---first week, Chris had to cancel for a service call, second one, we stopped to kill time before the movie at a lovely playground and locked the keys in the trunk).

I LOVED it, for the pictures and all the little colorful moments just flying out into your face---took me back to my childhood's deepest COVET---a Viewmaster. Despite the different characters and setting, it was kinda like being right inside "Cinderella" again.

You put in the little round disc with the dark shiny panes, put your eyes up to that magical machine, and were transported into the most enchanting realms of storybook characters and fairytale tales. And they STOOD OUT. They had depth and color and a shine past understanding, right there in the two inches before your eyes---like being inside a big sugar Easter Egg. Faberge’s exquisite jeweled craftings for the czar had no such appeal and beauty as those bright vignettes inside that hunk of black plastic.

The glasses, contrary to those punch-out cardboard Fifties models with one green lens and one red, were big ole Buddy Holly models, a pale gray tint, and whatever magical polarization or prescription or pane, they were absolutely wonderful. The creatures and characters took life, flying out of the screen, swooping out two rows ahead of you, and I imagine there was some ducking and flinching going on, but I was too enraptured to notice.

Do not use these in place of sunglasses, read the little blurb on the outside of the packet---which also admonished us to return them when the movie was over, but after we’d paid thirty dollars for two seniors and one four-year-old (before popcorn), we just walked right out with all three pairs.

Maybe we’ll wear them again someday, just to look kewl.

MANY SHADES

2011-10-21T16:29:00.001-04:00

Thank you, Beverly, for hosting this delightful place called

Pink Saturday!

Tonight's the night to bring in all the pots from from the yard and patio, to spend the long cold times inside. This little girl is especially precious, for she was a Mothers' Day gift from Sweetpea and her Mama and Daddy, and has bloomed her little heart out all Summer.

We've been battening down and storing up, and these cold nights are just perfect for the afternoon-long simmer of a pot of pinto beans and ham, filling the house with their scrumptious scent, til it's time to sit down together to warm bowls with crusty cornbread.

I'm calling this "cold weather" though it's 52 right now, and apt to drop another fifty degrees and more before Winter surrenders again to Spring.

Now is the kind of weather I've saved the jelly-and-preserves making for, with the redolence of sweet fruit filling the house. The picture doesn't do this batch justice---this was a shimmery rosy potful, one of those BIGGGG papayas, about a five-pounder, cut into cubes and sugared overnight, then cooked off with a little lemon zest and vanilla. Lovely with a wedge of Cheddar, and elegant with all the wonderful cheeses Caro chooses for the Cheese Plate on our Dinner Nights together.

And, of course, a cold day is always warmed by a lovely corned beef brisket simmering on the stove, and made perfect by the tiny potatoes and carrots and wedges of cabbage cooked gently during the last hour.

We're settling in to enjoy all the wonderful cool-and-cold weather cooking and activities, til Spring rolls round again.

BEIGNETS AND COFFEE

2011-10-20T11:49:00.001-04:00

Today's photo is courtesy of our friends Lil and Ben, whose meanderings across the country are some of my favorite adventures. On the way to their Winter home in Texas, they stayed a few days in New Orleans, and hit one of the HIGH spots. On this raw, cold, 40 degrees day, wouldn't a couple of these crispy, sweet fried beignets be just scrumptious right now?

And the coffee, as always---hot and scalding and perfect---rich with the flavor of centuries.

I can just smell that hot-fried-sugar scent of Cafe du Monde, and feel that scritch-step of the sticky floors. I've always wondered: It's open 24 hours----when DO they mop? And who cares?

Moire non re: our own beignet traditions

GLIMPSES

2011-10-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

THE TREE in the back yard is showing great swaths of blue between all those laden limbs, and the countless bags of leaves stand like sentries against the potting shed, awaiting tomorrow's wheezy truck.

The arbor is shaggy with overgrowth, and is slow to give up any of it---still jungly green, shady and with a chill deeper than any part of the yard. The Summer Shade of the place is welcome and langourous, but the scant sun-peeps through this Autumn overhang leave it cold and not as inviting. The floor is covered in brown, with very little of the outside golds and oranges making their way into the sanctum, and the chimes scarcely sing. Even the wooden chairs have darkened, and the cheery yellow of the brick floor is subdued beneath the drifts.

But there are lovely vistas to be had---whole palettes of warmth and glow. You could just sip these scenes like hot cider.

And this one is not upside down, but a peep from beneath TREE, into the sapphire sky---nowhere else have I seen this shade of blue. Today is cloudy and damp, but pretty days are coming again---October never fails to surprise.

LUCK LEAVES

2011-10-15T12:45:00.003-04:00

Our back-door Luck Bush is doing her ruby-red thing right now, turning in her Summer-green gown for a red-velvety number which could grace any number of Fall parties---especially the one being thrown all over the neighborhood about now.

Luck Bush was one of the few plants, other than a mighty stand of trees, which came with the house---the former owners did not care for ornament of any kind---indeed, I marveled that the real estate preparers had made the house so spic and span, with not even ONE nail-hole in the walls. And then I found that the lady of the house did not like ANYTHING on walls or tabletops---such mess made her nervous, even when she came to our open house after we bought it and put up things and put out things (a fraction of what holds sway today, with our cluttery rooms and well-filled walls and all our propensities for just setting things DOWN and leaving them there---a glimpse of the NOW would probably send her into a swoon).

But when I started digging in the bare (especially for end of Summer) flowerbeds, about an inch under the soil, I found miles of heavy black netty stuff, guaranteed to discourage and destroy any plant life trying to push through---we’re still trying to rip it all out, or at least make holes to accommodate the hostas and other plants.

But the Luck Bush was a good-sized something-or-other, prized by her rarity in this sparse yard. She triumphed by sheer will, I think, for her limbs seem to grow lusher and longer overnight, and have to be pruned mercilessly during the season, to avoid her grabbing at passersby and scratching car varnish.

Bush turns reddish in Fall, and was seized upon as a passable “flower” by our Gracie when she was very small and living with us for so long. Whenever anyone, family or guest, headed for a vehicle to leave, she’d run for the bush, grabbing a leaf and handing it in through the window. And now Chris still has an ever-crisping pile of little Luck Leaves wisping their way into crumbs in the console and ashtray, for Sweetpea took up the torch and keeps him supplied with one per exit, every day that she’s here. And we hand her one, as she leaves us in the afternoon.

The sitting-room windows are shaded in green in Spring and Summer, hazing into a rosy glow as the Autumn changes come. The changing shade and the carrying on of a sweet little tradition---handing out Good Luck and Traveling Grace in the form of greenery or reddery from grubby little hands---those are family things, our own things, which make this Home. And every time a Luck Leaf goes into a departing hand, my heart goes with it.

GRAND-DAMS

2011-10-12T12:55:00.002-04:00

To the land of moorland, lochs and mountains, where the old gods ride the winds . . .

I’ve dreamt of Scotland all my life, and the seeing of it enforced my respect and admiration for those ancestors of mine---especially those GrandDams in their tiny crofts or burrows or caves, keeping their own nests in any way they could.

We’d traveled at last to the Highlands, and the mountains were beyond imagining. They were a dullrust green---the blacky-green of heather before the flowers bloom, though in season, the lavender and purple of the hillsides is one of the wonders of the world. Just a little purple peeped out now and again, and it seemed to be too elusive to capture with my camera.

Think again of the GrandMothers, stretching back to Beyond, looking every day for a glimpse of promise, in their sere, drab lives. The color was so much of a non-color, like when you were little and decided to try every crayola in your box of 16---and you scribbled and scribbled, shade after shade, all in one spot on your paper. The blackgreenpurplenesses of those towering hills was just beyond anything I had imagined, and just exactly RIGHT.

There were swoops of stone walls ranging up and down the hills, making their own little latitudes and longitudes, marking out boundaries from who knows what time in history. And I marveled at the energy and just plain old WORK it took to haul those things, clear from the Hadrian spot, demolishing that great tribute to Roman accomplishment with bare hands and sheer muscle.

The walls and stone buildings seem to sprout on the slopes, but STILL---to make those even lines, those even heights, and anchor them firmly on that sloping ground---I’m still boggling.

Every so often, the ghost of a stone dwelling would appear, its parts tumbled about, and just a suggestion of the four walls or a sheepfold, a barnish building or tiny croft. How long ago, and who, and how did they LIVE---the smell of winter-long wool and animals and humans and smoky, peevish fires for the mutton and turnips which must have comprised almost every meal. The wooly clothing and the itch of it against bare skin, and the hands and face blistering from the cold, cracking and bleeding against the dirtywhite of the sheep as they were fed and tended and sheared.

I think often of the lives of my forebearesses in that man’s country where they were up early and late working in all weathers, scavenging food for their families, fighting beside their husbands and sons, grieving the many little ones who didn’t live out their first year. How friend-hungry they must have been, these isolated women, whose own daughters were the only female faces they saw for years on end, and whose eyes beheld little of beauty beyond those small faces and the flowers on those haunting hills.

They never felt the smooth of a sheet on a mattress, or the soft of a cream on their rough-chapped skin; they never held a book or heard Mozart; they never looked out a glass-covered window. They lived and died in an aloneness and a servitude to sorrow we can only imagine. They must have had the hearts of lions, these Highland females, to give so much, to endure so much, and to receive only the sight of these lonely mountains and the rain and wind and fog.

The centuries of deprivation and hunger and cold, the waiting for the men’s return from battle, the dread of loss, of starvation, of eking out that last scatter of oats into a meager bowl for their families. That sharp, chilling wind and the sparse landscape, with nothing between them and theirs but their own courage and work. How they must have waited and wept, with hope fleeting as life, with only their grit and determination between them and despair.

Out of all of my family, I think deepest of those Grand-Dams of mine, those centuries-back female ancestors, whose lives were grim and sere---I could see them woad-smeared and wielding weapons beside their menfolk, as easily as I could imagine their tending their smoky fires and nursing babies too soon gone.

I am OF that place---that unimaginably beautiful, forbidding, haunting place, and its colors color the AM of me. I’ll still always dream of it, and of them---sometimes I dream they laughed. I PRAY they did.

FALLING

2011-10-10T22:54:00.002-04:00

I think I may have missed saying HAPPY OCTOBER! this time. I hope you all crisp-apple days, with leaves for looking and foot-swishing, lots of beautiful Fall goodies at your farmstands, some cool nights for hometown football, weenie-roasts and getting out the sweaters, and lovely, sunny days for just getting out and enjoying.

It's FALL, Y'all!!

NEWSPAPER BOY

2011-10-08T16:13:00.000-04:00

A hard-won comment in the “newspaper” post (hard-won because it’s been like Blue Heck trying to comment here or anywhere else, lately. Most days I cannot even answer the nice people who chime in with memories and other nice things to say) spoke of my friend Mike’s own experience as a Paper-Boy.

I’ll let him tell it in his own words (in italics):

GRIT !!! I used to read about this tremendous money maker in the backs of comic books as a kid, along with the seed pack business and joke magic cards for sale. I used to ask my parents if I could start selling GRIT and they'd always dismiss me. ("why NOT??? It says earn money for college! Don't you want me to go to college?" answer: "It's not a real paper, Mike, it's just junk to take your money.") Today is the first day in my life I have heard of a soul that has actually laid eyes on a hard copy of that paper.

There was a hefty commission:

And prizes for the enterprising:

Once I came of suitable age (12 or 13) I started delivering the "real" paper on my bike. The now-defunct Richmond News-Leader. The RNL was one fo two survivors of a newspaper Darwin-fest in the 40's, when there were two mornings, the Times and the Dispatch, and two afternoons, the News and the Daily Leader. The local news-baron Bryan family owned the News and the Dispatch, gobbled up the competition, merged the circulation and the names, and cornered the news market. For a time they owned almost all the TV and radio in the area as well until the feds stepped in on that. Anyway, unless I wanted to get up at 4 AM weekdays and 3 AM Sundays, the News Leader was the only game in town.

At over 160 customers, I had the largest afternoon route in

Virginia. After paying for the papers, I brought home a hefty (for a 13 year old) $40-50 a month. I'd love to say I saved all that money for college, or even my first car. But the reality is it all went for candy and pepsis and huge dill pickles out of a countertop pickle jar during the delivery, and for endless comic books, and all too soon for cigarettes. Ah, youth.

Yes, AHHHH, Youth. The enterprising, get-up-early, hit the doorstep every time youth. And so are titans born.

READING THE PAPER

2011-10-06T12:19:00.004-04:00

I read a daily paper until several years ago. I'd always lived in a house where THE MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL hit the lawn while the dew was still on the grass, and the plop of the PRESS SCIMITAR landed on the doorstep about four. Breakfast rustlings whilst the bacon fried, the scent of the fresh-opened newsprint as much a part of that warm kitchen as the stove. Snippets broadcast by Daddy as he sat with his glasses on his nose, seeing if the world was still out there.

The COMMERCIAL APPEAL was, and is, the Memphis mainstay in the news area:

And the afternoon PRESS---a little different, somehow, like the backdoor neighbor, as opposed to a lady in a hat come-a'calling. The PRESS had odd comics and lots of puzzles and a homey feel to it. It was the one folks settled in with in that magical hour when chores were done, and it wasn't quite time to start supper yet.

We even “took the GRIT” from a succession of grimy little boys on bicycles on Saturday afternoons---now THAT was an interesting paper.

If you could get past all the black-and-white drab of the front pages, the rest was a treasure-trove of puzzles and comics and countless pages of stuff-to-send-away-for and business opportunities in Rosebud Salve

and all sorts of noisemakers, magic tricks, x-ray glasses, and fool-your-friends items for the younger set.

So, when we arrived here twenty years ago, I chose the afternoon edition, liking the nice man who threw the paper, and even came collecting, just like the hometown carriers. It was called the NEWS---a quiet little informative, interesting paper, as opposed to THE STAR---the morning-bright edition. To settle in for a hour while supper cooked was just the nicest thing, reminiscent of so many of my own relatives in their own quiet lives. Sitting in the little low rocker while good scents of supper filled the house---it was a lazy form of taking up knitting or darning, somehow, in the succession of our family history---reading the paper.

The NEWS dwindled away, ceased to print, and as our life-pace quickened a bit, with family moving here, and grandchildren being added, the great piles of orange-wrapped, unread STARS in the store-room grew, like a haystack in the Fall. The interest was just not there, for me, in these days of forty news channels and internet.

So, no. I don't read a daily paper, unless you count peering through the cloudy windows of dispenser-stands as we walk past to the Sunshine Kitchen or IHOP.

But the charm of the thing is imprinted, like one of those moments from a movie in which you’re in the picture, and assume that you will have that life, live in that light, experience those calm, cricket afternoons on the porch with a fresh-pressed Press in your hands, the all-around sun peeping through the wisteria, the creak of the old white glider and the soft swish of the lawn sprinkler keeping company with the gentle rustle of the page-turns.

I can see the relaxing of it---Uncle Jake settling into his flocked-maroon platform rocker, those long lanky legs knee-looped and easy, with each section of the paper read, dropped onto the carpet beside the chair, and the smoking stand slowly filling with Camel butts and the shreds off a TUMS roll.

Another older man, husband of the dear woman who came each day to see to my children while I went to work---John sat in the same posture at his own kitchen table, a mere twenty miles and a universe away from that prosperous white business owner. The shine of John’s thin dark face matched the gleam of his steel-rimmed glasses, as he totally lost himself in the news of the day---a soft snap of chewing gum and turn of a page the only signs of movement. I can remember a gentle envy of this man who had so little---a coveting of the absolute immersion in something other than the scurry of getting home and getting supper on, and homework and laundry and family. He was reading the paper, concentrating through those thick spectacles, lips sounding an occasional word, taking it all in, and that was enough for that moment.

I think they should ALL be Afternoon Papers. Let us get up, accomplish some things in our days, and THEN Choose the News, if we’re inclined. Most things are easier to face as the day winds down, I think, and the world needs lots of cushioning, right now.

BARYSHNIKOV

2011-10-04T11:20:00.003-04:00

When anyone talks about sports, I know enough about the three Southern Big ‘uns---Football, Basketball, and Baseball---just from high school and college games, to sound less-dumb-than-I-am, and WAY more enthusiastic.

. . . and when the coin of exchange in our society is sports statistics, and “How ‘bout them Colts?” serves as introduction, welcome, complaint, ice-breaker and sometime pick-up line, well---I just got left out. Neither Chris nor I enjoy watching sports on TV. Turning on a game would be as foreign to us as our walking into sports bar and changing the channel to a performance of "Tosca" or "Giselle." Everybody likes different things.

But the other day, a little blog poll (almost exclusively female readers---at least the commenters are, for everybody always addresses, “Ladies, or girls, or sisters and Gary.”) asked “Who is your favorite athlete?” and I responded as I always do: Baryshnikov. I wrote it in immediately, and on reading the comments, (mostly answered "don't have one,") I was pleasantly surprised to find him mentioned several more times---the only name repeated.

His physical training and athleticism and absolute control of every single muscle is simply astounding, and I’ve not found an equal in any sport---professional, Olympic, or ANY.

If you’d like to see a bit of his artistry, one of my favorite movies is “White Nights,” with him and the Divine Hines. And my favorite scene (along with the dance-off---“challenge” I think they called it) is a solo, with VERY deep, dark Russian music. But the dancing---oh, the dancing.

Backstory of White Nights: He took asylum in the USA years ago, a tragic accident caused his return, and he's facing the woman he loves, who has been persecuted by the government for all these years, because of his defection.

Talk about On Your Toes---this is the Nth degree.

And then there's also Grace beyond Gravity.

HELLO! HELLOOOOO! hello?

2011-10-03T08:40:00.000-04:00

It's a lovely October day here, cozied up by the pleasant company, all in sweats and warm shirts, and the scent of coffee singing through the house.   There was even a little pot of water with a drop of vanilla simmering on the stove when I woke, "to warm the house."

The 39 degrees on my thermo says we'll have to move the utility room around a bit today, unloading the big shelf of holiday dishes and casseroles and trays, in order to reach the furnace workin's and light it.   'Tis time.

I do want to ask if anyone's having trouble commenting lately---I've had several e-mails that readers just lost their comments into the ether of the net, and I have lost quite a few myself.    I write a cheery little note, and when I click "send"---they get SENT all right, flittering off into that File 13 in the sky, and nobody can know how much I enjoyed their postings.   It's like throwin' a rock down a well, and no splash.

The comments have been very sparse, of late, and since my own have been Return To Sender, or worse, I wish that any of you having trouble would send a quick e-mail---address is in my profile---and let me know.  I SURE AM---can't even answer the nice folks who comment on HERE.   Isn't THAT a note---when your OWN SITE won't let you in!

And if that's my only GRUMP today, things must be going OK.    Hope all's right with your world!

rachel---as usual, wandering in the wilderness

COBWEB DAYS

2011-10-01T16:09:00.002-04:00

Could there be a game called breeze boarding? It would be played by spiders, I think, on those rare, special days of the year, when those gossamer parachutes take flight and they float to new grounds to make a new home.

I’ve always thought of those as ‘cobweb days,’ for it’s as if every spinner in the world has been working all night, to fly those impossibly-long strands from the sky, floating straight and true, to new territory. It’s possibly a southern phenomenon, for I’ve never seen it here.

I’ll stroll outside, with just the first nip in the air and the sky that depthless blue, and something will kindle a “look up” instinct. A scan of the sky will reveal only more sky, blue and true to the far reaches of the world.

But there HAVE been days . . . days when a little walk outside, a small chore in the yard, a drive through the countryside, will provide a show seldom seen, and a display unfathomable to the mere mind. A teensy tickle on a shoulder, a brush across the cheek, and you’ll look up far as there is, and as far as light, stretch the strands. There will be the thinnest silk threads, suspended vertically as high as you can see, floating silently from nowhere to wherever they’re headed.

I remember one such day---the Christmas Eve we had just moved into our new house, and I was outside, just peeking from beneath the patio where I was doing some little task. Suddenly across the gap between my eyes and the trees across the drive moved a series of silvery lines, like thinner-than-hair platinum wire. They weren’t THIN top to bottom, for every so often up the great length of them, I could spy a tiny fluff of cottony stuff, riding the winds as high as I could see.

I walked out and looked up, and the sky was filled with the silver and white, slowly floating with whatever breezes blew them. Countless flimsy lines brushed my shirt, my face, became stranded in my hair like thin-spun cotton candy. And it went on for hours, this strange display,with the odd and beautiful threads just flying past, gently making their way onward, toward the West.

We watched that show until our necks ached and our eyes blurred from the blue brightness, and I’ve never forgotten. I’ll be thinking of something else, as I stroll out to the car, or to the herb-bed, and suddenly, a brush of breeze or a floating leaf will touch or move past, and I’ll look up, hoping for another such performance.

They’re the stuff of THREADFALL, of Mithrail, of Rumplestiltskin’s spindles, and are one of the most magical mysteries. I’m sure I’ve missed thousands, inside or unheeding as the days go by, and I’d like to see just one more of those---spiderwebs or cottonwood fluff or milkweed puffs, or whatever stuff-of-dreams magic that is

HATTATT

2011-09-29T23:28:00.000-04:00

Y'all know I always enjoy sharing a new discovery, and I've recently been absolutely immersed in the loveliest blog: HATTATT They just appeared one day, having joined us at LAWN TEA, and when I went to say Thank You---I was captivated.

The photos of their travels and their interests and gardens and sightseeing---Oh, My. And you KNOW how I am about WORDS------theirs are absolutely mesmerizing. They share their time between England and their other home in Budapest, and I've just been wrapped up in their touring and entertaining and all the rest And I marvel that somehow, they manage to answer EVERY ONE of their hundreds of comments, and look in here, quite often.

I've been meaning to mention them, and today, the words were just so absolutely breath-taking, I could not resist---reminiscent a bit of du Maurier, or perhaps Forster, and painted such a vivid (albeit bleakly heart-touching) picture that I hope you'll look in.

Above is blog address, and the post is entitled "A Nightingale Sang," and it's WELL worth going to see.

rachel

IT DOESN'T NEED US

2011-09-28T12:28:00.001-04:00

Just yesterday, I was mentioning to my friend Keetha that it's often surprising how well the world gets along without our constant attention. She'd been on a long hike to some secluded waterfalls, and the hidden scenery, there for the taking, but requiring a good-sized effort, was a lovely reward.

In my usual side-tracked fashion, I thought of early-morning airports when I saw those pictures she took on the trail. When I take a before-daylight flight, I am always astonished that so much of the world is out there, busy and cheerful and going places, and WOULD be, even without my presence.. They bustle on, even on the 364 other days when I'm still stumbling for the percolator.

Those waterfalls and bluffs and beautiful secluded places reachable only by steep paths would be right there, have been, will be, without witness or hearer. What a treat to be able to share in something so timeless and primal. And the micro-universes going on in our own backyards are equally stunning, equally awesome, doing their own thing for eons without contribution from any being.

The honeysuckle trees of Spring have become the bright berry-bearers of Fall:

Last year, we picked a few of the little berries for garnishing a mud pie or two, but this time---grander things were in store: We were picking great droves of the darling little glowing BBs for making a cake for Sarah, who has been much in conversation lately. I don't know if she's real, but Sweetpea speaks of her often, and she's real enough for some studious work. We stood and picked, stood and picked, and finally I handed her a little stem.

(And lest anyone think we're playing around with dangerous plants of any kind---it's hard for me to believe that the same stems which yielded the honeysuckle from which we greedily sucked the nectar back in the Spring to no ill effect, would have turned into some sort of toxic fruit, luring us in with its glowing beauty). Besides, the birdie-blessings on the lawn chairs and patio plants attest that the berries ARE, indeed, edible, though we would not dream of it.

She sat on the warm asphalt with the genes of a thousand countrywomen in her knowing. Sit and pluck, sit and shell, sit and peel---save the standing for something you HAVE to.

I noticed the lengthening of the shadows as the air grew chiller; we called her for a photo. She kept to her work, not budging except to ask for another stem of berries, so we went to her. She's WAY short in the pictures, for she just would not shirk her duty long enough to stand up.

We discovered other things going on without us all around the yard---the tomato vines are heavy with what we hope will ripen before frost, but we'll keep watch. This beauty hiding in the Weatherbush would fry up just LOVELY about now.

I always love seeing things through a child's eyes, fresh and new and full of hope. And it's still rewarding past words to stumble upon them, through my own.

CHEESE, PLEASE!

2011-09-27T12:29:00.002-04:00

Monday nights have become Cheese Plate nights, due to Caro’s lovely choosing of several nice cheeses for the last course of our dinner. She’s always kept several really special ones in her fridge, or under the little bell, for a tiny bit of treat with some of her WW meals.

I was totally convinced that I DIDN’T LIKE Bleu Cheese. It looked odd, it really didn’t smell pleasant, and since my my earlier experiences with it were of unexpected chunky globs in not-really-tasty salad dressings, or the unpleasant whoosh of air when a lid was opened on the box, I held firm.

Until one night a couple of months ago, she brought down several cheeses and cut us each a small bit of each onto pretty plates with a dab of our OWN just-made fig preserves and some dried fruits. I took the little knife provided with my plate, sampled them all-but-one, and heartily approved.

Then, I experimentally cut the tiniest sliver from the TOP of the little wedge of bleu, avoiding the small flowerings of mold beneath---admiring their beautiful configurations, like millefiori in clay, but still a bit apprehensive about all the reasons I’d collected over the years NOT to like the cheese.

And it was simply divine. Salty and rich and firm for a moment, then melty and soft and (dare I use the overused unctuously?) rich. So now I’m hooked---I crave a taste of the Gorgonzola marvel every now and then, and will go up and unsnap the Tup for a teensy taste.

Last night was cheese night, and after the char siu chicken, rosy and delicate as peach-cheeks, and gently perfumed with five-spice, the lo mein and the stir-fried cabbage, we had cheese, prettily arranged, and served with the marvelous Cherry Chutney which had been simmering away, sending its gentle fragrance of big maroon cherries and vinegar and Autumn sweetness through the house all afternoon.

From One O’clock:

Belletoile Triple Crème Brie

Morbier with ashes between layers

Dried date

Caro’s just-made Cherry Chutney

Dried Fig

Port Salut

Gorgonzola

Laudel Double Crème Brie

Center is Fontina

And a sweet little chapeau of Champagne Grapes

Naturally, he caught me wiping a drop of cherry sauce from the plate edge.

RAIN REIGNS

2011-09-26T10:38:00.002-04:00

photo:   Planet 99---Chicago

We had quite a lovely evening, with lots of togetherness, shouts of OPA! to welcome the flaming cheese, and great plates and platters of wonderful moussaka and spanakopita and olives and lamb, with candles in the baklava.

Sweetpea came home with us to spend the night, and we've just now had breakfast.     We'll probably be hibernating a bit upstairs today, for the outside atmosphere is still WET.    We're right at that brown-leaves-on-the-ground, too much rain stage, with the lush greens of Summer fading, and not yet into the glories of October colors.

Everything on the patio is plastered with damp clumps of limp leaves, and we're gonna occupy ourselves with Dragon Tales, Little Golden Books, and maybe baking one of those lovely CARROT CAKES with cream-cheese frosting.    That should perk up our spirits AND the ambience of the house.

Perhaps today should be the get-out-our-own-leaves for hanging and festooning, and we'll bring a breath of clear, golden Fall in, in spite of its reluctance to arrive.

Happy Monday, Everybody!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
PS AT 12.:30---We've been out for a long walk in this lovely SUNSHINE!!!   I must have lied about the drab skies, for we went out into golden rays and 60 degrees, and when we returned, some debris on the front stoop led us around to get the broom.

Which led on into great swoops and sweeps of the front eaves, the siding, the forgotten spider-lairs and hoblets' nests, THEN segued into another trip for the shears, to mow down all the expired, languishing dried stems of Queen Anne's lace.

Is it too early to prune roses?   I just did---probably six plants, whose long tentacles reached up from the great forest of past beauty. Just one little pulling of a coupla weeds (out of multitudes) in the beds led to what looks like a pile of new-mown hay lying in the front yard. (Separating the thorny stuff from the smooth stuff is one of the most important steps, when you're gonna grab at it).

In for a thorough hand-and-forearm wash with Dawn, just in case there was a bad plant in there, and we're just BEING for a moment.  That's a thing of itself, and also important.

BIRTHDAY WISHES!!

2011-09-25T19:24:00.001-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR CARO!!!

I think you’d love a trip to an Asian Market today, with a side-step into Penzey’s and then a bookstore or two. We’ll head home early, for we’re meeting several of your favorite people for dinner:

The elegant, genteel, well-spoken Miss Jane:

The gentle, kind good neighbor from Mitford, Miss Jan:

And that quirky, funny super-smart Miss Charlaine:

That should make for meaningful, interesting, hilarious dinner conversation.

And then we're all invited out to wind down the evening at a really fun, interesting place:

Hope you like our plans!!

Love,

Mama

HEART CHILDREN

2011-09-24T16:04:00.004-04:00

One of the brightest spots in the wedding weekend had nothing to do with bride and groom, though they WERE the center of everything and certainly provided their own share of BRIGHT, with their sweet personalities and their dear whimsical touches (especially a FIRST DANCE that warrants them a place on DWTS, SYTYCD, or Broadway, take your pick---of that, moiré non).

My own immersion in Grandma Heaven began on Friday, when our DDIL and our littlest drove over to spend the afternoon with us. We’d been out and about in all that sunshine, checking out light levels for the photos, just enjoying the beautiful of the wedding site, and had come back to the hotel to meet them. She appeared in the peep-hole, and as I opened the door, there stood this TINY little fellow, who took one look, turned, and dashed back down the long hall. After all, he hadn’t seen me in months, and only when his Ganner stepped out, did he make a similar dash for him.

After a few moments of very quiet play with Mama’s keys, handing them around, did he just naturally make his way into my lap, and then we were OFFFF. Back to the big wedding hall, to do lots of girl-stuff, whilst I chased after and loved that quicksilver little boy. His way with door-handles and drawer-pulls is something to see, and I’ve never SEEN anybody under twenty pounds go that FAST.

Then, at the Friday-night dinner party, the rest of the GA clan arrived---Gracie, Kit and Cal, making their way through the buffet crowd for big hugs, and you know, the only moment apart in the whole 36 hours until we all parted ways on Sunday, was the time it took for them to go get into their wedding clothes and ride to the ceremony with their parents.

We were TOGETHER---playing and crafting and showers and baths and talking and snuggling before bed, with the girls on the pull-out in our suite, and Cal (first time sleepover actually in our ROOM) on the air-mattress we’d brought. Somehow our room had a dozen downy white pillows, and we made fairy nest and dragon-lair of all the beds. Bedtime, of course, entailed the sharing of ONE icy Dr. Pepper, sparkled over small cups of ice, and the big cigar-pretzels we always bring.

We’d taken fruit and milk and all the coffee set-up for our room, though they had a nice layout in the little kitchen. Everybody had a bath, got into jammies, and even Chris settled into his bed early after such a sparkling day. They all got settled with all the lamps off save the one by my bed (lampshade dressed as is traditional, in a spiffy red T-shirt, leaving just enough rosy glow for me to read a bit later).

Kit requested “The Princess and the Pea” and so I sat over in their “room” in the dim light, telling the uncomplicated little story I first read in my own Little Golden Books, embellishing and soothing, and by the time the 12^th princess came to the castle to audition, climbing that golden ladder, up the pearly steps to the top of those twenty mattresses beneath the sky-blue canopy, Little Cal was sound asleep (he who his Mama said would NOT stay in bed, and to count on a romping bedtime), and I could hear the gentle soothe of Chris’ sleeping, as well.

The girls stayed awake til the end, then Kit settled grinning that sleep-smile into her pillows, and Gracie read for a little bit, under her own soft-draped lamp.

I cannot tell you how that feels, that enthusiastic welcome and that settling into the old, comfortable routines as if we saw each other every weekend---the easy, unfailing bond with these Heart-Children is one of the loveliest parts of my life. There’s never a YOURS, no MINE---just OURS---with no thought that it might be any other way. (And the call from DD this week, that Cal keeps nagging her to take him back to the hotel where we live--that’s just lagniappe).

And we slept, in that quiet, brimful room, resting til the percolator sent the fragrant signal to rise for the WEDDING festivities. Moire non of our wonderful weekend.

WAYS TO SAY "I LOVE YOU"

2011-09-23T09:38:00.000-04:00

There are lots of ways to say "I Love You."   This is one of the everyday ones---Every Day.    Chris spends an early hour on Sunday mornings, while I snuggle in for just a little more sleep, in getting together our medicines and vitamins for the week.

He gets out all the little prescription bottles, along with the great assortment of vitamin-and-supplement containers, and sets up a little assembly line on the battered old freezer---one of our very first acquisitions when we moved here twenty years ago.

We first began keeping our days' supplies, handy for setting beside our plates at breakfast and supper, in little black film cannisters---but over the years, the supply dwindled, and technology banished the small plastic cylinders to history.

Then he settled on using the same-size snap-top ones from his test-strips, and they worked just fine.   And THEN---one day at a Flea Market (or Gun Show---probably that, as improbable as kitchenware at such a meeting might seem) he found these cute little Tupperwares, bright and tight and easy to find.   And that last attribute is right up there in their glories, for we misplace one every couple of days, and orange IS easier to spot than gray, when you're scrambling under a chair or in a dark corner, which is where they inevitably escape to, or we've set them down amongst books and bags, where they blend in like ET in the toy-closet.

He sets out all the big bottles and jars, counting out and dropping in all the "real" meds first, so as to keep proper count and be able to see that they're all there.    Then a big handful of each vitamin, one in each gaping little mouth, til all the containers are filled.   The pink marker-circles on the numbered lids are mine, for all my day's worth fit into one, and his have a pale green mark, for both morning and night.

We HAVE graduated from those huge old horsepills on top to the tiny red jewels of Krill Oil, which fill your mouth with the lightest essence of vanilla as they go down.

And if this is too much boring information for one day---it's just one of the ways he richer and poorers, in sickness and in healths.   The tiny orange box at my place at the table says "I love you," as loudly and clearly as a dozen roses, every day.

BOILED PEANUTS

2011-09-21T09:58:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy-but-not-much-accomplished time since we returned from the wedding, and my brain is just a big ole fuzzy spot where my putting-together-words section used to be. I hope to get it cranked up and running again sometime, or at least find the spot where it IS, but for now, all I have to offer is one of those lick and a promise memories of a little moment, repeated every time we travel South.

When we were in the roadside stand in GA last week, Chris asked the yearly question: "Do you have any GREEN peanuts?" Green ones are pulled up, and grow actually ON the roots, beneath the ground. They're actually a legume, not a NUT, and I always find myself wanting to mutter that as Leg---yooooom-uh, in the manner of a haughty waiter.

My memories of growing them are of the great pickup-loads of the entire plants, yanked up from the earth bringing roots and dirt, and laid all over the front porch. We'd take them stem by stem, pulling off the little nodules for tossing into tubs for washing, and throwing the plants back into the truck-bed for plowing back into the land. It's fun, like digging potatoes and looking for that next lovely little nugget, only they come to YOU.

And we seem to be early or late, every time for the crop, settling for the dry heft of a couple of the orange-net bags. Of course, there was the usual bag of hot ones straight from the big old boiler, salty and soft, which I cracked gently on the fault-lines and handed to him on the half shell, one after another as he drove. He tipped each tiny bowl into his mouth like a little oyster and followed each dozen or so by a big swallow of ice-cold Dr. Pepper.

We have that thing down to a science now---I cover my lap and his front with paper towels, open the bag of peanuts inside the plastic market bag, and crack them one at a time, leaving half-a-shell in the laid-out outside bag. I hold the full half right at his hand, and then he flips the empty back into the open bag in my lap. Of course, I'm a salty, grubby-with-brown-juice mess halfway to my elbows, but a quick wash with a bagged washcloth and the next rest-top tend to that. It's a silly little ritual we do when we head home---every time.

He enjoys it a lot, because we’ve usually been out of the freezer ones for a while.

See? Anything I try to say comes out like being stoned to death with popcorn.

moire non, I hope.

MARGO WON!!

2011-09-18T23:34:00.002-04:00

I TOLD YOU SO!!

YOU GO, MARGO!!!

SCUPPERNONGS

2011-09-16T19:15:00.001-04:00

I didn't think to try get a photo til I had them bagged for the freezer. This is a peek down into the Ziploc.

We stopped at a wonderful little roadside market-stand on the way back from Georgia last Sunday---the bright yellow boards and the crookedy signs of "HOT BOILED PEANUTS" and "GEORGIA PEACHES" beckoned us in, and we browsed the still-hot aisles perfumed with all sorts of vegetables---the shucky snap of crisp corn, the dry rustly scent of net-bagged peanuts, the sharp, thickety sweet of the scuppernongs and musky-dines.   (I had to say it, just once).

We got pale-rosy plums, fat with sweet pulp, and two enormous sweet potatoes, big as kids' footballs (I baked one last night, and it served all four of us, sliced into soft-slumpy golden rounds and topped with butter and brown sugar).

Chris asked the yearly question: "Do you have any GREEN peanuts?"    And we seem to be early or late, every time, settling for the dry heft of a couple of the orange-net bags.    He'll put a big boiling on in the huge new stainless crockpot in Caro's kitchen one of these mornings, and they'll simmer all day, so he'll have quite a few bags for the freezer to nuke for a quick snack any time. (moire non re: that one bag I open and crack for him as he drives, every time we head home with our bounty).

I browsed the jellies and jams and relishes---almost choosing the hot pickles, the pickled okra, the moonshine jelly, just for the lark of it.   But I just made a big batch of the hotsy-totsies, there's still some okra from last year in the fridge, and neither of us is partial to 'shine, especially not to the ruination of a perfectly good Cathead biscuit.

I selected a clear green hot pepper jelly, for nibbles with crackers and cream cheese, while he hand-sacked six pounds of scuppernongs for jelly-making.    Scups are the paler, thicket-cousin of the muscadine---like lightly-bronzed grapes.   Their thick skins are gently veined with the pale, Braillish lace of a cantaloupe, and will pop right off with a squeeze, leaving the round innards intact like the famous "peeled grapes" of movie-vamp and small-town Halloween House fame.

I washed these and put them in the freezer soon as we got home, for they tend to brew their own liquor and draw every gnat between here and Memphis, if left in the bag very long.   They will be cooked off, run through Mammaw's "jelly cone" to get that tang-stronger-than-Concord into the juice.   Then the juice will be strained and cut with just a little white-grape juice for the jelly-making.

It's been in the Forties-to-Sixties here since we got home, and just the having of these familiar old Southern Scuppernongs has left the lingering fragrance of Fall in the house .

JOYFUL WEEKEND

2011-09-12T12:25:00.005-04:00

We're home, full of hugs and smiles and good memories, with the tug of Grandbabies and too-grown-up young ladies last remembered with sticker-books and Barbies, and now memory-freshened in fancy dresses, holding bouquets and standing oh, so still in their places in the Atlanta sunshine. Even the littlest, in a wee tie and vest, carrying a DAWGS football filled with petals, was a bit subdued for a few moments, and then we all just burst with joyful cheers and laughter and hugs and smiles, as our new daughter took our name and came to grace the family.

We're travel-logged with the miles, as filled with glad memories as these bursting laundry bags and suitcases standing to be emptied and put away til next time.

And so---to the work, with a happy heart and the kvell of a bright new presence to bring her charm and intelligence and beautiful sweet spirit into our son's life, and to us all. We hope to bring her as much joy in the years to come.

And moire non,

MASON-DIXONARY---MEASURES

2011-09-07T00:15:00.005-04:00

We won’t get into distances this time, like “a hoot and a holler,” and “far as Job could spit.” This will just cover a few numbers and amounts.

SOME SEVERAL: more than just several---the “some” also used to indicate severity or duration of events

FIFTY-SOME-ODD: anything from fifty-one to fifty-nine

BOOCOOS: too many to count. From beaucoup---many muches, and usually preceded by “just” to amplify

SCADS: (a number, not an amount)---lots, and usually followed by “of ‘em” and not “of it”

PINCH: whatever amount thumb and forefinger can grab and put in the pot.

SPOONCLOP: heaped-up spoon---refers to a big clump of something like mayo or butter, which would make an audible “clop” into the dish

PALM: as in "a palm of salt"---usually a measure for pickles or the spaghetti pot

TEE-NINECY BIT: just a little

TO FLOAT AN EGG: from an old pickle recipe---when you had enough salt in the water in the churn to make an egg float, it was right

SIZE OF AN EGG: usually refers to the size of a lump of butter or lard, or to the size you should make roll dough or meatballs into

HALF AN EGGSHELL FULL: Mrs. Prysock’s eggnog recipe called for six each of rum and bourbon. The year Mr. Dero brought home the two dozen Jumbo eggs was a memorable party

TEACUPFUL: you measured with the measure you HAD, and if you used the same one for the whole recipe, it usually balanced out pretty well, even in baking.

A WINEGLASS: who knows what size?

MESS: in the eye of the beholder---a mess of quail you might hold in your hands, whereas a mess of greens might fill a bushel. A GOOD mess might be a lavish amount, or a skimpy one, depending upon the speaker’s known generosity.

A Good Mess of greens from dear Mrs. White would be more than enough, whereas a “good mess” in the eye of Miss Lottie Folger might depict her grudging hand in its meager amount.

CROAKER SACK—burlap sack used to bring home a mess of frogs---like these:

And not THIS:

POKEFUL: usually a smaller sack, of brown paper, but could refer to a small parcel tied up with string

These three same as everybody's:

BUSHEL PECK BALE

A BAIT: usually refers to a big amount, AFTER it’s been eaten, and more than you should have. “I had me a bait of froglegs at Mamma ‘n’ ‘ems last night.”

WHOLE POTFUL: not necessarily foodstuffs, and not necessarily in a pot. You can have, variously, whole potfuls of money, luck or misery, to name a few.

And, as my Dad answered, were anyone ever so gauche as to inquire into his financial state, you might have:

ENOUGH MONEY TO BURN A WET DOG.

And to you all: A Yankee Dime---(A Kiss) and moiré non,

LABOR DAY, 2011

2011-09-05T00:23:00.001-04:00

+++++++++++++++HAPPY LABOR DAY+++++++++++++++

I tried to find an online picture of something representing "Work" for about an hour just now---ranging from old gloves to old boots to a hammer and nails, and no image seemed to be right, somehow. So I'll just leave the pictures to imagination, to represent any and all vocations and jobs, careers and professions.

A Thank You today to all the work-force of our country---millions strong and dedicated. Our workers have been saluted in quite a few country music songs, so here's an old favorite by Merle Haggard:

This song by John Conlee will always have a special meaning for me.

And this one by ALABAMA always touches my heart just to hear it, as does the plight of those who have lost their jobs, or are struggling in the quest for any work to keep their families and lives going.

May there soon be better times for us all.

STILL PINK

2011-09-02T11:59:00.008-04:00

We're linking with Beverly at PINK SATURDAY today!!

The weather has been lusciously lovely for the past month or so, and then a spike up yesterday and today into the 100+. We've been out on the patio all morning---a lazy breakfast counting the cereal flakes and little chocolate bits (guess whose bowl was the Total and whose the Brownie crunch?). And then the carry-out of all the tea dishes---probably fifty pieces in all, ranging from a tiny pot, cream and sugar, to actual wee cooking pots and some of my Melmac---note the little ladle and 'getti-grabber we're using for teaspoons---whatever she could cram into a big old shopping bag. She looked like a puppy dragging a blanket as she emerged from the back door with her rattly haul.

The cup on the right is mine---she's a BLUE girl, and any shade will do for her, dressed in her bedraggled, many-washed Snow White dress. Mine is Watermellinlemonilla, poured to order from the pot, while hers is always strawberry (which used to be pronounced "Strahhh-bry"---too much Angelina Ballerina, I expect).

And perhaps, with the lovely breeze and the sun not quite so grim as predicted, we'll have a little ride off down the street, while the shade is still green and the destinations waiting. I love seeing all the bikes and toys parked around the back yard.

We'll go back out in a moment, making the most of this Summer-to-beat-all, before the leaves fly and the cold days come. I can feel the deepening-down already, the lengthening of the shadows, the quickening of the dark as it settles during supper, rather than long after.

Some of the maples are golding, one of the hostas sports two huge bright-yellow leaves almost overnight, and the Fall will be welcome. But right now, we're still enjoying all the Pink, like my new double-double Rose of Sharon, dressed her lovely prom dress:

FRUIT JARS

2011-08-30T21:48:00.002-04:00

My friend Keetha, from down Winona way, is a writer of blogs, of cookbooks, of prose capturing the heat of the day, the swell of a proud heart, the tastes and feel of a wonderful Southern town/family/way of speaking and thinking and cooking. Her own blog Write Kudzu was one of the first on my sidebar when I began Lawn Tea, and it's always a treat to see it blink on at the top (kinda like the "Hot Now" sign on Krispy Kreme).

Today, she's again taking a simple, wonderful thing, and relating it to cooking, memories, family history, and the carrying-on of traditions in one of the best ways possible---doing things like a dear Grandmother did---because of love, of connection, and because it WORKS.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One way of being green:

My grandmother kept a pantry full of them: mason jars, Ball jars, mayonnaise jars. She didn’t have pickle jars, because she made them. Neither did she have jelly jars because she made jelly and jam, too. I picture her buying canning jars one time, early in her fifty-year marriage. She used the same ones over and over. Like most people her age, she was frugal. Those jars were practical, a way to store foods.

She’d be amused, I think, by how popular mason jars are now. People decorate with them, up-cycle them to use as vases and gifts. High-end home magazines show them all over the house, looking stylish and chic.

I’m right there with those decorators, in love with jars. There is something so pleasing and restful about the shape of canning jars. They give the eye a place to rest.

An old Ball jar sits on a shelf in the kitchen.

An empty jar, a brand new canning jar, with a lid, sits on my desk for no particular reason except that I like it.

I have a quilted glass jar that is filled with dirt from the site of the first house I remember living in in Shelby, Mississippi. The house was empty and falling in when I was in high school. I must have told myself a hundred times to stop and get a brick, a doorknob, something from that home. I never did. Eventually the old house was knocked down and everything taken away. The Mississippi Delta earth in a glass jar is what I have of it.

I like old jars. I like new ones. They’re simple and reusable and attractive.

They’re great for gifts of food. I was hunting up something to put a batch of toffee in that I was giving as a little “happy.” I didn’t want a Ziploc bag, or a plastic container, or even a cellophane bag. I snapped the toffee into wedges and filled a canning jar with the buttery pieces. It was easy and it looked great.

There are a couple of reused jars in my pantry filled with white beans and popping corn.

I’m drawn to old ones at thrift stores and gravitate toward boxes of new ones in the grocery store aisle next to the picking spice.

Like my grandmother, I keep empty jars in the pantry. I have pasta sauce jars, pimiento jars, jars that held marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and pickles. No mayonnaise jars; they’re all plastic now.

I like having the jars to draw from, and using them over and over. I love finding that kinship with my grandmother, my mother’s mother, who's been gone some five years now. Alzheimer’s had taken her from us ten years before that. Here something as simple as an ordinary household item keeps a connection from me to her.

KEETHA'S GUEST BLOGGING!!

2011-08-30T20:58:00.000-04:00

Stay Tuned, Y'all!

Keetha will be Guest Blogging as soon as I can get the post put up.

AFTERMATH

2011-08-28T11:07:00.001-04:00

We've heard from both sets of our VA friends, both via Kim's Blog and through our comments page, and are SO glad to hear that only minor damage and some power outages amongst the families are reported.

I'm immensely thankful that the enormity of that storm did not have all the consequences it could have, and that our Dearies have come through safely.

FIRST WIZARD OF OZ

2011-08-25T13:35:00.003-04:00

When I was six, I walked down the block, around the corner, and into the little hometown movie theater in the still-light of a Summer day. Though the grown-ups sitting on the porch after supper had lauded the movie as “real good” and “you’ll like it,” nobody seemed to want to stir from their post-supper swing-and-toothpick relaxing, so I just took my dime and marched off.

The usual newsreels, previews, cartoon time were interesting, and then when the music began, all the people and land the-same-color-as-our-old-family-pictures didn’t impress me much, for ALL my previous movies had been in black and white.

The tornado got it a bit exciting, and the house-spinning spun me into the story, and back down with the same bump that lifted the little girl from the bed.

And then---when Dorothy opened That Door---that magical, heart-stopping door into the colors and music and charming small folk halfway ‘twixt fairy and flower--it was as if my own little khaki sunsuit were transformed into pink petticoats and my drab rag-curls into shining ringlets. I was THERE.

I didn’t know WHERE, exactly, for I’d never seen color on a screen before, but it was so drinkable, so sweetly flavorful, like Mrs. White’s pink lemonade at their yearly party, I just gulped it down in great greedy mouthfuls, and anytime I’ve seen it since, I just sit down and drink it in.

I’d TIVOed it way back in May, and yesterday, with the sunshine streaming down the stairs, and us just in, hot and dusty from the yard---we got something cold to drink, a good cold washrag each for faces and arms and legs, and sat down together---her in her Snow White dress and dusty bare feet, and me in the tatty old shorts I’d just swept the patio in.

“Now watch this,” I said, “it will be kinda brown for a few minutes, then it will be BEAUTIFUL!!”

And we did watch, marveling together at HER first peek through the door. And to her, so accustomed to a finger-touch into magical Princess kingdoms and bright cheery worlds---still it was magic. After we’d cooled off a bit, she eased over into my lap, and then we stretched out onto the chair and ottoman, like ladies on a chaise. She lay down on her back on my front, head on my bosom, with her feet way over on the stool, and we watched that entire movie.

She’d turn a bit and ask a question, and or I’d murmur a comment, then she’d spin back into her mesmerized posture. I provided the gentle comfort of an arm-around as the hokey monkeys flew and those OHHH-EEE—OHHHH fellas marched, and it was just the loveliest sharing of a childhood memory I can imagine.

No phones or doorbells or delivery people interrupted us---not for one moment while we enjoyed. It was just the perfect First Watching.

The only thing that could have been added to that Perfect Moment was the knowing that she could just make her way home safely after dark, like I did.

THINKING ABOUT YOU

2011-08-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

I've just read of the earthquake centered near Richmond, and hope that all our lovies on the East Coast are safe and well. All phone circuits seem to be busy, so I'll hope to hear from them all soon.

Until I can reach you---Kim and Mike and Ben and Lil---stay safe and know we're thinking of you.

TREASURES

2011-08-21T12:05:00.000-04:00

Laura Ingalls Wilder spoke of her joy in receiving a set of books, one dull and endless season, when she was alone all day and expecting a child:

"On a day when she was particularly blue and unhappy, the neighbor to the west, a bachelor living alone, stopped as he was driving by and brought a partly filled grain sack to the house. When Laura opened the door, Mr. Sheldon stepped inside, and taking the sack by the bottom, poured the contents out on the floor. It was a paper-backed set of Waverley novels. . .

And now the four walls of the close, overheated house opened wide . . ." --The First Four Years

And though it’s certainly never dull here, and the days are quite filled-to-the-brim, I know how she felt---that bubble of excitement welling from the prospect of new horizons, new adventures, new and unexpected moments with an old friend.

A big snap-top lug of these was carted down the stairs and set ceremoniously upon the breakfast table, where I delved in like a kid on Christmas, smiling and murmuring and exclaiming at the boundless hours of reading awaiting. They belong to my friend Lil, and I’ve already stashed them on a shelf of their own, easy to hand by my favorite chair.

And did I say we made preserves? The colors were so exquisite, and I wish my photo skills were equal to the beautiful of them. I expecially love the out-of-focusness of this one, for it’s like gazing out a stained-glass window on a particularly bright Sunday, sort of hazing your eyes to drink in the colors of the glass as you listen to the message, dazzled by both at once.

Just click on the picture and sorta go cross-eyed for the full effect.

And that amazing, jewelly pink syrup, captured in the morning sun:

There are blueberry, blackberry, red and golden raspberry, all made at her house and brought as a gift, and then some of the fig preserves and preserved figs we made here.

And that’s my VERY LAST WORD about canning. And figs.

Until moiré non about our own unexpected little hour, just us three, spent on a pleasantly surprising Cheese Course.

PAXTON PEOPLE---HAVLON BRIGHT

2011-08-20T12:03:00.006-04:00

Havlon Bright always smells of Ivory Snow clothes and carries the faintest incense of cedar and pine and oak around with him like a pale, nebulous aura, for his days are spent amongst wood. He always looks as if he’s just emerged from a pile of curly shavings, with bits of sawdust and little shining spirals of planed wood clinging to his clothes, and peeping from the upturned cuffs of his jeans. The sparkle of sanding dust sometimes hazes the golden hairs of his muscular forearms, and the glint gives a brassy gleam like a bronze statue.

Those callused hands give a powerful handshake, and you can feel the work of years in their hard surface; the two little fingers, though never broken, have a slight bend which has firmed over the years into an immovable curve, so that he always looks as if he’s raising his pinky-fingers over a dainty teacup.

He wears khakis year-round, varying only sleeve-length, and in the short time of the seasons’ changes, sometimes shows the long sleeves of thermals, pushed up to his elbows like pale bellows beneath the short sleeves of his button-shirts. He would like to be a suspender-man like his Daddy, but somehow a plank or a tool or an edge of a counter seems to catch or snap into the elastic, and so he wears rather wide belts. His favorite is the nice tooled-leather one his daughter had made by an inmate in Parchman, with his initials on the back, and a hammer on one side and a slender saw on the other.

Havlon just KNOWS wood---he can walk into Laster’s Lumberyard, and aim his nose at the pine or maple, knowing almost exactly the place of its growing and the time in the cure, and can be trusted to choose and carve and carpenter anything from a gun cabinet to a whole library of shelves, to a complete kitchen, copied from a magazine and set down entire in what used to be Miss Carlisle Emerson’s bumped-out garage.

He’s known best for the beautiful hutches he builds right into people’s dining rooms, any size, any space, with shelves and drawers and carving satin-smooth as fine furniture, and always signs his work on the back, even if it means just writing his name on a board he’s about to nail on a wall.

When you Hire Havlon, you just tell him what you want, and come back to find it---he’s been a part of the town’s carpentry family all his life, and his inherited touch for woodworking is equaled by the Bright Voice---a pure clear tenor, ringing out from the Methodist choir in perfect harmony with his alto twin sister, Olivia Dee.

They’ve been singing together since they were small, and though Havlon’s size and physique suggests Basso Profundo, he pours out those silvery notes as effortlessly as he thumbs a planed edge. Scarce a single person in town has been buried in the past fifteen years, but that Havlon and Olivia Dee stood at graveside at the end, beginning “Amazing Grace” in perfect pitch, and all the assemblage joining in, soaring those smooth notes heavenward in escort with the Dear Departed.

Only once, when Olivia Dee was still in the hospital after the birth of her second child, did Havlon do the honors alone, and then it was the funeral of old Mr. Killebrew, who had served in WW II. The song was “Danny Boy,” and that’s pretty much best as a solo, anyway.

Internet photos