Thinking About…

I’ve been fortunate enough in my own life thus far that I have seldom needed the help of a nurse. Not that nurses are bad, but often you find them in hospitals, and I’m fortunate to have only been in hospital myself when I had Maya.

I was reminded of two nurse stories by two different comments on Facebook, by two friends who do not know each other, neither of whom I’ve met in real life. One is a bloggy friend of mine, who commented that Karma is real, and we need just wait for it to catch up with us. The other is Kelli, who was an online friend of my mom’s, though she is younger than me. Kelli is going to nursing school, and posted a story about a kind and caring nurse.

Both of my stories are from my mom’s hospitalizations. Once in 2005, when she had her hysterectomy, and before she had started blogging. The other was in 2008, when she had her bypass surgery.

My mom was borderline diabetic, meaning she treated it with diet, and did not need to be on insulin. I know that when you are in the hospital, they give diabetics insulin to shore up your body against the stress of what you’re going through, even if you handle it OK with diet at home. When she was in the hospital in Sacramento for her hysterectomy, one day they brought her french toast for breakfast. She was trying to be conscious about her diet, and asked if they didn’t have something with less sugar, something that a diabetic might be better off eating. The nurse disappeared for about 45 minutes, and then came back with a packet of oatmeal, which she gave my mom. No bowl. No water. No spoon. No earthly way to eat it, unless she was supposed to open the packet and pour it into her mouth dry. Now, I do know that it was not the nurse’s job to get her oatmeal. It was not the nurse’s fault that food services were bringing sweets to diabetics. But perhaps she could have been kinder. She could have told my mom that she wasn’t able to get her anything else. She could have ignored her. But a dry packet of empty oatmeal with no way to eat it? That’s just stupid.

Then there was the nurse in Anchorage, when my mom had her bypass. I was staying at the hotel next to the hospital, and I didn’t have a car. I asked my mom’s nurse if there was a place within walking distance where one might buy a few things, the most important of which was hair spray. It was cold Alaska February weather, and I was willing to walk, but not more than necessary. She asked when I needed it, and I said, tomorrow maybe. She brought me a care package the next day…she had stopped at the store on her way to work, and brought me hair spray, a magazine, some chocolate and pretzels. She let me pay for the hair spray, but nothing else. I was so touched by her kindness, it almost made me cry. When my mom was out of surgery, but not awake, and the doctor told me it might be weeks or months before she woke up (because of the condition of her lungs), this nurse is the one I turned to for a consoling hug.

And a third nurse, while we’re talking about it. The day I left Alaska to come home, with my mom semi-conscious but not awake, still intubated, I stopped to see her before my flight. I was miserable at leaving her like that, and wished I could stay longer. Had I known she would be awake the following day, I would have changed my flight, but I had been there for 2 weeks already, and with an indefinite time of unconscious ahead of me, I couldn’t stay. I asked her nurse what time I should leave in order to get to the airport to make my flight, and she offered to drive me to the airport, as she was getting off of work at the time I needed to leave, and lived near there. I accepted her offer, and she got me there quickly and would not take my offer of money for gas.

I am sure the oatmeal nurse has had many kind days behind her in her practice of nursing. I am sure the two in Alaska have perhaps been less kind than they later wished they had been. We all have our up days and down days. But the oatmeal story still makes me mad, and the hairspray and airport ride stories both still make me feel the kindness that was given those difficult days.

There’s something about grandchildren, where they exact revenge upon the parents, and the grandparents sit back and laugh.  When I was young, I did this or that or the other thing to my mom, which surely drove her crazy.  She survived whatever it was, but then, when Maya came along and did to those same things to me, and drove me nuts, HA!  My mom was so happy.  Grandchildren are the best revenge, right?

What I didn’t know before, was that children can also be some kind of revenge exacted upon your grandparents as well.  (See how I skipped an entire generation there?  Crazy, huh?)  Way back when I was 29 or 30, pregnant with Maya, we were living in Philadelphia.  Ted was attending graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, and I was working in the Sociology department there on campus.  Walking around, pregnant, 29 or 30, I was in an entirely different head space from the undergraduates.  They seemed so YOUNG, which of course they were.  Walking around with their cell phones, thigh high tights, and dripping with money and youth.  Every once in awhile, I got a glimpse of a girl with her belly button pierced, and I thought that was pretty darned cool and sexy and daring, and yet….kind of hidden.  So that winter, we came home to California for Christmas, and my dad, my step-mom, and my sisters all came down to see us.  We met up at my Grandma’s house in Modesto.  I remember going out to dinner somewhere, and in the car on the way back to Grandma’s house, we passed by a piercing/tattoo parlor, and I flippantly mentioned that, were I younger, and not pregnant, I might perhaps get my belly button pierced, because I liked that look.   Everyone was quiet for a bit, and then conversation went on again.

Of course, when we got back to Grandma’s house, she took me aside (though in full ear shot of the family) and told me she hoped I would raise my child better than that, that I would set a good example and live a moral life for her.  I felt a bit stunned, but let it go.  My sisters and father all talked to me after, telling me they were sorry, that they had all been in these kind of conversations with Grandma, so they had learned to just shut down, let Grandma talk, and move on with their lives.  I had certainly gotten off easily, not knowing my Grandma growing up, I missed a lot of good, but also sometimes I missed some of the lectures and out of left field criticism as well.

Anyway, this weekend, Maya provided me the opportunity to exact a bit of revenge on my Grandma.  She has wanted to get her belly button pierced for awhile now, but Ted and I thought that was something too sexy and rebellious for a young girl, but perhaps when she was 17, that would be old enough.   Well, she turned 17 a couple of weeks ago, and amongst all of these milestones (driving, Prom, SAT, birthday) she decided it was time.  So on Sunday I took her to get her piercing, and I’ll admit, part of me thought, “Take that, Grandma!”

Gah, look at that face! She was so little, so young, so cute. Now…she’s gorgeous, funny, kind, smart, and growing up SO FAST it’s causing my head to spin. She’s 17 years old. I cannot fathom that sometimes. She’s driving (taking her test soon). She’s finishing up her Junior year of high school, and it’s all about colleges and SATs and the prom. How did this happen to me? Wait, not me. Her. How did she grow up so darned fast? Sometimes I can believe it’s been 17 years since she was born. Other times it is almost as though the in-between years never happened, and she was a baby, or at least a toddler, just last week.

So this is birthday weekend. Sometimes she cuts school on her birthday, and we do something fun together as a family, like maybe go into the city or whatever. But this year she has 3 tests, and her birthday is the Friday before Spring Break. So she’s going to school, where I’m sure she will ace her tests, and her friends will bring her cheesecake brownies and give her lots of attention. It will be fun. I took the day off, and I’m doing exciting things like getting the carpets cleaned, getting the oil changed in the car, shopping for Saturday, etc. Saturday, she wanted to take a bunch of friends and go down to the beach at Capitola, which is a lovely idea indeed. However, after a bone dry January, February, and most of March, it has now decided to either rain or at least be cold and chilly. Her friends are going to come over, eat, drink hot cocoa, and watch movies. Perhaps not as fun as the beach, but certainly more fun than freezing at the beach, I’d say. Then Sunday is Easter, brunch, and a family party with most everyone there. And cake. Should be a lovely, fun filled birthday weekend, and if you can’t have your birthday off, it’s nice to have the week after off.

Happy Birthday sweetheart. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us, and I hope you have a tres jolie day, weekend, week, etc. I love you.

Friday again…what’s new pussycat? I hope you’re well. I haven’t been around here much lately, and it’s not because life is so darned exciting that I haven’t the time, or so darned horrid that I can’t manage it. It’s just how it’s been lately, I guess. The spirit hasn’t moved me. But it’s moving me a bit now, so I’ll give you some random ‘Thinking About…” type stuff, OK?

Maya and her chorale group from school sang at a swanky fundraiser last night at our local swanky rep center. The fundraiser was to raise money for the city education foundation, which spends its money on crazy, extravagant things like librarian salaries, English and math tutoring, counselors, etc. It was swanky, though, so we didn’t buy tickets. Instead, we spent a couple of hours at the local bookstore (Barnes & Noble…all of our independent places have closed down), and then we walked over to Starbucks and had a cup, and relaxed. We went over to the theater at the time they were supposed to finish, and they hadn’t gone on stage yet. So we went inside out of the sprinkling rain, and waited in the lobby. We were there for a little while, listening to the performance being piped in, when we got the great idea to try to sneak in and see them. They performed 2 songs, and we sneaked in about 1/3 way through the second song, so we didn’t see much, but they were GREAT. It was lovely to see her on a big time stage like that, and they really sounded good. Fun.

I was tempted by several books at the bookstore, but I decided to get them from the library instead. I know the bookstore needs my money, but I need it more than they do, and I trust myself to put it to better use than they would.  So…the books I put on hold to read are:

• Disgrace ~ J.M. Coetzee
• The Sense of An Ending ~ Julian Barnes
• Mathilda Savitch – Victor Lodato
• The Last Runaway ~ Tracy Chevalier
• The Magician’s Assistant ~ Anne Patchett
• The Museum of Innocence ~ Orhan Pamuk
• The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

You can easily see that at $15 – $25 each at my local B&N, this was going to break the bank.  So I did the right thing.  I was a bit nonplussed to pop over to the library website upon our return home to find that I am 1st in line for several books at one time.  I hate that feeling, having many library books come at me all at once.  I feel like I have to rush through them and get them back for the next person.*  Then I realized, duh, if I’m #1 in line for them, there is no one waiting, so I can renew them if I don’t finish in time.  That was a relief.  I’m very much looking forward to some good reading time in my near future.

I’ve read Gatsby before, of course, but not since high school, and all I really remember is laughing at my teacher’s massive crush on Robert Redford, which I did not understand, because he’s old and everything.  I have a vague recollection of not liking the story much, but maybe this time I’ll enjoy it more?  I want to read that one first or second, because I’d like to have it more freshly in mind before I see the new film adaptation that comes out in May.  Actually, looking at that sentence, I realize I have more time than I thought I did.  That’s a good thing, too.

I’ve read other books by Chevalier, Patchett, and Pamuk, and liked them all quite a bit, so I’m looking forward to reading these newer efforts.  The others just caught my eye for whatever reason.

Maya is taking the SAT tomorrow.  I don’t envy her that, but I do know that she’ll do well, and be relieved when it is OVER.  This whole college thing is stressing her out.  She doesn’t really know much of what she wants to do with her life, or where she wants to go to college.  She’s thinking about teaching, and about some kind of journalism.  I know she’d be successful at both, assuming there are still jobs in journalism in the next 10 – 20 years.  I know the face of journalism is changing rapidly, but people still need to read and write, right?  I sure hope so.

I’m going to lunch with Dorothy today.  I miss her blog.  I’m happy to see her pretty face, though, which is even better than her blog.  But her blog was pretty funny.  I do miss the days when so many of my real life friends and family were blogging.

Ted and I went to see Side Effects last weekend.  Rumor has it that Steven Soderbergh is getting out of feature films or something to that effect, and this is his last big film.  I hope that’s not true, that he takes a much needed rest for a few years, but comes back to it, because I am definitely a fan of his work.  I’m not saying I’ve seen every film he’s made, or that I’ve loved every one that I have seen, but I did love Sex, Lies, and Videotape way back when, and have enjoyed many of his films since.   I would say that Side Effects was among the better films in his catalog.  It’s a twisty turny suspense type film, and not really what I expected it to be at all.  I generally try not to read reviews of a movie before I see it, because I find if they hate the movie, it dampens my enjoyment, and I notice the things that they mention.  So I won’t say more about this one, except that the performances were really good, the story was interesting and kept me guessing, and I came out of the theater really glad we had seen it.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend it.

What else…not much.  Watched an episode of The West Wing on Netflix the other day, and I’m thinking I’d like to re-watch that series.  It’s a nice place to spend some time.  Last weekend was girl scout cookies, and now we’re done with that for the year.  It’s dry dry dry here, though it did sprinkle today.  California needs a wet, wet spring, and we almost never get that.  If you know of any rain dances, please, do one for us.

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

*Saturday evening update…went to the library today, and 5 books I had put on hold were there.  Guess I’ll be reading a bunch in the next few weeks, yeah?

I went to the store the other day, in need of a new pair of jeans.  I have a certain brand and cut that I like, and alas, they are phasing that cut out.  No big pile with four washes from which to choose, which is how it was the last time I went to the store.   So I looked all over, dug through pile after pile, and the only pair I found was 7 sizes too big.  Rats.  Every other pair in the store was a stupid low rise cut, meaning I can’t bend over without people knowing what kind of underwear I have on.  I don’t like that, and I doubt anyone who would be forced to see my crack would like it, either.  I’m not a plumber.  When I came home, I tried the online store, and look, they still have them!  Plus, a coupon for 30% off!  So I get my jeans, and save money.  I hope I don’t regret only buying one pair.  Perhaps I should have bought two.  But since they’re going away, I kind of think it might be a good idea to look around and see what else is out there.

There has been a constant drip drip drip coming from our bathroom vanity, and our water bill went up this last time.  Neither Ted nor I are plumbers (as I mentioned above), nor do we play one on TV, but at the same time, a drippy faucet seems like it should be solvable without calling a plumber and paying $75.  Friday was my day off, and Ted replaced our bathroom shower head a few months ago, so I felt like, perhaps, if he can do it, I might be able to do it, too.  I looked online, and saw a video that showed how to remove the faucet, but blurred through the complicated inner workings.  Mostly it said, take it apart, take the parts with you to the hardware store to match them correctly, then come home and put them back in where you found them, and voila, problem solved.  Well, that’s a mighty optimistic telling of how it could go, isn’t it?  I was able to get it pulled partially apart, but not completely.  I wasn’t sure whether to fight it and break it, or if maybe I needed a tool.  So I took some pictures and went to the hardware store.  There, they told me that it was difficult to disassemble because of hard water deposits, and I should just yank on it.  OK.  Back home, and now Ted’s here (he was out giving Maya a driving lesson on the freeways, which I am happy enough to miss…they make me nervous), so he just gives the darned thing one yank, and off it comes.  Yay for big man strength!  Back to the hardware store I go, with the spigot or whatever it’s called, but I didn’t bring the washer.  So they sell me what they think might fit, and back home I go.  I put it back together, with Ted’s help, though again, neither of us are plumbers.  Get everything put back together, turn the water on, and out it comes…even though the spigot is turned off.  Not working at all.  Drats.  Turn it off.  Take it apart.  Look at the washer, which has a hole that is slightly bigger than the hole in the original washer.  I wonder if that matters.  I don’t know.  Back to the hardware store I go, this time with my worn out parts, where they dig around and find yet another kit, with a washer that looks much more like mine than the first one.  Back home. Put it together.  Run water.  No better.  What’s wrong?  Could it be that I have the spring/washer combination put together backwards?  Ted pulls apart the other side of the sink to see, and yes, it does indeed appear that way.  So we try it again.  YAYYY!! This time, it worked.  No more dripping faucet.  No more wondering how much it’s costing me to have it drip, and thinking about the dry January we’ve had, and thus far, dry February as well, so the guilt of wasted water.  And it only cost me $3, four hours, and 3 trips to the hardware store.

Lots of construction around here, jackhammering apart our swimming pool. That was fun. Working from home has its benefits, but listening to someone jackhammer your pool for 5 continuous hours is not one of them. After they tore it apart, thankfully, they put it back together, re-tiled, re-plastered, and filled it with water. Then, walking by the other day, there’s this new sign. WTF? The thing is, even though we live in a condo complex, which is sort of private property, it is not one person’s property. So the pool is subject to all kind of county regulations. Like when they made us add new tiles a year or two ago, to add ‘ft’ to the ’4′ and ’6′ on the sides of the pool. Homeowner money had to go to adding signs to tell us that it was feet, not meters, even though diving isn’t allowed anyway. Frustrating. Anyway, I’m assuming that the sign is a county regulation, so we have no choice but to put it up, no matter how disgusting it is to walk past every day.

Awhile ago I mentioned that I have an avocado tree that needs a bigger pot.  I had contemplated going and asking some people down the street if they’d be interested in selling me their lovely blue glazed planters, and I actually did knock on their door once, but they didn’t answer.  I’ve noticed more often lately that even when people are home, they sometimes just don’t answer the door.  That’s their right, I suppose, but I find it a bit odd.  Anyway, I considered leaving them a note with my phone number, but after knocking, I went and played a bit with the planters, and GOSH they were heavy.  I tried to imagine them with a small tree inside, and I lost my will.  So on the first of my three trips to the hardware store yesterday, I picked up a huge plastic planter and a bag of potting soil, and after we finished fixing the faucet, I re-potted the avocado.  My fantasy is that someday we’ll get fruit off of it, but I’m not getting my hopes up too high.

Valentine’s Day can be a busy, horrid day to eat in a restaurant. There are three days that I do NOT like going to restaurants in a year, and they are: 1. Valentine’s Day 2. Mother’s Day 3. New Year’s Eve. Too crowded; special, expensive menus; harried service; grumpy customers, due to the first three items, plus you probably had a reservation and still had to wait 45 minutes for a table. We don’t go out to eat on any of these days. But we do celebrate, which means some kind of yummy feast. February is mid to late winter, which is prime crab season in NorCal, so we decided to have one of our favorite meals…cracked crab roasted with garlic, butter, more garlic, and more butter, and noodles, with garlic, butter, olive oil, and a few more things. Gah, it was good. Ted had his beloved bok choy, and Maya and I had salad, as we do not belove bok choy. Then, to top it all off, Ted made an amazing apple cake that I think we’ll be having for Thanksgiving this year, because it was SO delicious. Really, really good.  If you behave, perhaps I’ll post the recipe for you.

Today I’m off to give blood.  Back in November when my grandma fell and broke herself up, she had to have some blood, and I’ve been meaning to do it since then.  Other weekend plans, holidays, and sore throats have foiled my best laid plans, but today I’m all clear.  Eat a big breakfast so I don’t pass out, go give blood, and then come home and maybe have a nap, which is usually just what I want after giving blood.  I’d like to see a movie this weekend, but I still have two more days, so no rush, right?  Nice.   OH, I forgot to tell you, my Grandma is home!  She’s healed well enough that she is now home again, no longer on the schedule of the nursing home, taking their pills and doing exercises, all of that.  I hope she keeps up some of the exercises…stronger muscles make for a less wobbly Grandma, one who is less likely to fall down and break anything.  What a relief!  Yay Grandma!

One of the benefits of membership to our local PBS station is that they sometimes have a ‘free member day’ at local museums. Several years ago, that took us to the SF MOMA to see a Picasso exhibit, and Maya and I spent a lovely day in San Francisco together.

This time the ‘free member day’ was for the de Young Museum, one of two fine art museums in San Francisco. They have several exhibits, but the current Special Exhibit is a collection of paintings from the Mauritshuis in Holland, which is a museum that is being expanded and is under renovation until mid-2014. While they’re tearing up the place, they sent some of their paintings on tour, the most famous of which was the Vermeer painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring. I read the novel several years ago, and was excited to see the painting for free, so those of us who were willing to get up early and be there 1/2 hour before doors opened (I remembered how crowded the Picasso exhibit was, and that was on a weekday) hopped in the car and went. That means Ted and I. Maya is at that teen age when it takes something more important and exciting than a once in a lifetime chance to see a famous painting in person to rouse her out of bed and be out the door by 8am on a Saturday. We got there at 9, doors open at 9:30. As sometimes happens in a long line, we struck up a couple of conversations with those around us. I was actually pretty impressed that people will make such an effort to see art. The couple ahead of us had driven up from Cambria, spent the night in a fancy hotel, and were spending the day. They were also members of PBS. Then there was a guy behind us, who had flown down from Portland to see another exhibit, on famous ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, which is leaving in a few days. I was thinking about that, and about how people with certain interests and a certain income level are willing to spend a certain amount of money for such high minded things. If you don’t have the income level to see the exhibit ($25 per person), or to donate to your local PBS station, but you do still have the interest in art, many museums have free days, when you can see the exhibits for free, one day a month, though that won’t get you in to see the Girl and her fancy earring…that’s extra.

The highlights of the exhibit, for me, were Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was so much more lovely in real life than online, and Rachel Ruysch’s Vase of Flowers.

We toyed with buying framed prints of these two paintings to display in our home, but decided that it might seem sort of weird. So I bought some magnets instead. Our fridge is getting arty.

We also saw the exhibit called Rembrandt’s Century, which was comprised of a few paintings and a lot of etchings, both by Rembrandt, and by his 17th century contemporaries. I was glad that I overheard the gentleman behind us saying he had flown down from Portland specifically to see the Nureyev exhibit, because it was well worth seeing, and I don’t know if I would have known about it otherwise. There were photographs and videos of Nureyev dancing, but the most spectacular parts of the exhibit were the costumes, which were dazzling.

There were tutus and costumes from many famous ballets…Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayadere, and Giselle, among others. They were sumptuous and so detailed. Just beautiful. I would go and see them again, if they weren’t leaving this week. So glad I got to see them.

After our museum visit, we decided to go out for Chinese food. Just in time for Lunar New Year! Our first thought was to dine in our old neighborhood, Clement Street. The parking gods were not with us, however, and we left, discouraged. Not to be thwarted, we decided to drive a bit further out into the avenues, and get Dim Sum. When we lived just off of Clement, there was a tasty and reliable Chinese restaurant near us, Ton Kiang. They have a sister restaurant further out, that has good Dim Sum, so that’s where we went. We were able to park pretty quickly, and only 2 or 3 blocks from the restaurant, which any big city dweller will tell you is fine parking indeed. The good thing about Dim Sum is that, if you’re hungry, there’s no dilly dallying around with a menu and waiting for your food to be prepared. You sit down, and waiters start coming by with trays of food. You take what you want, and not what you don’t. We ate a bit more than we should have, because we were quite hungry and there was a lot of dumpling and starch involved, so we were pretty full by the time we left. I’m not sure of what all we had, but I do know we had bbq pork buns, shrimp dumplings, eggplant stuffed with shrimp, mushrooms stuffed with shrimp and chilies, asparagus, spinach, little riblets, shrimp and rice noodles, and maybe something else. If I could do it over, I’d swap out the ribs and get the salt and pepper calamari instead, but by the time that came around, we were far too full. That’s the down side of Dim Sum. You shouldn’t be greedy and eat the first things that they bring (like we did), and instead, bide your time a bit. Next time perhaps.

Now I’ll finish off this long winded post by telling you that when we got home, I had the overwhelming urge to re-read Tracy Chevalier’s novel, ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring‘, which is a completely fictional story, supposing that the girl in the famous painting is a maid in Vermeer’s household, and what her life might be like. Luckily, my copy survived the loathsome book purge of 2007, so I curled up on the sofa and devoured it. I finished before bed, which pointed out to me the difference between a book that completely draws me in, like this one, and one that fails to do so, like ‘Lincoln’, by Gore Vidal, which is sadly not holding my interest. Now I kind of want to see the film version. I think I saw it when it came out in theaters, but I’m not positive, and that would have been about 10 years ago. Maybe time to make a stop at our local video store.

Overall it was a lovely day. It would have been nice if Maya had come into the city with us, but on the other hand, it was quite lovely to have a date with my handsome husband in our favorite city, doing things we love together, just the two of us. I’ll call that a success and not complain a bit.

I want to write something about the mass shooting in Connecticut. I feel like I should. But it hurts to go into a lot of detail. I hate it. Those poor families. Those poor children. Those poor teachers. That whole, devastated community. I cannot imagine what they are going through. I hate that people get sick enough that they would do such a thing. I hate that we live in a country where guns are so available, that we can have two shootings in one week. It was just Tuesday that I heard on the radio about a guy who shot up a mall outside of Portland, and I quickly sent texts to my father, my step-mom, my sisters, asking…everyone OK? Then on Friday, the absolute horror of what happened in CT. It’s so heartbreaking I don’t even know what to say.

I hate the talk that comes out of these things. People really can be assholes sometimes. How if only the teachers were armed, these things wouldn’t happen. How if only we still had prayer in schools, these things wouldn’t happen. How we should hire armed veterans to guard our schools. It’s all so damned crazy. I lost a Facebook friend over it, actually. She was an acquaintance from high school. We used to talk a lot before class in the 8th grade, because I had a boyfriend and she wanted to hear about that. After we broke up, she didn’t really want to talk to me anymore, which I guess was fine. So those of you who do Facebook know, you have different levels of friends there. There’s family, which I love, because my sisters and my dad post some really nice pictures, and it helps me keep in touch with them. There’s the good friends, the ones you see in real life whenever you can, and talk to via phone, email, text, whatever. There’s the long lost friends, those that you knew once long ago, and really do care about, but probably wouldn’t make a great effort to get to know them. The online friends, people you know through blogs and so on. Then there are the people like K, who you knew sort of long ago, and thought of one day when you saw their name on a common friend’s wall. And the more you see their posts, the more you realize you have nothing in common. I didn’t mind K talking about Romney and so on during the election. Some of my best friends voted for Romney. And I have friends that I know and care about who are very pro-gun rights, so that I can respect, especially since the subject is so very much in the news right now. But when she changed her profile picture to one of her shooting an M60, and it looks like flames coming out of the damn thing, and she’s laughing and having a great time. That struck me as the most insensitive and tone-deaf thing I had ever seen. At the same time she says she’s crying her eyes out about the kids who died in CT, she posts a picture like that. Because it’s her second amendment right to shoot a gun and enjoy it. Well, I don’t need an amendment to delete her from my list of friends. Bye bye, K. Enjoy your stupid life.

(Image courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen, since I didn’t take one.)
We enjoy a nice latke and applesauce dinner for the first night of Hanukkah, but we also enjoy a little more to the meal, if you know what I mean. Generally, that means a roast chicken and some easy to prepare veggies. Latkes are kind of worky, and homemade applesauce does take some time of peeling and cutting, so it’s nice to have a recipe that you can pop in the oven and ignore while you make your latkes and applesauce. I saw this recipe on America’s Test Kitchen, and it was just weird enough to make me wonder. The story they told is that they were trying a recipe, and the power went out in the middle, turning off the ovens. The result? A delicious, very moist and delicious chicken. So without further ado, here is their recipe.

Roast Chicken

Why this recipe works:

Roast chicken is often described as a simple dish, and it is, at least in terms of flavor—when done properly, the rich flavor and juicy meat of the chicken need little adornment. But the actual process of preparing and roasting chicken is anything but simple: Recipes often call for complicated trussing techniques and rotating the bird multiple times during the course of cooking. The most time-consuming part is salting or brining the bird, a step that ensures juiciness and well-seasoned meat. We wanted to find a way to skip this step—without sacrificing flavor—and get roast chicken on the table in just an hour. After systematically testing the various components and steps of a typical recipe, we discovered we could ditch both the V-rack and flipping the chicken by using a preheated skillet; preheating the pan and placing the chicken breast side up gave the thighs a jump start on cooking. Starting the chicken in a 450-degree oven and then turning the oven off while the chicken finished cooking slowed the evaporation of juices, ensuring moist, tender meat.

If you can plan ahead, by all means brine or salt your bird. But when you want dinner on the table in an hour, you need a different way to get juicy, tender chicken. (J’s note…I’m just not a fan of brining. It does something to the texture that I don’t like. Instead, I prefer to pat the chicken dry, then salt it (don’t forget the cavity) and leave it, uncovered, in the fridge for several hours. That makes for a more crispy skin.)

We prefer to use a 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken for this recipe. If roasting a larger bird, increase the time when the oven is on in step 2 to 35 to 40 minutes. Cooking the chicken in a preheated skillet will ensure that the breast and thigh meat finish cooking at the same time.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (3 1/2- to 4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 recipe pan sauce (optional)  (J’s note…remove the chicken to a cutting board to rest, and let the fat separate.  Skim off as much as you can from the skillet.  Put the skillet over medium heat.  Add a bit of chicken broth and/or white wine, and deglaze the pan.  Pour this yumminess over the chicken after you’ve carved it.  Delicious.)

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position, place 12-inch ovensafe skillet on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees. Combine salt and pepper in bowl. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Rub entire surface with oil. Sprinkle evenly all over with salt mixture and rub in mixture with hands to coat evenly. Tie legs together with twine and tuck wing tips behind back.
2. Transfer chicken, breast side up, to preheated skillet in oven. Roast chicken until breasts register 120 degrees and thighs register 135 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes. Turn off oven and leave chicken in oven until breasts register 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes.
3. Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. While chicken rests, prepare pan sauce, if using. Carve chicken and serve.

Wow, was this chicken juicy and moist and delicious. You could add whatever herbs or garlic or lemon you want, I should think, but the basic salt and pepper is perfect on its own as well. A strange recipe, yes, but it works.

No, not drinking someone under the table. Napping under the table. When I was a kid, I loved to nap. I still love to nap. Now, my favorite napping place is on my sofa with my cozy napping blanket, or maybe on my bed. But when I was a kid, I loved to nap under things. Especially under tables. It felt so cozy, like a little cave, and if there were a party going on, I could hear the adults laughing and talking, and just soak it up until I dozed off. I know, I’m weird. I once fell asleep under a piano on a river boat*, and didn’t wake up when someone started playing it. So when I saw this picture on FB today, I had to share here.

*The link is to a post I did back in early 2008, about my life in Fairbanks. Perhaps one of my most favorite posts to go back and read, actually. And look, there’s a comment from my mom…just a week before she went into the hospital. I like seeing those comments.

(absolutely perfect graphic found here)

I don’t have a lot of phobias, I don’t think.  I’m not excited about the idea of hanging out in an extremely crowded place with a lot of pushy strangers, but I can handle it.  I don’t love finding a spider struggling to get out of my shower, but I can handle it.  I’m not thrilled with Ferris wheels, but I wouldn’t say I have a fear of heights.  I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, and it didn’t freak me out in the least.

One fear I do have, however, is sleeping on a ground floor with the window open.  You cannot, CAN NOT convince me that this is safe.  I don’t care what kind of super duper safe neighborhood you live in, you never know when some freak is going to take a liking to it.  Take some time, and go look at the majority of horrific home invasions out there.  How did they get in?  Did they kick the door down?  Break a window?  No, they came in through an open window or door.  That’s how they get in.  When I was a kid, maybe 12 or 13, there were a series of horrible rapes in my town, where the rapist got in by open bedroom windows on hot summer nights.  That started me watching, paying attention to the access point of home invasions, be they rural or urban.  No difference.  In most of them, I’d say over 80%, the criminal looks for an opportunity, and exploits it.

So far, I haven’t had to deal with this fear since I left that same stupid town.  In San Francisco, my bedroom was on either the 2nd or 3rd floor.  In Philadelphia, the 16th floor of an apartment building.  Here, we live in a townhouse, and the bedrooms are upstairs.  It’s not the most efficient architecture in an area where summer temperatures get up over 100 quite often.  For that, you want low adobe buildings, where you can open the doors and windows to the evening and early morning breezes, and then shut out the sun for the hottest part of the day.  But it’s great for feeling safe with your window open at night.

I don’t know about our future…what if we move someday, to a ranch style home?  I’ve seen window locks you can put on your open window frame, to keep it from opening beyond a certain point.  I don’t know if those work, and if they do, how well.  I understand that if someone wants to get into your house, they will.  Doors will be kicked in, windows will be broken.  But I’m not sure if window locks like those protect against intruders who are looking for an opportunity.  I also understand that millions of people live in one story homes, and leave their windows open at night, and no horrible crimes occur.  I, however, don’t intend to INVITE any into my home.

How about you…do you have any phobias?  Do you intend to change them?  I don’t.  I think mine keeps me safe.

The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday, the day when retailers hope to move from being in the red to being in the black.  It has also become a day when shoppers go forth, hoping to find great deals, either for their Christmas and Hanukkah shopping, or perhaps for themselves.  There is also Small Business Saturday, when shoppers are encouraged to frequent small, locally owned businesses, rather than the big box stores that are so popular on Black Friday.  Yesterday was Cyber Monday, when shoppers go online and shop while they’re supposed to be working.  A person can supposedly get really good deals on this particular Monday, though I find offers of such deals to be somewhat suspect.  (I saw a deal on Amazon for a gift I am intending to purchase, and it was 1/3 of the regular price.  But it was not available, because all at that price had been snapped up.  I have no stomach for such games.)

Now there is Giving Tuesday, a day when we are encouraged to stop worrying about buying gifts and so on for a moment or two, and give some thought to non-profits.  I do not, could not, and will not, offer a gift guide of shopping suggestions.  However, I do have some giving ideas, if you’re looking for help in that arena.  You can give goods, time, or money, whatever fits your situation the best.

Local:

• Food Banks – You can donate in several ways.  You can write them a check (or donate online).  You can put food in the barrel at the grocery store (peanut butter and canned tuna are always popular options).  You can volunteer to go to the food bank and help sort food, which will be delivered to local soup kitchens, or picked up by those in need.
• Soup Kitchens – A lot of people come out and serve food on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and maybe Easter.  Why not call them up and see if they’d like your help another time of year?  I’m guessing they would.
• Schools – Public schools depend more and more upon foundations to support not only extracurricular activities, but also art, physical education, and science.  Increasingly, this support funds teacher incomes, not just them staying late to tutor our children.  I’m not sure how much this is a factor outside of California, but here, because of stupid Prop 13, it’s HUGE.
• Child Abuse Prevention Council – Again, both volunteering and monetary donations are welcome.  A donation in your child’s teachers name might mean more to them than a mug or a box of candy.
• Meals on Wheels – They can always use more volunteer drivers.  They also need people to go and visit the elders once in awhile, and of course, they can always use money to help them provide this needed service.
• Toys for Tots – If you really really like shopping, and you want to do some good at the same time, you can contribute to a local toy drive.  Toys for Tots is the most famous one that I know.  One year, my company supported ‘Adopt an Angel’, and my kid wished for a warm coat.  He was 9.  Gah, a 9 year old that wants a coat instead of a toy or a book or a game…it broke my heart.  And duh, I bought the warmest coat I could find.
• Animal Shelter – All animal shelters can use cash donations.  Some animal shelters use volunteers to help socialize animals, or to clean out cages, and so on.  Some accept donations of food and animal toys.
• 18,000 other local organizations – There are undoubtedly plenty of other local non-profits that would be grateful for your help.  Perhaps a group of kids that create cards that they sell, and use the money to buy sleeping bags and clothing for local homeless folks; a group that collects and sends care packages to soldiers deployed overseas;  perhaps a dog rescue that brings in dogs for your particular favorite breed, cares for them (sometimes very expensive), and finds them home.

National:

• American Red Cross – The Red Cross can use your help in so many ways. They are the first responders when natural disasters like the ’89 earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, and Superstorm Sandy hit. They are also there for smaller disasters, like house fires and floods. They collect blood for emergencies, blood which is needed by so many. People with cancer, people in car accidents, people having surgery, and so on.  My grandma received a transfusion during her recent medical stay, and I’m thinking this weekend will find me donating at our local blood center and thinking of her.  Want to help? You can donate money, you can donate blood, and I’ll bet there are plenty of ways for a person to donate time as well. Speaking of Superstorm Sandy, if you’re interested in helping out, the Red Cross is probably not the best place for longer term help. NPR had some other ideas, here. I was especially impressed by the organization of Occupy Sandy volunteers.
• Planned Parenthood – I don’t know if Planned Parenthood has much use for volunteers, but I do know they can use financial help.  Planned Parenthood is sometimes the only healthcare women receive.  They provide cancer screenings, birth control, and treatment when needed.  They were there for me when I needed birth control, but did not have medical insurance.  They are there for so many.
• Medical Research and Advocacy – The list is seemingly endless.  Organizations devoted to research to end breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma, leukemia, just plain cancer cancer.  Then there’s AIDS, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, Down’s syndrome, on and on and on.  There are groups working to help burn victims, children with cleft lips and cleft palates, spina bifida, any group you can think of, they surely have a worthwhile organization that can help, and that needs your money.
• NPR/PBS – National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, they both produce wonderful programs for children, adults, everyone.  If you believe in the mission to bring this information to the public, if you listen and watch, this might be a good place to plant a few dollars.
• ACLU and/or Southern Poverty Law Center – These organizations work to defend the civil rights of Americans.  The ACLU focuses more on the right to free speech and due process, and the SPLC focuses on protecting the civil rights of those who have been wronged, and bringing those who commit hate crimes to justice.  They are both very worthwhile organizations.
• National Center for Family Literacy – Their mission is towards whole family literacy, because when the family and community are literate, the circumstances for the entire community improves, and the children have a better chance of graduating from High School.
• 18,000 other National Organizations – There are so, so, SO MANY worthwhile organizations out there.  Think about what is important to you…the arts, medicine, animal welfare, hunger, poverty, civil rights, alcohol abuse treatment, etc.  Find what you care about, and then find an organization that helps.  Give them money, or time, whatever you have more of.

International:

• Heifer Project  – The Heifer Project works to alleviate hunger and poverty, both nationally and internationally, by giving animals to families in need.  A goat that provides milk to a family, perhaps enough that they can sell some to neighbors.  Perhaps they make enough money so that their children can go to school rather than working.  The first offspring of this goat, they must donate to another family in their town or village, who must also pay it forward.
• Mercy Corps – The Mercy Corps works to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.
• International Red Cross – Again, a first responder, there in times of crisis, to help people through the most difficult times in their lives.

There are so many more organizations that you can help out.  Give blood.  Put some peanut butter in a bin at the grocery store.  Go serve food at a soup kitchen, or sort at a food bank.  Visit some old people at a nursing home, donate flowers to make things more cheerful there.  Adopt an animal, if you’re ready for an addition of love and laughter to your household.  There are so many things you can do.  Do them.  Today and every day.

This is my Grandma and my cousin’s daughter, Julia, last year

Thanksgiving Day was a lovely day of fun, family, and wonderful food, as it should be. It also brought the disquieting news that my Grandma, my mom’s mom, had fallen pretty hard and broken her wrist, and was in the hospital. Blech.

So Friday I drove to Stockton to see her, to verify with my own eyes that she was OK, to try to find out what was going on. The news was not good. And sitting in a hospital is rarely fun. You wait and wait and wait all day for someone to come and tell you what is going on. I’m pushy enough in these situations, that I go out into the hallway and find the proper nurse, ask her my questions, and see if I can hurry things along. Friday, for most of the 8 hours I was there, she was queasy and really just wanting a cup of coffee. They wouldn’t let her have any until they were sure that she wouldn’t have surgery. Finally, towards the end of my visit, it was determined that no surgery would happen until Saturday, so she got some coffee and food. It was determined that surgery was the option she wanted on Saturday. It was discovered that there was something on some test or another that the doctors didn’t like, and made them think perhaps there was bone cancer somewhere. So we tried to get a CT Scan, but something went wrong (perhaps that she threw up the icky drink she had to take before hand, I don’t know). That was Friday.

Saturday was a day on hold. Started out with another (this time successful) CT Scan, then off to surgery, which didn’t happen, due to an irregular heartbeat. She has mitral valve prolape (which seems to run in the family, as her sister and my cousin both have it as well). I guess that threw off the anesthesiologist, who wanted to wait to hear from the cardiologist before he was willing to put her under.

Sunday, they carted her off early for surgery, having gotten the OK from the cardiologist. Thankfully, the surgery went well. They put a metal plate in her wrist to help hold it together. The CT Scan showed NO SIGNS of cancer. Whew. That’s a huge relief. Grandma has had health problems for the last few years, and I doubt that she has the strength to power through cancer treatment. She has always been tiny and thin, but now she’s lost weight and is probably 95 lbs dripping wet.

I drove to Stockton on Sunday, and made it back to her room before she did. It was so nice to see her, and to spend the afternoon making her life miserable by being loud and laughing with my relieved cousins. I asked her several times if she wanted us to leave for a bit so she could get a nap, and she said no, it was really nice to listen to us, her granddaughters, all together. We are so rarely all together.

So now I’m home, and she’s going to be discharged soon to go to the convalescent home. I’m not thrilled with those places, but this is a pretty good one, and she went there a few years ago when she broke her leg and had surgery. The people there are kind and supportive, and she likes them. It is 5 minutes (with traffic) from her house, and 5 minutes from my uncle’s house, so it’s very convenient for my Great Aunt (who lives with my Grandma) and my uncle and aunt. I think having them there as much as possible is a great help in her recovery, so I’m all for it.

You know, after all of this, I’m kind of ready for the weekend to be over, and to go back to work. But I’m really relieved that she’s OK.

The story of Scarlett O’Hara and the ruin of the south is so tied in with the film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, “Gone With The Wind“, that if you’ve seen the film, it’s difficult to separate the two in your mind.  I first read “Gone With the Wind” in the 8th grade, and the love triangle between Scarlett, Ashley, and Rhett absorbed me completely.  I’ve read the book so many times since that I can open it at any page and know what’s going on, just by reading one sentence.  It’s one of those books.  I was thinking about it recently, however, and I realized that I’ve only read the entire book, cover to cover, once or twice.  I tend to find myself thinking about a scene in the story, and I open the book and read that scene.  I may get pulled in and read another chapter or two, but not more than that.  It’s just too long and all encompassing to get pulled into very often.  So I decided that I wanted to come at it with fresh eyes, or as fresh as possible, and read it from cover to cover.

Being 30 years older than I was in the 8th grade also helped me to change my perspective a bit.  I slowed down and noticed the story of the war, that Mitchell really seemed to love the south, and at the same time, to be criticizing the ‘Glorious Cause’ and all that it stood for.  She admitted that there was perhaps a beauty to that antebellum time, but at the same time, she notes that it was a beautiful time only to a privileged few, and that for the majority of people, it was a very restrictive time that would allow little in the way of non-conformity or difference.  Certainly had the war not come along, Scarlett, with her steel will and wild ways, would have stifled and chaffed at the bit.  Not to mention the issues of slavery and racism.  Indeed, issues which are glossed over and treated as though they were nothing.  And they’re not nothing.  Not at all.  From an Atlantic article on race in GWTW:

But some readers had found Mitchell’s treatment of race less a cartoon than a nightmare. She had, for example, depicted her leading black characters as content with slavery, uninterested in freedom. They often seemed more like pets than people. When Scarlett and Big Sam were reunited after the war, “his watermelon-pink tongue lapped out, his whole body wiggled, and his joyful contortions were as ludicrous as the gambolings of a mastiff.” The “good” black characters both loved and needed the whites. Though Mammy was one of the strongest characters in the novel, she could not manage Tara after the war without the guidance of her white masters. Her mind was too simple, not yet fully evolved, as readers could infer from a description of her as she looked at the once-grand plantation, her face “sad with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey’s face.”

These are the passages in Gone With the Wind that get under my skin, in a bad way. When you skim the book, as I have for so many years, you can ignore these sections. But by doing so, you not only miss the depth of Mitchell’s criticism of Southern culture, and some very moving descriptions of the happenings during the war, you miss some of the moments that point you towards Mitchell’s own racism, which is an ugly thing indeed. When I admit my love for this book, I’m always a little bit afraid that my black friends will think less of me for it. But I’m not brave enough to ask their thoughts. I’ve never brought it up in a black friend’s presence, but I wonder…can a black reader get past these ugly passages, or are they too damn insulting? I mean, there is a lot of dignity in many of the black roles in GWTW, but the passages comparing the slaves (and former slaves) to animals are difficult to reconcile.

As for Scarlett, as I said in my meme the other day, I love her. I love how she does the right thing when it’s important, and not when it isn’t. How she’s selfish when it comes to the conventions of the day, but generous when it comes to life vs. death and her family. I do draw the line at her hiring convict labor for her lumber mill. That was selfish, and no one gained anything from that. I can’t love her for that.

What about you, my friends? Have you read Gone With the Wind? Did the racist sections trouble you? The convicts? The husband stealing? Personally, I’m more willing to forgive Scarlett the convict labor and the husband stealing, because she is a flawed character, and Mitchell is trying to show that, not hide it. The racism, I think, is Mitchell’s more than Scarlett’s.

By the way, if you’d like a bit of an antidote to the ugly racism in Gone With the Wind, may I suggest that you might enjoy The Wind Done Gone? I loved it. Truly.

photo mix found on the Contogna website

Yesterday found me taking BART into the City to meet my dear friend MAS for luncheon, at a lovely restaurant that I hadn’t tried before, Cotogna. Turns out, they are the sister restaurant to Quince, which inhabits the space once occupied by Myth, a restaurant that Ted and I happened upon one night several years ago.

It was the kind of lunch that Ladies of Leisure enjoy…we had appetizers, potato gnocchi with castelmagno cheese, wine (I had wine, MAS had sparkling water), veggies, and a delicious apple-quince crostata with vanilla ice cream (seen in the picture there).  We lingered for well over 3 hours, catching up and telling our stories to each other. Marilee and I met back in graduate school, and I do adore her.  She’s smart, hilarious, effervescent, and fun.  A real kick in the pants.

(image found here)

Idioms
kick in the pants, informal
a. someone or something that is very exciting, enjoyable, amusing, etc.: I think you’ll like her, she’s a real kick in the pants.

definition found here

The food was delicious. One of our appetizers was a little pot of ricotta cheese with sun-choke, hazelnuts, and toasted baguette. The other was Asian pear, prosciutto & smoked almonds. The sauce for the pears was marvelous, and truthfully, the pear with the ricotta made me happy to marry the two appetizers. And prosciutto…it was really, really thin and lovely. The gnocchi was light and fluffy, the cheese creamy and not overpoweringly rich. I love love love gnocchi, and this was some of the best I’ve had. Funny, because another of the best gnocchis was at Myth, and no, the same people are not involved in both restaurants. There’s just good gnocchi karma in the building, perhaps. Last was the apple-quince crostata with ice cream, which was light and not too sweet.

The atmosphere at Cotogna is casual, though you wouldn’t feel overdressed in a suit and heels. The service was attentive, friendly, and helpful. There aren’t very many restaurants on my side of the tunnel where they clear your silverware between courses, rather than suggesting that you keep your dirty fork and knife for the next course. It’s one criteria for good service for me. Another is that they didn’t clear my plate when I had finished eating, they waited until MAS had also finished her meal. Yet another was that they stayed on top of our water situation, and that they spoke knowledgeably about the menu and the wine list. It was a lovely afternoon, and I recommend it highly. Both the restaurant, and getting together for a leisurly afternoon with a dear friend.