Thirty-six consecutive days

With the completion of this post, I will have blogged every day for 36 consecutive days, the goal I set on the 26th of October after a long, dry spell. My literary hat is off to those of you who regularly blog on a daily basis. I don't know how you manage to do it.

Holly, also known as Creekhiker, did this along with me, and I greatly appreciate her company. Those of you who read both Holly's blog and mine may have noticed that she posted something worthwhile each day, while I often posted, well...crap. Many evenings I sat down and typed several paragraphs about nothing. It was a method that worked much better for Jerry Seinfeld than it did for me.

Tomorrow, unless something happens that I can't wait to tell you, I plan to give myself a break, and after that, until the end of the year, I plan to be here regularly but sparingly. That's because I did my last book review at "Velvet's Bookstacks" all the way back in June, and I'm gonna do my best to catch up between now and the end of the year.

Things are so much easier when I don't let myself get behind.

Night owl

Last night, only a couple of nights into the holiday weekend, I read until nearly one o'clock in the morning. Today I got up at six-thirty to let the dogs out, then we all went back to bed until almost ten. This is the kind of schedule I naturally gravitate to, the schedule my body fights against during the entire work week.

Even if I go to bed at ten o'clock and sleep a full eight hours, getting up at six in the morning is torture for me. Even if I get to work at eight-thirty, I don't wake up fully until late morning. I can talk and I can work, but I'm doing it on autopilot.

This is on my mind because it's after eleven as I write this. I'm recognizing the weekend trend of staying up late on Friday night and even later on Saturday, only to go to bed early on Sunday and lie awake for hours. With this being a long weekend, I'm postponing bedtime later each consecutive night, and I know that Monday will be a day of reckoning.

Part of me is sitting here with pursed church-lady lips, disapproving of my lack of discipline. Another part of me is pumping a fist skyward and shouting, "Yessss! I love this time of the night."

When I think about all the things I'll do when I eventually retire from work, one of the things that excites me most is the idea of being able to dispense with the alarm clock and wake up only when I'm good and ready. In fact, I think about that a lot. I didn't realize how much I think about it until I got all the way down to this fifth paragraph and it started sounding familiar. A quick little blog search shows me it's only been eight days since I wrote wistfully about waking up without an alarm.

So, now we all know that my memory is slipping. When the day arrives that I can sleep late every morning, I hope I can remember to appreciate it.

Quickies

It's late, so I'll just post a couple of short items tonight:

1. There were no deviled eggs at our Thanksgiving dinner. It was as if the shells of those boiled eggs were superglued to the whites. I ended up doing as I thought I might, chopping up the whites I could salvage and stirring them into the yolk mixture, making a deviled-egg salad. It wasn't as festive as deviled eggs would have been, but it tasted just as good. Plus, it traveled a whole lot better.

2. The rest of the dinner was wonderful. I ate too much at lunchtime and then did it all over again for supper, and everything was just as good the second time around. I was so miserable after consuming all that food that you'd have thought I'd learned a lesson, but I woke up this morning craving another helping of sweet potato crunch.

3. Lucy and Winston spent the night last night. At one point this morning, all four dogs were on the sofa with me. It wouldn't have been comfortable for long, but for the ten minutes it lasted, it was pretty special.

4. Speaking of the dogs, Butch does something that drives me batty. He comes up to me while I'm at the computer and uses his nose to knock my right hand off the mouse. If he does it several times, I give up, stop typing, and get up to let him outside. The minute I stand up, he hurries to his food dish and starts eating, so I have to stand there and wait for him. I wish I could convince him to eat first and then let me know he needs something.

5. I'm behind on reading other people's blogs and leaving comments, as well as responding to comments on my own. I'm also behind on answering e-mails. If I owe you, I'm sorry, and I'll catch up as soon as I can.

That's it for now. Good night.

In times of plenty and in times of need...

...we still count our blessings and appreciate the goodness that's ours to enjoy in this lifetime. Today I will be with my family. I'll fill my stomach with wonderfully prepared foods (except for my failed deviled eggs), and my family will fill my heart with joy, pride, and gratitude that I am lucky enough to be part of this particular group of people.

While I'm counting my blessings, dear readers and fellow writers, please know that you're among them. The stories and feelings that you share so freely have enriched my life and made me feel connected to a much larger world than I was before I discovered the blogosphere.

I hope you are safe and warm today and with at least some of the people you love. Happy Thanksgiving from Butch, from Kadi, and from me.

The devil is in the details

I'm only contributing one dish to tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner, a simple dish that I've made dozens of times: deviled eggs. I ought to be able to do it in my sleep by now, but everytime I make them seems like a new adventure.

Are the eggs too fresh? If so, they'll be harder to peel, so I'd better boil extras to make up for the ones that end up with big chunks out of the whites. And what about the timing for boiling the eggs? I know that if I put the eggs in cold water, bring them to a rolling boil for one minute, then take them off the heat, leave them covered for 20 minutes, then flush with cold water, they'll be cooked perfectly. That's worked for me for years, but my new glass-topped stove is different. It takes forever for the water to begin boiling. Should I allow for the extra minutes that the eggs were in very hot water that was almost but not quite boiling?

It's anybody's guess. The good thing is I know they love me. If I show up with beautiful deviled eggs, deviled-egg salad (a distinct possibility), or empty-handed, I'm pretty sure they'll let me in and feed me.

Chinese, please

I worked late this evening to get a head start on things that'll need to be done immediately after the holidays. I struggle with Monday mornings all the time; there's no sense making the Monday after a four-day weekend even harder than it needs to be.

When I finished up, I looked at the clock and realized I could reward myself for the overtime. I'd worked late enough that my favorite Chinese restaurant was open.

I used to stop there to pick up dinner once a month or so, but my work hours are slightly different now, and I usually arrive home five or ten minutes before the restaurant opens. As much as I like the food, I don't like to wait or to drive back there later.

Tonight I had sesame chicken (yum!), egg rolls, fried shrimp, and crab rangoon, with enough food left over for tomorrow -- all for under $10. The leftovers are two completely different dishes, so they won't even seem like leftovers.

With a bargain like that, I guess it's unrealistic to expect that the fortune in the fortune cookie will make sense. The one tonight read, "A business trip will bring you excellent results." Hmm. I don't take business trips. Unless I find money someone dropped in front of the courthouse or the post office, I'm guessing this fortune cookie was intended for someone else.

Long lost playmate

Every year on November 24th, I think about one little girl: Jean Lee Benning. Today is her birthday, and I remember it because it's very close to mine, a fact that felt like a special bond when we were classmates and playmates.

There weren't a lot of kids in our neighborhood, but Jean Lee (I always called her by both names) lived close enough that we were allowed to walk between her house and mine. She was one of my first friends from school.

Jean Lee had brown hair that she wore in long, neat braids. She played the violin. It was because of her that I begged my mother to let me take violin lessons, too. (Mother, who was correct in her assessment that I'd soon lose interest in it, said no.)

I couldn't begin to tell you what we played when we played together. I mostly remember us walking from one house to the other together, and I remember that inside her house was the narrowest, steepest staircase I'd ever seen, so steep that climbing the stairs was a little bit scary.

We were little when we played together, first or second grade, probably, and then her family moved away. I've often wondered what happened to her, and I wonder if she has any idea that once a year for sixty years, someone has thought of her and wished her happiness.

Maybe someday, if she idly Googles her own name (we all do that, don't we?), she'll come across this post, and it'll make her smile.

Eavesdroppers

I'm not one to spend a lot of time on the telephone, but apparently there's enough of a pattern to my phone chats that Butch and Kadi have learned all the signs. I've noticed in the past that they always ask to go outside as soon as I hang up, but I've assumed they were just getting up because I did. That might have been part of it, but I learned tonight that it's not the whole story.

Earlier this evening I had a long phone visit with my sister, during which Butch and Kadi both slept on the sofa beside me. Near the end of the conversation, I told my sister I'd enjoyed the visit and asked her to "give my love to everybody there." I hadn't moved, and I hadn't said goodbye, but both dogs leaped up simultaneously, jumped off the sofa, and stood excitedly in front of me, wagging their tails in anticipation. I have no idea what words or behavior signaled them.

My sister was still on the line, so I told her what was going on. "You should see them," I said. "They know the call is ending."

My sister laughed. "There's no telling how many secrets they've heard you tell. If I were you, I wouldn't let them talk to the neighbor dogs for a few days."

Potatoes, potahtoes

At work the other day we had a brief discussion about deception. The consensus was that it isn’t a good thing, but, in the course of conversation, I confessed to an ongoing act of deception when I was much, much younger.

My husband (first one) worked late when my children were small, so I usually fed the children early, then kept his dinner warm in the oven. Since it was difficult to cook and care for two hungry toddlers by myself, I took shortcuts, one of which was the use of instant mashed potatoes.

One evening when my husband came home earlier than usual, he saw me using instant mashed potatoes and said, for the first time, that he didn’t like them. He said he didn’t want anything but real mashed potatoes in the future, ones that would have to be peeled, cubed, cooked for 45 minutes and then mashed. As he was the nominal head of the household, I fully intended to comply with his wishes and cook the potatoes the way he liked them. At least that was the plan.

A few days later, while I still had dry instant potatoes in the house, the children fussed about being hungry. To hurry their dinner along, I decided to cook them something quickly and fix something else later for my husband. I pulled out the instant potatoes again.

Unfortunately, I used too much water, and the potatoes were a little soupy. I tried to thicken them by adding more dry potato buds. That made them look like they should, but it also made them lumpy. None of the potato buds I'd added in the second go-round had absorbed enough liquid.

That’s when my husband walked in, early again. Before I could stop him, he stuck a fork in the bowl of potatoes and took a bite. “Mmm,” he said. “Now, that’s more like it.”

Quickly assessing my options, I kept my mouth shut. We were married for about two more years after that, during which almost all of the mashed potatoes I served him were lumpy instant ones. He never complained about them, not even once.

So, I ask you: do you blame me? What would you have done?

Friday night freedom

I haven't decided for sure, but I've been thinking about it this evening, and Friday night just may be my favorite time of the whole week. Here are some reasons why:

1) Work is over and I don't have to think about it for two whole days.

2) I have Saturday and Sunday to take care of shopping and other weekend chores, so I don't have to do any of them -- or even think about them -- unless I choose to.

3) I can go to bed early or stay up as late as I want without worrying about how I'll feel in the morning.

4) When I do go to bed, I can read until I'm sleepy. There's no pressure to make sure I sleep for a certain number of hours before the alarm goes off. In fact, there won't be an alarm.

When Saturday morning rolls around, I'll still be able to choose how I spend my time, but Saturday feels like the beginning of something. It's the start of a two-day slice of time that slips away all too soon. Friday night isn't like that.

On Friday night time feels suspended. The work week has ended, the weekend hasn't officially begun, and I can float through those few hours in between.

Tonight I had a good dinner with my daughter. I've snuggled with Kadi and Butch, read for a while, and watched a little TV. When I finish writing this, I'll crawl into bed between clean sheets and read some more. Later, just before I go to sleep, I'll say a silent prayer of thanks for my family, my furbabies, my home, my job, and for the sense of fulfillment that I feel intensely almost every Friday night.

Might as well talk about the weather

Ho-hum. The weather here is cold. No, wait, it's hot. Or is it? I haven't been outside in two hours, so I have no idea.

The outside temperature has dropped below freezing in the past couple of days, but it's also been up in the 70s. To keep the temperature in my house at the most comfortable level, I first have to decide whether to turn on the heat or the air conditioning. At bedtime it's a big decision, because I have to project whether the house will get colder or warmer before morning.

During the day I'm dressing in layers, knowing that I like the office a little on the cool side but a couple of others like it toasty warm. It's easier to peel off a sweater than to sneak the thermostat back five degrees every couple of hours.

We're supposed to have a cold spell this weekend, but I'm not sure what that means. Below freezing again? Or just colder than 70 degrees? Is it possible for a cold front to move in overnight, followed by a warm front around lunchtime?

For all I know, the weather may have changed in the short time I've spent writing this post, but one thing didn't change in that time: the subject is just as boring at the end of this as it was at the beginning.

Dragging out another old poem

After work this evening I had to make a dreaded stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things -- pet items at one end of the place, grocery items at the other -- so now I'm ready to just kick back and put my feet up.

In the interest of posting something that wouldn't require me to engage my brain tonight, I hit the old-poem folder again. This time I pulled out a poem I wrote for a friend in 1989, just a few words of advice when I thought she was about to take a flying leap off the deep end. Let's just say it was an expression of a lesson I'd learned the hard way.


CLIMBING IVY

Passion fades.
The rose blooms only briefly
till its petals fall and leave behind
the memories and the thorns.

Cultivate the ivy.
No bold flowers there,
but one small sprig whose tendrils
reach a solid structure
grows to cover, brick by brick,
the tallest tower wall.

The rose’s scent seduces,
but its flower wilts when touched;
the ivy touches roughness
and discerns a place to hold.

Passion fades.
Love grows leaf by leaf.

Cake art

At some time while I was doing assorted things that kept me from getting here until late this evening, I was flipping through TV channels and came across "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. I love to see the creativity of these master bakers and cake decorators. What could be more appealing than edible art?

Anyway, the show reminded me of a cake we commissioned for a co-worker's birthday a few months ago. The birthday guy is something of a Mr. Fix-It on the side, so we requested a toolbox cake. And the talented lady who baked it? Baking cakes is her sideline; in her day job she's an attorney.

Here's the cake:


Pretty cool, huh?

You show me yours...

...and I'll show you mine.

Patsy posted a beautiful picture of a squirrel today, and since I happened to catch a squirrel in my camera lens recently, I thought I'd join her in a little squirrely show and tell.



This guy was hanging out in a tree above the bench where my younger daughter, Kelli, and I rested a few weekends ago when we spent a delightful afternoon touring the grounds and gardens of Houmas House Plantation.



Evidently accustomed to visitors, he was watching us as intently as we watched him. He moved slowly through the tree from one vantage point to another, keeping a curious eye on us the whole time. I'm guessing he may have encountered visitors with edibles once or twice in his life.

Patsy wrote about having squirrel for dinner, and I know there are avid squirrel hunters here in Louisiana, too. I remember sampling squirrel stew one time in the late '60s, but when I was taking pictures of this pretty squirrel, it didn't occur to me to think of him as a menu item.

I hope I never do begin thinking of squirrels as food. I have a hard enough time looking cows in the eye.

The compliment of his trust

It's standard procedure at my house that when the dogs come in after going outside to take care of their business, they get a little treat. As long as they don't take advantage of us by asking to go outside over and over solely for the purpose of the treat (which one dog tried), they can depend on it.

One recent night after Kim had worked here in her shop until late in the evening, she let the dogs out before heading for home. Lucy, Winston, and Kadi were glad to go. Butch, however, was way too comfortable. I was leaning back on the reclining end of the sofa, and Butch was lying beside me, his head on my chest. His ears perked up when Kim asked, "Who wants to go outside?" but he didn't move.

Five or ten minutes later, when the other dogs came back inside, Kim got out the dog treats. I could hear her handing them out to each dog individually, so I'm sure Butch could hear it, too. He still didn't move.

Immediately I could hear Kim's footsteps coming toward the living room where Butch and I snuggled, and as she came through the doorway and turned toward us, Butch simply raised his head a few inches and opened his mouth really, really wide. And Kim placed a treat on his tongue.

Kim and I were both moved to know how confident Butch was that he wouldn't be left out. It's a great feeling to be trusted.

In Charlemont

It's late Saturday night. I've been sitting here poking around on the computer, trying to think of something to write, and was coming up empty until the cast of Saturday Night Live started singing a parody to the tune of "Ode to Billie Jo." Instantly, I was transported back 40 years.

A check on Wikipedia shows that this song was released in 1967, but I associate it more with the following year. Early in 1968 I met the man who would become my second husband only four months later. A couple of weeks after we married, we packed up my two daughters and moved into a beautiful home.

We bought the house from a man whose company was relocating him and needed him to move fast. They were going to reimburse him for any loss on the sale of his home, so he was willing to accept a low down payment. That made all the difference, because the steep price of $28,500 for the house was just barely within our means. The monthly mortgage payment was a whopping $128.

We had good times in that house. It was in a nice neighborhood and our neighbors were wonderful. On many weekend nights our neighbors joined us in our den for music and dancing. The kids danced with us until well past their bedtime, then we bundled them all into bed together and didn't mind if they stayed awake and listened to the music. "Ode to Billie Jo" was definitely on our play list.


That was the house we lived in when I fell and broke my knee, the knee that gives me such fits these days. That happened the week my older daughter started first grade, and the neighbors picked up my slack and got her to school for six weeks until I could drive again.

That's where we lived when my new husband taught us how to pick the sweet meat out of boiled crabs after catching the crabs earlier in the day with nets and chicken necks tied to string.


It's where my girls' new daddy became their hero when he marched down the street to get their peanuts back from the kid who took them away.

It was a house full of promise. I thought we'd live there forever.

Separation anxiety (mine)

I left work a little bit late this afternoon, made a quick stop at the post office, then found myself unable to make a necessary left turn in the rush-hour traffic. After throwing in the towel, I turned right instead, intending to go to the second traffic light, where I could turn left with a green arrow and double back to the route I wanted to take.

It wasn't so easy. Roadwork blocked off the route I knew, and I was forced to zigzag my way through an unfamiliar neighborhood until I found a through street.

Running late wouldn't have been such a big deal except that I knew Butch and Kadi would be concerned. They like their routine, and they seem to have a pretty good handle on what time of day certain things are supposed to happen. Also, they'd been alone all day. Kim and her pooches are normally at my house for part of the day, but today they didn't come over. Yep, I thought, Butch and Kadi will be waiting anxiously.

I drove under the carport about twenty minutes later than usual, parked the car, locked it with the keyless-entry fob that causes a short honk, and noticed as I unlocked the house (noisily) that I didn't hear my dogs. In fact, it was so quiet I felt an immediate pang of concern.

I flipped a light switch, dropped my purse on the coffee table, and rushed toward the den where I'd left the dogs at lunchtime. That's when I saw Butch on the futon. He raised his head and pointed his nose in my direction. Kadi, on the dog bed nearby, lifted her head then, too, and blinked at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

I woke them up.

Bless their little hearts. They were obviously so anxious about my tardiness that they forced themselves to go to sleep to keep from worrying, right?

Monday's washday -- but that's not cast in stone

My grandmother used to clean house according to a schedule. Monday was washday, on Tuesday she did the ironing, and so forth. I think I remember reading or hearing somewhere that most women followed a similar schedule back in the "olden days," but I don't remember ever knowing how that schedule got started. Who decided Monday would be washday, and how did that person get the rest of the women to go along with it?

I don't have a cleaning schedule. I clean when the spirit moves me, which may or may not be when it needs to be done, or when I think someone who'd care might be coming to my house.

Did your mother or grandmother clean according to a schedule? Do you? Does it make it easier? I've heard there are women who actually enjoy cleaning house. I don't even aspire to enjoyment; I'd just like to know something that would make me hate it less.

Intellectually, I think a schedule would be helpful. I've read the FlyLady website more times than I can count, and all of it sounds wonderfully efficient. I read it until I begin to think about the big results I could achieve by making a number of little changes in my daily routine. Usually that's enough to give me a warm glow of possibility and make me tell myself I'll start first thing tomorrow. So far that glow has never survived the REM sleep.

And, speaking of sleep, I do have a schedule for that, at least during the work week. Good night.

Ambition?

The Country Music Awards ceremony is on TV as I sit here and look at this blank Blogger screen, and right now Reba McEntyre
is singing with Big and Rich. I don't even care what they're singing; I'm just delighted that the sight of Reba reminds me of something I can write about tonight.

In the early '90s, when I worked in human resources, a young man came to my office for a job interview. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Reba McEntyre. To break the ice, I asked, "So, are you a big Reba fan?"

"Well," he answered, "I'm trying to be."

I ended up hiring him. At least he had some kind of a goal.

Keeping us safe

The six o'clock news this evening included one small segment about Veterans' Day, not as much coverage as our veterans and enlisted men and women deserve, perhaps, but enough to start me thinking about them.

While I watched that news program, I sat on the sofa in my comfy living room. The lamplight in the room gave it a pleasant glow. There was a good book on the end table, close enough to read a few pages during commercials so I wouldn't have to be bored for even two minutes. I'd just finished eating a delicious dinner, leftovers from the Lebanese-restaurant lunch my daughter had brought with her when she visited earlier today. Butch lay sleeping at the other end of the sofa, Kadi on the floor by my feet. They'd spent time outside this afternoon, sunning themselves in the grass in the fenced-in patch of earth that's ours. I felt safe at that moment, and in that safety, I felt gratitude.

Thank you, veterans, for keeping us safe in our homes.



This World War II photo was sent home to my grandparents by their son, my Uncle Neale (standing second from left in front of the Little Helper.)