Post-Christmas

I have never been much of a 'leave-the-tree-up-till-Valentine's-Day' kind of person. Perhaps it is the fact that, for nearly 30 years, we gave a big Christmas party the second Saturday in December--which meant that the tree went up almost immediately after Thanksgiving. By Christmas, we were being stabbed by dried-out needles and had to put ourselves on fire-watch because of the pile of tinder we had stacked our presents under.

In any case, we are usually the first in the neighborhood to drag our tree to the curb, and by New Year's, our house has usually lost all vestiges of holiday decoration. The cookies and candy sometimes linger into the new year, but even they are looking pretty sad. Which puts me today firmly in the box-it-up-and store-it, or clear-it-out mode.

This year, I even added to the tradition by setting myself the Herculean task (and I'm talking Augean stables here) of clearing out the refrigerator. Who knew how many pots and jars of weird ingredients lived there? Salad dressings, dabs of jams and jellies too small for any use, orange marmalade, hoisin sauce..tortillas that predate the cliff dwellings out west. Why do I have 4 packages of bacon--two open and half empty, and two apparently awaiting some bacon orgy of the future? Capers and olives and relishes, cheeses and chili sauce, horseradish of a strange hue, and toothpaste-tubes of basil and garlic and tomato paste. I think it is time for a New Year's resolution to cook more simply, without all these bells and whistles. Time to start from scratch (and I'm not saying this just because a few of these items had expiration dates back in 2010...well, maybe), to move on to my pantry, and maybe even my freezer. I may end up finding the lost city of Cibola there, frozen eternally behind the chopped broccoli. Calling Indiana Jones!

Some people find it sad to put Christmas away for the year, but I see it as a breath of fresh air. Here's my new beginning, my new year...one where I will fix what's wrong and capitalize on what's right in my world. Starting with the refrigerator.

Pre-Christmas

Here I am, at the kitchen counter, before the day's customary chaos sets in. I know I should be making my lists and checking them twice...but I do enjoy having a few minutes of my own, unencumbered by the need for groceries or laundry or de-cluttering or last-minute shopping. Somehow, it will all get done in time--though I might have to shave a few frills and furbelows from my expectations.

On the plus side, JC has somehow found a radio station playing Christmas music that I like, and locked into it on my car radio. This means that I have heard my favorite song not once, but three times in the past two days. (For those of you who might care, it is the Bing Crosby/David Bowie duet of Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth. A totally unlikely combination, both of music and artists, traceable to a bizarre match-up in a Christmas special years ago. Played very infrequently, but I love it.) Additionally, I have baked SOME cookies, even though they are mostly gone already. I have wrapped some presents, and I think most of the ones I have ordered have arrived in a timely fashion. At least the major ones. I have a plentiful supply of tape, paper, and ribbon, though I do need to stock up on batteries this year. Most importantly, if we are thinking positively, I am more or less past the bronchitis that has plagued me since Thanksgiving. There are still a few coughs exploding now and then, but I no longer frighten people in the street. (You know you've been bad when the UPS lady says that you sound better...)

There is no snow in the forecast, and Kay and Paul and the little girls are due tomorrow, whenever they manage to struggle through the traffic and the trip from Rhode Island. The tree and decorations are in place, there is one more Noonday Noel concert today that I have promised to bring food for, I've sent off the January update for the Folger docents for JC, had my lab work done for the month, and am more or less caught up on laundry. Our house (to quote from a recent NCIS episode) still looks like we just finished taping an episode of "Hoarders"--but I can fix that in one of those gaps where I'm waiting for other stuff, like cookies to bake, or bread to rise.

All in all, life is pretty good right now. Christmas is coming, and I'm as ready as I usually am..which is 'not quite, but oh, well...'  Merry Christmas!

Help

I enjoy a rare privilege--at least, rare to someone of my background and heritage. I have a cleaning lady. I was raised in a world where one did one's own housework, or outsourced it to unwilling, but easily-dominated children. For twenty years of my life, my job description was short and to the point. I went to school and did whatever that entailed. I dried the dishes after dinner every day. I swept and scrubbed the kitchen floor every day. I cleaned and scrubbed the bathroom once a week. And I kept the room I shared with my sister in order--beds made, floor vacuumed, furniture dusted. I was never overly fond of any of those duties.

When I married, the dishwasher took over the dishes. I was a little casual about the rest, but it did get done--most of the time. Finally, when the girls took over all our spare time, we opted to hire someone to come in every couple weeks to spiff things up, and keep things from deteriorating too badly. For the past ten years or so, that someone has been Sandra.

Sandra is a little lady with tolerable English skills that do not extend to the written word. She arrives every other Friday morning, with a small army of smiling, non-English-speaking young women who very efficiently take over the house and leave it much better than they found it. We get along, for the most part. What we have found, however, is that the ladies have....a quirky sense of humor, perhaps? a desire to show us who's boss, maybe? In any case, they assert themselves in odd ways. It is a rare Friday that I return and do not find some evidence of their tricks. A bed is short-sheeted--not enough to look deliberate, but enough that it needs to be remade. Something will be missing, that won't be truly missed immediately.

Take the soap. One Saturday morning, I stepped into the shower to find that the soap was missing. A new bar, only recently placed in the dish. I looked around, but couldn't see it. Wet and irritated, I dripped my way to the cabinet, unwrapped a new bar, and continued...fuming..back to the shower. After getting dressed, I started looking, to no avail. Not on the counter, not in the trash, not in the cupboard, not in the drawer. Not even in the powder room. Who would steal a bar of Dial soap? Apparently, the ladies. It wasn't until the next week, when I dumped the contents of the laundry hamper into the washer--and heard a 'thunk!'--that I found it. Who would put a bar of soap into the laundry hamper? Yet there it was.

Paper towels! I am firmly of the opinion that Sandra runs a paper towel business out of her car. Each visit, every paper towel in the house would disappear, whether I had a single roll or six available. Poof. I will agree that paper towels are essential in cleaning mirrors, windows, maybe a final swipe for sinks and stoves--but the quantity in which they vanished boggled the mind. I am embarrassed to say that I have taken to storing paper towels in my car, leaving a maximum of two rolls available in the house. Explaining to passengers why I carry 8 rolls of Bounty paper towels is preferable to losing them to the cleaning lady mafia that has apparently cornered the market thereon.

And then, there is placement. I have things arranged in my house--on tables, on mantels, on counters. Not a LOT of things, but some. And I have them arranged in a way that I like: not lined up like soldiers, not arranged by twos in a parade line. Generally centered, generally symmetrical. Until the ladies come. Everything is then arranged in exactly the opposite manner. If something was squared, it's placed on the diagonal; if centered, it's moved to the right or left. If the line was staggered, it's straightened. Furniture, blinds, windowshades, rugs--all just slightly off-kilter. I spend the next few days simply adjusting things.

I have taken to unplugging my computer and printer because the connections were always jiggled to the point of disconnection. My printer never worked, nor my cable TV, nor my router when the ladies had been here. My toaster and coffeemaker were unplugged (usually discovered after an impatient few minutes spent wondering why they were operating so slowly.) My recycling bin held trash, and my trashcan held recycling. The parallel universe in which Sandra and her minions operate obviously has rules that are in conflict with mine. I have tried to explain my issues to her, but Sandra simply smiles and nods and says "Yes, Miss Mary." and no doubt goes home and laughs at how strange I am to quibble about horizontally vs. vertically placed throw rugs. Maybe I am. Maybe in Central America, candles are lined up like soldiers, and sofas are placed off-center, and soap is stored in laundry hampers. Maybe Bounty paper towels are their new currency. Maybe I should change ladies...but who knows what new quirks are out there waiting for me?

Providence

We've just returned from a 4-day sojourn in Providence with Audrey, our 3-year-old granddaughter. Kay had a conference to go to, and, while taking the baby was a must-do, she and Paul thought life might just be a little easier if Audrey were having fun at home with Nana and Papa instead of going stir-crazy in a hotel room in Montreal. Good thinking.

So I flew up Wednesday afternoon, followed on Friday morning by JC, and turned Audrey into a temporary only child. We kept to her schedule as much as possible, but there are a lot of spaces for ice cream, chocolate croissants (pronounced 'sur-lants' in Audrey-speak), and trips to the park, and dinners at restaurants in the interstices. We did a lot of watching Cat in the Hat and Dora and Blue variously solving the big issues of the day: a lack of honey! packing for vacation! what kind of boat to build for the Boat Float! We read all about everyone who goes to the potty. (Who knew that FIREFIGHTERS go to the potty? And construction workers! And waiters! And doctors and pilots and policemen and zookeepers...) We went to Whole Foods and bought a coconut, just so Audrey could hear the coconut milk slosh around when she shook it. And we got some brie with a fruit topping because they were giving out samples and she kept going back for more. (Which I hope explains the small wheel of brie and cup of topping in your refrigerator, Kay...) We found that, since August, Audrey has acquired a few new speech patterns: everything is 'super-' something. Super-warm, super-cold, super-hot, super-hard... and a lot of conversations start with "Do you know....?" The funniest of these was a discussion of dinner one night, when I suggested a local restaurant to JC. Audrey, listening in, turned to JC, tilted her head to one side, and said sweetly, "Do you know that Three Sisters (the cafe in question) has ice cream?" Needless to say, even though we did not go to Three Sisters for dinner, we DID stop by for dessert.

However, we did have a few obstacles to overcome. The hot water heater's pilot light gave out on Thursday, putting a moratorium on dish-washing, or warm baths or showers. Despite my attempts to re-light the pilot, we were without hot water for a day; but the landlord came through with a plumber to replace the pilot light assembly on Friday, thank god. We also encountered a few obstinacy issues--but who doesn't with a small child? Patience has never been my virtue, but JC had enough for all of us. And the storms passed, as they always do.

That is not to say that we were not totally tired out by the time we left. Home is so much easier. The older we get, the more we enjoy its comforts: hot water, knowing where everything is, and where to go to get things we need. We enjoy our own bed and television and wi-fi and kitchen sink, which is much better suited to our height than the one that Kay and Paul deal with daily. We like having a dishwasher and an ice-maker and going places without fumbling with a carseat and its 5 step fastening procedure, interrupted by a little girl who wants to know why Nana's car has a cargo cover instead of a trunk. Although the entertainment value of all these questions is well-worth the process. Having Audrey congratulate me ("Good job, Nana!") upon finding the place to pick up produce from the food co-op, and then bragging to the sign-in people that Nana FOUND the place was priceless.

We had a great time, but it IS good to be home. Especially when we know that they will all be here for Thanksgiving in just a few days.

Letter to Santa

I’ve decided it’s about time that adults got to write letters to Santa. We’ve perpetrated this little charade for our children and grandchildren, and they seem to have done pretty well by believing. It wouldn’t take much to give me some faith in the old gentleman, even at my advanced age. I’m predisposed to believe in someone who rewards the good, admonishes the not-so-good, and manages to handle it all in one night with limited resources. Hey, this sounds like what I’ve been doing all my adult life..

Dear Santa,

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the extended gap in our correspondence. At first, it was peer pressure—no one else appeared to be writing you, and you know how that is when you’re a kid. Then later, life intervened, and I was too busy during the holidays to write anything but To Do lists. I think that has worked to our advantage because it’s given me some time to think about what I would really like to have for Christmas. Most of the material stuff is here already, but there are a few things I could really use…I've limited myself to ten important items..not wanting to be greedy about this….

I've certainly tried to be good this year, and so..here are the things that I am wishing for:

1. A cell phone plan whose terms I could understand

2. An exercise program that I really enjoyed enough to stick to

3. Fewer choices in the grocery aisles. Maybe you could impose a limit of three different varieties of each product, rather than having us all standing immobile in the aisle trying to distinguish among five brands of orange juice, each with pulp, no-pulp, extra-pulp, pulp with Vitamin D, no-pulp with calcium added, etc. Milk, bread, cereal, ground beef—all come in at least six varieties with various embellishments…All right, already--life was simpler when choices were more limited.

4. Fewer TV channels, more substance. I’m tired of surfing through 200 channels at night and finding nothing worth watching. Perhaps you could merge some of these reality shows. The Biggest Loser is unfortunately the viewing public.

5.  Another room in my house. Anyone who can fit a world’s worth of toys into a single sack on a single sleigh surely has some super-secret storage tips and/or some magical storage space. I want it, and I want it now.

6. Hearing aids for all those people who don’t hear what I tell them; special glasses for those who can’t see what’s in front of their noses. Maybe a clue, for those who haven’t any. (I already have a long list of recipients..)

7. Some sincere script that I could read off to telemarketers, political canvassers, and charity solicitations that would convince them unequivocally that I don’t want to talk to them or contribute to the cause of the week. Particularly in the middle of my dinner.

8. One day each season where I could decide the weather. Imagine not having to worry about rain on your wedding date, snow and ice on your big winter travel day, wind on the day you planned to rake leaves. Or unendurable heat on the day of the summer party you’d planned.

9. An elf for a day. Just to make all those little repairs—the carpentry, the stitching, the gluing and pinning that I never seem to have time for.

10. A tech expert to show me (and leave printed directions on) how to program my various electronic gadgets: phone, IPod, IPad, laptop, network, wireless printer, Apple TV, TiVo, GPS, etc. (BTW, could you tell Apple that there are those of us out here who appreciate having a manual that we can look things up in?)

I know these gifts are not as simple as a train set, or as readily available as Barbies or Legos, but I think that they would be extremely popular among folks of a certain age--which would simplify your global efforts. However, I feel I should let you know that I will not be overly disappointed if you can't/don't/won't deliver. Some things require more than ordinary magic. 

But for the record, I still believe.

Methods and Madness

If anyone ever tells you I am organized, you must know that they are a liar. That does not mean that I don't love organization. Or that I don't try. Or that I have not purchased innumerable organizational tools in the hope of finding the magic bullet that will kill forever the clutter-vampires that stagger around in my wake, making life incredibly (and unnecessarily) complicated.

Take this week. I have company coming toward the end of this month. I had a writing workshop that I was hosting for a friend last Sunday. I have a group of teachers coming for dinner on the 11th, and my own writing group meeting elsewhere on the 10th. In between, I have the usual detritus of my life: my mom's Tuesday doctor's appointment, my second painful visit to the dentist, the preliminaries to collecting, printing and publishing the church's Advent devotional, my daughter's birthday..that sort of everyday stuff that goes on like the post office through rain and snow and dark of night.

Anyway. Anyone with an iota of sense would establish a to-do list,  preferably arranged in sequential order, to deal with the stuff that needed to be done for each event. Instead, I decided to re-do the patio and pull out the fall decorations. Reasonable people would hire a front-end loader to attack the guest bedroom so that our guests would not have to sleep on the floor in the hall.  Instead, I emptied the closet of boxes and sorted through the paper and photos and craft supplies I unearthed--donating half to a teacher I know and the non-teacherly other half to Salvation Army. I also took myself to lunch a couple days out of last week. I baked cranberry scones. And yet another plum cake. I boxed up some summer clothes. (They are sitting on the floor in my bedroom.) I bought two wrought iron obelisks at the nursery, and brought them home, only to discover they were too big for their intended pots, that flank the front porch. So I dragged the too-small pots over to the wall of the patio and dragged two other (slightly larger) pots from the patio to the porch. (I DID check that the obelisks would fit these before I did the transfer.) I was reminded of the days when I used to stack literally a ton of hay bales in the barn when Sarah had her horse. Moving heavy objects is not my forte either.

What I have not done is planned what we will do with our friends while they are here. I have not planned a menu for the meals we will serve them. I'm not sure I even have pillows for the 2nd guest bedroom--or that I will be able to shift enough clutter to enable us to open the Murphy bed there. I don't have any but the sketchiest plans for the teacher meal: soup, maybe? Salad and bread? Maybe a dessert--ah, I feel another plum cake coming on... My house is in its customary state of chaos, although I have a nice wreath on the door, that I put together this week. My entry-way is decorated with colorful autumn flowers and gourds and snazzy black cats--but I don't think any of these will be entertaining enough to make my guests overlook the lack of food or bedding.  Nor will the pots-with-obelisks at the porch distract them from my failure as tour guide.

When you come right down to it, it will all get done. It will look good. It will look as if I put some thought and effort into my preparations. People will think I am organized. Like the proverbial duck, I will float calmly on the surface of my life--and will be paddling like hell underneath. Maybe I need to focus on the minutia in order to solve the macro-issues. Maybe I just need the last minute as motivation for getting things done. Then again, maybe I'm just a little nuts.

Cataclysm(s)

It has been a blockbuster month, August has. Barely out of the chute, this month brought the birth of our second beautiful granddaughter, who was in such a hurry to join us that she couldn't wait for a trip to the hospital. Born at home, Claire's entry into the world was quickly followed by the entrance of the Providence Fire Department and then, the ambulance crew that took her and her mom to the hospital. An hour old, and she had already made the acquaintance of two of the three groups of first responders in Providence.

Given succeeding weeks' events, that acquaintance might have been followed by additional encounters. In the next three weeks, young Claire experienced a rare east coast earthquake and the effects of Hurricane Irene, who hit Providence a glancing blow after her destructive route through New Jersey and New York. (No wonder Claire looks worried in some of her pictures!) Fortunately, neither of these events assumed the predicted magnitude, and Claire's main issue in her first few weeks was coping with an all-too-loving big sister, and the upset of having assorted grandparents underfoot, playing 'pass the baby' with far more frequency than is conducive to sleep.

On the home front here in Alexandria, August has exhibited a variety of weather faces: wet, wet with high winds, wet with warmth, wet with cool temps, and wet with more wet for days at a time. Early in September, we personally experienced 'wet without power' due to a cable break under our patio. We've met and become fast friends with Dominion Power crews as they de-bricked, jackhammered and dug with shovels through our back yard, searching for and repairing said cable--and then, kindly, efficiently, and expertly, restoring the original appearance of the surface, as well as our electrical power.

With all this hubbub, it's no wonder August disappeared in a puff of smoke, a gust of wind, or a brief, but emphatic storm. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled life.

Organization?

I remember that my mom had one big gray notebook that contained any and all recipes that she used. Even JC’s mother had a box in which she had crammed clippings and cards and scraps of paper with recipes noted down—along with their source. I am nowhere near as organized. I have a recipe box, of course, designed for a neat cook who files all recipes on 3x5 cards in their proper categories. I also have a clipping file, whose only organizational principle is alphabetical index tabs. Then there is my laptop, where files may be in several different locations, filed under any number of categories. And my IPad, which has recipes that I might want to use when I’m in San Diego. And DropBox, Evernote, and I-Disk—all of which store information somewhere in the vast never-neverland of the internet. I don’t think I have anything on my IPhone, but give me time.

                  Plus, one can never forget the 4+ shelves of cookbooks I lay claim to, each volume of which may contain one or two recipes that are family favorites.  Stuffed away in desk, drawers, notebooks, magazines, and assorted other unlikely places are directions for interesting dishes that might come in handy one day.

                  Finding the required recipe has become a veritable game of Concentration. Where did the original recipe come from? My mom? Probably on the 4x6 cards in the gray plastic box upstairs. From a magazine? Probably in the clipping file. Unless I made it before and liked it, which might have forced me to copy it onto a card for the main shoebox-style file. But wait! Did I promise the recipe to someone? I may have typed it and filed it online when I emailed it to them. Thank God for the ‘search’ feature on my Mac. Now what had I called it?

                  I have tired myself out just reviewing the scope of my problem. However, two weeks ago, at the local farmers’ market, I found a wooden box, with beautiful grain and dove-tailed corners, and a lid. Just the right size for 3x5 cards arranged in neat categories, with pristine tabs that would make finding THE recipe an easy task. It would look lovely on my granite countertop. So neat and clean-looking and organized. If I worked at it, I could transfer my rag-tag pile of recipes to sleek cards that aren’t smudged with oily fingerprints and breaded with a crust of ancient flour. I’d type them of course, and wouldn’t have to puzzle over the washed-out ink of that crucial ingredient—is that ¼ or ½ cup? My recipe for meatloaf would not be stuck irretrievably to the previous page and I could be absolutely sure that that tomato sauce and cheese measurement is not part of the page-before’s stuffed peppers. I could consolidate my cooking knowledge into a single beautiful box. When I am dead and gone, my daughters would fight for possession. (Yeah, I know that’s not true, but one of them may at least want the box.)

                  I have begun. However, like many of my enthusiasms, it was countermanded by—guests for brunch. Away goes the shoebox, the clipping file, the piles of cookbooks and index tabs and 3x5 cards. Gone and subsequently forgotten, at least for the succeeding week. But last night we were invited (or JC invited us) to a friend’s for dinner and offered to have me bring appetizers. Fortunately, I had just the thing!

                  Now. The salami, orange and cream cheese things came from a Craig Claiborne NYTimes pamphlet back in the ‘70s, and the little tomato/mozzarella-basil leaf kabob came from Debbie at church a couple years ago—and what about those olives and cheese cubes marinated in lemon olive oil? Kay Phillippe down the street gave that to me, and I wrote it down..was it in the back of my checkbook?

                  Obviously, I’m never going to have that beautiful box, standing alone on my kitchen counter, but it’s good to have a dream.  

Blast from the Past

When you blog--even semi-regularly-- you find that almost anything that pops into your field of vision and hooks your attention for a bit ends up as an entry. I have been in San Diego for almost two weeks and have been luxuriating in the being and nothingness entailed by a prolonged stay far away from all my duties and responsibilities. I admit it. I am a shirker of the first order. Not very often, but now and then. And furthermore, I really enjoy it.

As part of my shirker schedule, I browse through antique (read "junk" ) shops, looking for the odd item that might grab me. Browsing in San Diego is harmless. Whatever you see has to be usable here, as shipping it back east presents the twofold problem of shipping expense and where to put it. Most of my browsing therefore does not result in purchases, but I enjoy looking.

This time, in a shop on Adams Avenue, I found a notebook labeled "Datebook 1906". It was the size of a paperback book, bound in brown cloth. I picked it up and started reading. It really wasn't much. The owner was obviously no writer. Most entries were short and dealt with lists of expenses for the day. That in itself was interesting, allowing me to compare 1906 prices with today's. A three pound 'heel roast' was 30 cents. Today, even if that meant the heel of a SHOE, it would cost more than that. I paged on, and found myself reading all the entries-- and finally decided to buy the notebook. A conversation piece, I thought. Leave it on my coffee table at home. It would fit in my tote bag.

It didn't take long to get absorbed into this woman's life. There was Roy, who must be her husband, who had chronic problems with his 'wheel'..which I suppose must be 1906-ese for 'bicycle', as my diarist mentions taking hers down to her parents' house along with Roy. Poor Roy gets stuck innumerable times, taking a car (streetcar?) and squandering ten cents a day whenever his wheel fails him. One can sense the head-shaking that goes on every time his wife writes down a new repair cost in her book for that incorrigible wheel. Occasionally, Roy will take it to Ansil (who apparently has a way with wheels) and will evade the cost of repairing the wheel for another day.

There is of course, Mamma and Pappa, who appear to host dinner all too often. Our dutiful diarist spends a lot of time at their house, shopping with Mamma, washing clothes at Mamma's, making curtains and hanging them with Mamma...how old IS this woman, anyway, and doesn't she have any friends?

Then, there is Harold, who may be a brother, but at least seems to be part of the Mamma/ Pappa cast of characters, along with Uncle and (infrequently) Auntie. Jennie and Byron offer some hope, as Dutiful Daughter occasionally goes for a walk with Jennie. There is also the list of visitors, who may (or may not) live in Los Angeles. (DD always reports on receiving the Inglewood News in the mail.) They pop up in the entries as arriving on the steamer or by train. People get sick, too, and no sooner has our friend recorded their fevers than she mentions the arrival of the doctor--who visits, then stops back the next day to check on his patient. (In case you had any suspicion that the timeframe might not be accurate...I think 1906 may have been the last time a city doctor made a house call.) On at least one occasion, someone dies. On another, Mamma is suffering from La Grippe, and dutiful daughter comes over and does her work. Other times, one of them stays the night with whoever is sick, fixing meals or just helping out. Sometimes, people spend the night for no apparent reason. Maybe they missed the last car home?

On happier days, the ladies call on other ladies, leaving their cards. They make blueprint postcards, which I think must be something like the blueprint pictures we did with our kids years ago--selectively exposing light-sensitive paper to the sun to get pictures. The ladies write letters and receive them and read them to each other. They buy material and make shirts for Roy (a black one. Is he an undertaker?) and aprons for him, as well. Mamma is making a white 'waist' and a skirt for dutiful daughter. They all go to church once or twice on Sundays, and there doesn't seem to be any devotion to a particular denomination. They go to hear the sermon or to hear someone sing or play. They go as a group to Mission Cliff (more on this later) of a Sunday afternoon on the car. And once, Roy rented a three-seated gig and they all drove out together.

The picture is of a slow-moving, but work-filled life: cooking, cleaning, doing laundry (or having someone in to do it at forty cents), visiting and returning visits, walking, and writing, and attending church, as well as some theatrical productions, club meetings, and excursions to parks, all facilitated by the streetcar system.

So, what does this say to me, here in my 21st century world, with TV and car and computer and modern appliances that can deal efficiently with all of the chores that Dutiful Daughter filled her life with? It really is interesting to think of this woman's life superimposed upon my familiar modern landscape. I can associate her comings and goings with actual locations. JC and I even visited the actual site of Mission Cliff--after googling it and reading an article on it in the San Diego Historical Society Journal. Here we are, more than a hundred years later, looking out at a view that DD might have seen herself (though blessedly free of freeways and shopping centers and housing developments. But, there is the stone wall they mentioned in the article, and a street sign marked "Mission Cliff Drive"...and the neon sign over Park Boulevard that labels the neighborhood as University Heights contains a street car image, and the support poles are surmounted by ostrich statues (there was a famous ostrich farm next to the park...) You'd think that  living in Alexandria would have brought this home to me long ago, but it didn't...until now. I'm looking at San Diego with new eyes, thanks to the nameless diarist I found. Maybe I will try and do the same in Alexandria.

Later note: Further reading of the notebook produced some interesting--and poignant--notes:


"April 18: I went over to Jennie's and while there Byron telephoned and told of the San Francisco Earthquake which happened early in the morning."


and another, written and dated some years later:


"Tuesday, 12th (of July) 1911: Harold LeVerne Calkins born. Lived one hour."


I even did some research on Ancestry.com to find out what I could about the diarist--her name, her fate; did she have any children after this lost baby? how old was she when she wrote this? was there a family somewhere who might be interested in this history? 


Her name was Ruby.

Past Tense?

Now that I am no longer Alexandria's Poet Laureate, when that topic comes up in conversation (and JC usually makes sure it does--I love him so) there's one question that always seems to arise. "Do you still write poetry?" The first time I was asked, I must have looked as flummoxed as I felt. Why, of course! Just because I am no longer paid my handsome honorarium (which amounted to about enough to have a hamburger each week) doesn't mean I don't see things and write about them. What an odd question!

But, as it surfaced time and time again, I became sadder and sadder. Apparently one is supposed to require payment--or at least some recognition or status--to do something, anything! I was a closet writer for over fifty years without any notice, without any pay. Most people never knew that I wrote sentences, much less poetry, for over 80% of my life. Then, by some inexplicable lightning strike, I suddenly was recognized as a writer, as someone with something worth saying. And then, my term ended. Does a candidate stop speaking when he's not elected? (We should be so lucky..) Does a reporter stop writing when he retires? Or a chef stop cooking when his restaurant closes? Granted, recognition is nice, but it usually doesn't last forever. Writing is like breathing, for those who do it. An autonomic response. Just as artists carry a sketch pad to catch on paper something that inspires them, so do writers scribble things down when a phrase or image strikes. It's a lifelong passion, a habit that doesn't quit.

Of course, I still write poetry. The audience may be smaller, but it's the one that counts most: me.

Big Brother

I had an issue with my debit card today, causing the bank to call me and suggest that I authorize them to cancel it and send me a new card. I of course agreed. But I stopped in at my bank to check on the bona fides of the caller, just to be safe. I'm not sure I feel safer, but I was reassured.

The teller at the local branch asked me to type in my social security number, and then, with a few keystrokes, proceeded to recount my activities from yesterday--from grocery shopping to the pharmacy, to Target--even to my parking meter in Arlington. Who knew that my debit card carried so much information? No wonder the first thing Gibbs does on NCIS is tell McGee to get phone and credit card information. It is a virtual diary--one that we are unaware that we are recording. Even I tend to forget where I've been in the course of a day, but my debit card is my own personal Boswell, faithfully following and recording my progress. I can only imagine the commentary of someone watching my activities. "Hmm..Safeway again? Didn't she just go there?" "A PARKING METER?? Does she not have a quarter?" Well, no I didn't at the time, and I truly regretted pulling out a debit card to spend a dollar so I could have lunch without fear of a ticket on my windshield. Had I covered dinner as well, the observer would have seen Taqueria Poblano, followed by The Dairy Godmother. All it would have lacked was the information on the flavor of the day (salt caramel, thank you very much.)

I guess what I am bemoaning is the fact that there is so much personal info floating around out there (she says as she updates her Facebook status) and the thought that my life can be reduced to purchases and services in an instant, given the right keys. I'd like to think I am more than the sum of my spending patterns, but in these days when demographics govern everything from TV schedules to advertising to political posturing, maybe that is more me than me. I spend, therefore I am. Food for thought...paid for with a debit card.

Gretel

One of my favorite poems is "Gretel" by..(I'll think of the name and edit it in) that explores Gretel's world after she and Hansel emerge victorious from the forest. As you remember, Gretel is the active agent in the demise of the witch and the freeing of her brother. Anyway, the line of the poem that always gets to me is "'Ever after' was the size of a kitchen.."

I think of that line often when I'm cooking dinner because sometimes, it does seem that that's the only important thing I do out of the day's activities. Sure, most of my errands are useful, but the world wouldn't come to an end if I didn't get to Target or the cleaners or the bank or the drugstore or the grocery. They hardly measure up to an 'ever after'.

From Martha in the New Testament on through 2000 years of pots and pans and utensils and inevitable, inescapable, relentless meals to prepare, 'ever after' has meant KP for most women. I'd hate to think that my happiness was defined by eternal meal preparation, however. There's so much more out there, and while some creativity is demanded (what's for dinner when you have tomatoes, onions and maybe a little cheese?) I am no culinary Michaelangelo or Shakespeare, worthy of commendation for the mundane stuff that issues from my kitchen most nights. "Ever after"? I think not.

So what do I pin my hopes of immortality on? What is it that I expect out of life, out of marriage, out of my personal fairy tale? Surely something better than Gretel's oaf of a husband. Surely a prince (whom I have, even though he might be in disguise). Surely some breath of wonder, of triumph, of larger-than-life experience. No matter what that is, there is definitely a page from Gretel's book that we all need to tear out and remember. There is no husband, no prince, no fleeting triumph out there that can give any of us what we want. It's a DIY world, ladies. We are responsible for making our own ever afters.

GRETEL

said she didn’t know anything about ovens

so the witch crawled in to show her

and Bam! Went the big door!

Then she strolled out to the shed where

her brother was fattening, knocked down

a wall and lifted him high in the air.

Not long after the adventure in the forest

Gretel married so she could live happily.

Her husband was soft as Hansel. Her

husband liked to eat. He liked to see

her in the oven with the pies and cakes.

Ever after was the size of a kitchen.

Gretel remembered when times were better.

She laughed out loud when the witch

popped like a weenie.

“Gretel! Stop fooling around and fix

my dinner.”

“There’s something wrong with this oven,”

she says, her eyes bright as treasure.

“Can you come here a minute?”

--Ronald Koertge

Woodlea

Here's to nostalgia..Today, en route to my mom's cardiologist appointment, we stopped for lunch at a little cafe in Bel Air. We've been there many times before, but this time, I took a seat looking out toward the rest of the shopping center, and saw...Woodlea Bakery. Now, if you grew up in Gardenville --or anywhere near Belair Road--in Baltimore, or went to St. Anthony of Padua School, you'd know the Woodlea Bakery. That was where you went after church on Sunday to buy a bag of doughnuts, or rolls to have with breakfast, or a cheesecake..or just about any baked goods that your mom didn't make. Forget this business of buying birthday cakes at the supermarket. Back then, it came from Woodlea's.

Beyond that, I went to school with one of the Hergenroeders--the family who owned the bakery. Almost everybody could say that because there were lots of Hergenroeders, and they lived in an apartment above the bakery. This was all rather exotic for me, as almost everyone I knew lived in a house with a yard and a sidewalk; certainly not above a shop.

But back to the important stuff. Seeing the sign, I asked my mom (who is not very dependable for information nowadays) if that was the same as the Woodlea Bakery I knew . When she claimed ignorance, I said I would just stop there after lunch if there was time and ask. Which I did, although it was unnecessary. When I stepped through the door and looked at the glass cases inside, I knew.

There were the doughnuts, the cakes, the lemon bars, the cookies...all the things I remembered and hadn't seen in forty years. I lapsed back into bakery nirvana, which generally means that I buy more than anyone could possibly eat while fresh. Cheesecake unlike the current two-inch-thick commercial versions with fruit toppings.. Woodlea's take has always had a bread-like crust, a layer of filling, and comes sprinkled with cinnamon. Doughnuts, marshmallow doughnuts. They were always my favorite--almost pure sugar. Honey-dips--now known as plain glazed doughnuts. Fat in its larval form. Bread and rolls and cakes of all sorts, looking just as they did when I could barely see into the glass cases.

I exercised great self-control. The visual was enough, really. I did get a bag of doughnuts for old times' sake, however. Two of the half-dozen were marshmallow.

Decisions, Decisions

I make a lot of decisions--of varying degrees of importance. It requires a certain amount of energy to decide how to order my day, to line up my agenda, to keep track of where I'm supposed to be and when. I have to decide every day what's for dinner and how long it will take to prepare, and whether I have all the ingredients necessary to do so. Not momentous fare, I'll grant you, but coupled with the bigger life decisions we all make every day, every week, every year, it's enough. And that's my problem: decisions.

What good is a blog if you can't use it to exercise your pet peeves? Right. I went shopping today for staples--you know? Those things that are far cheaper at a big box store than at your local supermarket; things you don't buy that often, but have to have on hand: paper towels, toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent...that sort of stuff. Perhaps you see my gripe coming...

I am tired of spending 10-15 minutes in the paper goods aisle, trying to calculate the best deal in paper towels and/or toilet paper. It is impossible. I am not even a math-phobe. I actually like math, and enjoy challenging myself on mental calculations of price per ounce or cost per sheet. Weird, I know--and supermarkets have taken a lot of the fun out of it by doing the math for you and recording the unit price. However, even these unit price stickers fail utterly when it comes to toilet paper. No two packages are alike, and therefore, you can't compare them. Ultra-soft, Ultra-Strong, Huge rolls, Mega rolls, Single rolls, Double rolls, Triple rolls: 8 rolls equivalent to 16 rolls, 5 rolls equivalent to 15 rolls. Or so they say. Then when you factor in the fact that at least one of the packages is on sale, and the unit price stickers are applied randomly to shelves with no regard for what is actually ON the shelf--you have a recipe for total mathematical meltdown, right there in the Target aisle. It isn't pretty.

Paper towels are no better. Single strength, double-strength, select-a-size, single rolls, double rolls, quilted vs. non-quilted, printed vs. white, recycled vs. regular. And then, the various brands vs. the generic models. There is no hope of figuring out the best buy in this case.

I'd like to say that these are the only situations that baffle me, but I am overwhelmed by choices in the supermarket as often as in the Target aisle. It's not even the esoteric items that bother me: it's the everyday stuff. Bread. Milk. Orange juice. Canned tomatoes. WATER!!! All in infinite variety. Literally. I have seriously considered mapping out the dairy case: Fat-free, skim, reduced fat, low fat, whole, soy...and that's before you even think about the size of the container. Orange juice? It should just be orange juice, but no. We have to decide the level of pulp we want and what additives we want--calcium, perhaps? extra vitamin D? Bread comes in wheat, honey wheat, white, white whole wheat, not to mention the rye and pumpernickle options. And what ever happened to canned tomatoes? Now we have whole, diced, diced with onion, petite diced, Mexican style, Italian style, packed in juice, large, small, Roma, with chiles or without. Even water, for heaven's sake, comes with or without flavors, vitamins, or carbonation, with a pop-up or screw-down top, and from a variety of springs, mountain streams or filters.

I am all in favor of open markets and competition. I know it's good for business to build better mousetraps and to seek out and cater to new markets. But when carried to this extreme, product proliferation is driving me back to the time when I bought solely by brand name, and usually the brand name that I saw in my mother's pantry. Vermont Maid syrup, McCormick's teabags, Minute Maid orange juice, Quaker Oats. Distrustful of the myriad of products, I retreat toward the tried-and-true basic versions of the familiar. There's a reason I only buy Pepperidge Farm white sandwich bread. It's one less conscious decision I have to make.

Winter Doldrums

Can I blame the weather for the fact that I've not posted anything since....well, since longer ago than I can remember quickly? There comes a time in the year when everything is old and tired and boring--including me. January seems to be that time for me: the post-Christmas letdown, the re-packing of all the stuff that comes out for the holidays, the search for the everyday stuff that I had to put away...After a while, you get the feeling no one would notice anyway if you left a few things out all year. (Come to think of it, the Nativity set that I was keeping out till after Epiphany is still on the shelf for Lent. Yikes!)

Anyway, three weeks in San Diego cured at least a portion of my January ennui--or at least pushed it farther back in my mind. It's now March, which is only a hop, skip and a jump till spring.

Malaise

You can tell it's winter. My brain has gone into post-holiday hibernation, and I find it hard to dredge up enthusiasm for writing about anything this week. The weather is frigid, our hot water heater (for the third time this fall/winter season) is on the fritz, snow seems to be perpetually in the forecast, if not on the ground, and I am tired of every recipe in my files, and am patently unwilling to move along in the organizational plan I once had for: (name one or include all) the house, my writing, losing weight, beginning an exercise program...even, god help me, for reading a book or two.

Nothing is right. Everything requires too much effort. No one is doing their job (at least in my book), and I am suffering fools on a day-to-day basis--and NOT gladly, I might add. I am bored--and boring, incapable of creative thought or action. I feel like my refrigerator--full of dribs and drabs of wilted old vegetables and unappetizing plastic tubs of leftovers. I feel like my garden--frost-bitten and languishing under gray clouds and dead trees. I am television without sweeps week, a schedule of perpetual reruns. I am my computer without Wi-Fi, disconnected and drifting. I am Einstein without an idea, a musician without a melody, a Broadway play without an audience, an endless visit with my mother.

I am always one tick off the mark, one ingredient short in every recipe, one errand unaccomplished, one forgotten item at the grocery store. I've written too few notes, failed to meet deadlines, forgot to call, neglected to vacuum, started too late or left too early. I am perpetually disappointed by everyone and everything, and am crabby and cranky and put-upon. I am annoyed by everything and pleased by far too little. I should smile more.

And yet. The days are getting infinitesimally longer. I have good friends who have (apparently) been overlooking my abysmal moods. We are planning a long visit to sunny San Diego. And if I put on my Pollyanna hat, I can see that I have more pros than cons in my life. January will soon be gone. As will February. March will give way to April, and spring may yet reappear. I. Can't. Wait.