C & C Part 11

I can't think of a single story about Sherrill, she was strictly no-drama. Once she told me that she was named for the girl group from the 60s; her mom switched the vowels around, but the pronunciation stayed the same. She started as a sandwich maker, just like me, and she made the most delicious tomato sauce we served, just pureed tomatoes with fresh garlic and rosemary. 

And I'll never forget the time "Like a Prayer" came on the radio in the kitchen. The song was new, and our stations were next to each other that day. "Have you seen the video for this song?" she asked me. I had not, but Sherrill described it to me in amazing detail. "And then Madonna mouths, He didn't do it, at the end," she finished and shook her head incredulously. 

Those were probably the most words Sherrill ever spoke to me at one time, and to this day, I cannot hear that song without thinking of her. And as an aside? Of all of us, she is the only one who still works for the company; she is the chef de cuisine.

C & C Part 10

For the first few weeks I worked there, Regina was the kitchen manager. She knew everything about the operation, and to me, Regina seemed almost like a third partner in the business. She worked very closely with them, ordering food from the suppliers, filling the schedule, making the daily job lists, and planning party menus. She was an even-tempered problem solver, and a great cook to boot, and when Regina was in the kitchen, everything seemed completely under control.

But she wasn't a partner; Regina was an employee just like the rest of us and subject to the same capricious outbursts from the owners that we were. We pretended to be really engrossed in our cutting boards when she called on the carpet because someone was frustrated about something.

And when she had the chance to leave the company for a position where she could be part owner? She quit without even giving her 2 weeks notice. Or maybe she gave it, and it wasn't accepted. Either way, we never saw or mentioned Regina again.

C & C Part 9

Martin was kind of the yang to Linda's yin. About the same age, early 40s, where she was an uptight party girl, he was a laid-back stoner guy, at least on the surface. Like Curtis, he rocked an impressive mustache, although his was gray, and he had almost twinkly eyes behind square wire-rimmed glasses. At first, he was kind of like a mentor or guru to some of the younger staff, inviting people over to hang out at his house to drink beer, listen to Windham Hill, Steely Dan,  and Rickie Lee Jones, and shoot the shit, but there was a lot more going on underneath that kindly, cool-uncle facade

Martin was from a long line of cooks; his father had been a chef, and his grandparents were restauranteurs in France. He had recently married his second wife, a woman at least 15 years younger than he, and he was estranged from his 20-something son from his first marriage. He was a soldier when it came to knocking out his cooking list every day, but it was clear to all of us that he felt this place and this food was beneath him. 

As time went on, there was muttering from Martin about how tight the roux in the common bucket was, and eye-rolling about the use of Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice mix, and he obviously hated picking the shells from crabmeat or peeling shrimp. Sometimes he was sulky and grumpy, and soon there were clashes between Martin and Linda and Martin and Gertrude over silly things, but they all thought they knew best, and none of them were the type to back down.

One Saturday, it was Martin's job to stuff 140 chicken breasts with wild mushrooms and par-grill them for a wedding reception that night. He slogged through the task for most of the afternoon, counting out the finished product on sheet pans, covering them in foil, and sliding them onto a rolling rack. He personally loaded his entree into the truck. 

Martin and Curtis and I were all working the kitchen at the party that night, where the 250 guests had the choice of salmon or chicken. A service that big takes a while, and by the time we got to plating up dinner for the last tables, the waiters were almost ready to clear the first tables. 

"I need 8 chickens!" someone yelled. 

"That's impossible," Martin said.

I looked up from where I was placing julienned vegetables on each plate as it came by. 

"Count again!" Martin insisted, red-faced and searching the rolling rack for a sheet pan that wasn't there.

The line froze. Unsure what to do next, we looked at the owner who was running the back of the house. Just then, waiters started coming back to the kitchen with the plates they had cleared from the head tables. Several of them had leftovers from the generous portions we had served. 

"Don't throw those away!" snapped the owner. "Martin, slice those up into portions. With sauce, no one will know."

And Martin did it. The rest of the chicken dinners went out as medallions, instead of whole breasts, never mind they had already been to the party once. 

C & C Part 8

Curtis and Martin started on the same day I returned to work after my father's death. The business was expanding, and they were additions rather than replacements. 

Curtis was just a year older than I was, tall and skinny with dark, moppy hair and a mustache to rival Groucho Marx. He was broody, and bossy, and had a huge smile and an even bigger laugh. He rode a motorcycle; in fact the only time I've ever been on one was when we rode together to work a party at the Virginia Living Museum out in Newport News. He insisted I wear my leather jacket and, handing me a helmet told me, "If the bike goes down, you want to tuck and slide like you're stealing base." 

There was no conversation over the roar of the Harley, so for 45 minutes I was alone with my thoughts as we rode out the toll road, along the bay, and through the shiny white glare of the Hampton Roads Tunnel. I wasn't afraid, but I didn't love it, either. 

If we had a choice, Curtis and I usually worked at adjoining stations. We spent our days talking and bickering about recipes and music and life in general. He loved asking "big" questions. "If God was a celebrity," he asked me one day, "who would he be?"

"That's easy," I replied without hesitation. "Paul Simon."

When Curtis moved into the extra bedroom in the house I shared with my sister and my girlfriend, it was probably a little too much togetherness. As simpatico as we were, he was like an older brother, condescending and annoying. So when he broke up with his girlfriend and moved back to Northern Virginia, I was glad to get a little space.

A few months later, the rest of our household moved north, and we weren't there more than a week when Curtis called me with a job opportunity. I accepted, but what happened next is another topic all together.

And then? There was Martin.

C & C Part 7

The front of the house staff wore pink shirts and khakis beneath the green aprons that the shop issued. Their job was to run the register, keep the case full, make coffee, heat up and dish out eat-in meals, and weigh and pack to-go orders. My sister worked out front, and she got me the sandwich-making gig. Because of the nature of the job, people came and went, but even so, there was a core group on the schedule for most of the time I was there.

Suzy was the manager; her asymmetrical bob was 80s cool, but she was strict and no-nonsense with her staff. The corners of her mouth would turn down and her blue eyes would flash with irritation at any unfilled serving platter, empty coffee pot, or unwiped counter.

Kate was the assistant manager. She had graduated from Rutgers a few years earlier with a chemistry degree, and she was living in the area temporarily because her husband Paul had been stationed there out of West Point. Peter was a local guy; barely five feet tall, he had the slow and lazy speech of a surfer and a matching reputation as an airhead. Gaye was a southern belle; her hair and makeup were always perfect, she lived with her wealthy mother, and read fashion and travel magazines. Hope was the high school sweetheart; blond and pretty, she was dating a local cop who turned out to be a big jerk. 

With such a cast, there was always some drama, and we spent countless off-hours talking endlessly about the people we worked with. It was enough to drive other people from the room!

C & C Part 6

Linda was in her mid-40s and single, and she had that year-round beachy tan. She wore her hair in a messy bun when she was working, but her look was totally different, all tube tops, crop jackets, strappy heels, and white jeans, when she clocked out and hopped into her white Fiero convertible. Her parents owned one of the oldest Italian restaurants in town, but she came to work with us after some kind of fallout with her dad. Her 23-year-old son still worked for the family restaurant, and it was clear that he was being groomed to take over the business when her folks retired.

Linda was 3rd generation Italian with a southern Virginia accent, and her specialties were Pizzaiola Sauce and Brunswick Stew. She was also very bossy, and being closer in age to the owners than the rest of the younger staff, it wasn't long before she started telling us what to do. At least that's what it felt like to me. By this time, I had worked my way up from sandwich maker all the way to cook, and I had a reputation for being quiet and competent; I always got along with everybody in the kitchen. 

One Sunday morning, though, Linda and I were on the opening shift. Our first job was to put out the case, filling bowls and platters with salads and entrees. On Sundays there was usually party leftovers in the walk-in, too, and we either put those out as specials, or created something new with those ingredients. That morning, Linda wanted to start cooking, so she set up her station and proceeded to micromanage me as I finished the case. 

I had my own list of cooking to do, and I didn't consider ordering me around as helping put out the case. "Let me know when you need to use the bathroom," I finally told her after she gave me one direction too many, "then I can wipe your butt for you, too."

C & C Part 5

Lisa was the baker at the company, but anywhere else? She would have been called the pastry chef. A round-faced girl from New Jersey of about my age, Lisa had graduated from the CIA and was easily the best cook in the kitchen. She turned out chocolate chocolate cakes, sour cream apples pies, carrot cakes, and chocolate mousse pies by the half dozen, not to mention cookie dough, and an assortment of pick-up desserts for all the catering jobs, and she made it look easy.

Lisa lived with a friend named Amber, whose husband, Ron, was a sailor on active duty and often gone for months at a time. Amber and Ron had a three year old daughter, Savannah, who Lisa loved like her own. Times were rough when Ron was in town; Lisa didn't like the way he treated his family and, living under the same roof, it was a struggle for her. Ron was always trying to set Lisa up with guys he knew, probably to get her out of his house, although financially the arrangement worked for him (and emotionally it seemed to work for his wife and daughter).

That was how Lisa met Ernie, and things were going really well for a couple of weeks until he had to go to jail to serve the prison sentence he had received before Ron introduced them. Lisa stayed faithful to Ernie, though, talking to him on the phone when they could, and visiting him on her days off. As summer approached that year she grew increasingly concerned. Ernie wasn't happy; Ernie was worried for his safety; Ernie was distant. She did what she could to help, and she planned a surprise visit with a cake and all sorts of goodies for Ernie's birthday on July 14. 

That morning the phone rang in the kitchen and whoever answered it called Lisa over. I can still remember the look on her face as she twirled the cord around her finger, listening. "I don't know anything," she said and then hung up. "That was the police," she announced to the kitchen. "Ernie escaped."

Well, it was Bastille Day.

C & C Part 4

Technically, Seward was Robert's big brother, but in reality Seward was at least 4 inches shorter, much slighter, and a lot less independent than Robert. Today, we would likely identify an intellectual disability if we were to diagnose Seward, but back then everyone just recognized that he was "special"; a guy who would live with his mother as long as he could.

Seward was as silly as Robert was serious, and he always had a huge, crooked-tooth smile on his face. He was also one of the friendliest folks you could ever meet, greeting everyone with a "How you doin today?" His nickname at the shop was Ma-shur, a wacky, southern corruption of the the French word, "Monsieur". I do not know how he came by this moniker, but the owner called him that, and so did a lot of the other staff. 

Personally, I called him Seward, and he was the most cooperative coworker he could be, happily scrubbing any pot or bowl or hotel pan right away, the minute you needed it. It was also his job to mop the floors, and one evening at the end of shift I was carrying a load of knives and cutting boards and tubs over to the pot sink, when I slid precariously across the freshly cleaned floor. Regaining my balance, my eyes met his, and we both laughed.

"Whoa!" I said, "I almost fell!"

"You did, didn't you?" he answered. "You shore did!" 

It was a line I heard him say a hundred times in a hundred different situations.

Another time he overheard a conversation I was having with another cook as we passed the dishwasher and he thought I was saying something to him. "What you mean?" he asked.

"I'm not talking to you, Seward," I told him.

He looked hurt. "Why? What I do?"

C & C Part 3

The company started in a storefront in 1981 with a skeleton crew and a pasta machine special-ordered from Italy. Fast casual was not a thing back then when it was either TV dinners, takeout, or cook it yourself from scratch, and with fresh pasta, sauces, salads, and desserts that you could take home to make a quick meal, the place filled a need that people didn't know they had.

When they opened, the owners did most of the cooking, and they hired a couple people to handle the counter and someone to do the dishes and clean up. Robert was a native of the area; he grew up in a big family in Norfolk. He was a hard worker, quiet and smart, and it wasn't long before he was the guy who operated that pasta machine. He mixed durum semolina, eggs, and water in the Hobart, added tomato or spinach powder if need be, and then pushed fist-fulls of the grainy mixture through the twin rollers until it became satin sheets of fresh pasta. He cut linguine or angel hair, pressed ravioli, and could take the machine apart, clean it, and reassemble it in no time.

By the time I was hired five years later, the business had expanded to new location and added catering to their  services, but Robert was still there. Dressed in a white snap-shirt and uniform pants, he was in charge of the pasta and supervising the back of the house cleaning crew, which consisted of his brothers, Seward and Richard, and a friend of theirs, Steven. 

His sister, Recia, was a prep cook. Her station was away from all of the other cooks, a tiny stainless steel table by the pot racks and across from the dish sink where her brother Seward worked. As far as I could tell, she never cooked anything; her job was to prep vegetables, peel shrimp, and pick the shells from all the fresh crabmeat. 

At the end of their shift, Recia might help her brothers finish their lists, so they could all pile into the same car and drive home.

C & C Part 2

Gertrude worked the 6 AM-2 shift, Tuesday through Saturday. A woman of about 60, she was competent and gruff, and kept to herself unless you were doing something wrong. Then she would lumber over and let you know about it in a stern, German accent.   

Her specialty was salad, in particular the signature chicken and almond salad, but she also produced sesame chicken, seafood, Mediterranean, and pasta chinoise salads, thirty pounds at a time. Her station was next to the industrial can opener and in front of the convection oven, just down from the 10 burner range, and a very short walk to the pot sink. By the time I arrived at 9 or 10, she had it stocked with gallons of mayonnaise, mustard, soy sauce, and jarred garlic. 

In addition to chopping celery and poaching chicken breasts in 20 gallon stick pots, Gertrude spent her shift mixing huge vats of tri-colored linguine with tomato sauce, ricotta, and eggs, shaping the mixture into giant fritattas, baking them off and then topping them with more sauce, provolone, and peppers and mushrooms. 

Other days she would hoist 3 or 4 sheet pans of chicken breasts liberally sprinkled with jarred garlic and soy sauce into the convection, poach 10 pounds of small shrimp, cook off a bin of fresh angel hair pasta, julienne carrots and snow peas, crank open number 10 cans of water chestnuts, and pit 300 Calamata olives, in between smoking Kools out back on her breaks. She punched out and threw her apron in the laundry on the way out the door at 2, then drove home in her enormous 1970-something Cadillac de Ville.

She was there the day I started, and she was there the day I left. I wonder where she is today.

C & C Part 1

My first cooking job was as a sandwich maker at a cafe-catering outfit down the street from where I was living at the time. They were that type of place with a large cold case where you could order all sorts of salads and a few entrees (and of course, sandwiches) either to go or to eat in at the little dining area across from the counter.

There were a lot of kooky characters working there, me and my sister included, although we like to think of ourselves as among the sanest employees. The first week I was there a guy named Juan trained me, and the second week he disappeared. One day he was showing me how to mix up the cranberry-mayonaise that was the key condiment on the turkey sandwich and scolding me for mincing garlic instead of using the garlic press, and the next, he was gone.

The owners of the business had the police on the case after he missed a couple days of work, and no one could talk of anything else: they told and retold what he had said when they last spoke to him, who he hung out with, what his frame of mind was. A few days after his disappearance he showed up to work like nothing ever happened. It turned out he was on a cocaine-fueled bender with an ex-boyfriend, a sailor who had recently returned to our port from a six-month deployment at sea. 

He was fired, of course.

Dog Fish

Lucy froze when she caught a glimpse of something in the Tidal Basin this morning. "I saw that, too!" Heidi told her as we resumed our walk.

"What was it?" I asked.

"A really big fish!" Heidi answered.

"Remember that time..." I started.

"With Isabel?" Heidi finished.

"Of course!" I said, and we both laughed.

Back when we were new dog owners, and our first dog was only a puppy, we used to take her down to Jones' Point on the Potomac River in Old Town Alexandria. There was a little sandy shore there, and the spot was used as an informal dog beach. Isabel was new to swimming, and we tossed a tennis ball in the water to motivate her to paddle out and get it. But she was new to fetching, too, so often our tennis balls floated away or had to be collected by other, more water-competent dogs. 

Those dogs' owners were generally very nice and encouraging, though. "She's still young!" one woman assured us, even as her own dog literally swam circles around Isabel, retrieving the tennis balls that she would not. 

The three of us stood on the bank watching our dogs, hers swimming out and back, ours standing chest-deep about 10 feet from the shore. Just then, Isabel ducked her whole head under the water and came up with an enormous fish flopping from either side of her mouth. 

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then we started waving at her. "Drop it! Drop it!" 

She opened her mouth and the fish splashed into the river and swam away.

"Wow," said the other woman. "My dog doesn't do that!"

The Road to Gowanda Part 4

According to his WWI draft card, Heidi's great-grandfather was a slender man of medium height with brown hair and brown eyes. In 1918 the 39-year-old was disqualified from service, because he had been a patient at the Buffalo State Hospital since October 24, 1910. At the time he was hospitalized, his youngest son, Heidi's grandfather, was just a year old. Earlier that year, the US Census records him as working as a barber and living with his wife and five children.

Census data confirms that sometime between 1930 and 1940, he moved 35 miles south to the Gowanda State Hospital in Collins, NY. But there are no public records that suggest he ever came home.

It's impossible to say why he was hospitalized; anyone who knows the story is long since gone. It's also hard to say why his son never mentioned him, although at differing times and in various sources throughout the years, his wife is listed as his widow, and she did go on to remarry, perhaps without the benefit of a proper divorce.

The NY State archives has extensive records about former inmates in the asylums, including details of their diagnoses and treatments. Some even include photographs. Unfortunately, access to these records is restricted to all but "qualified researchers under certain conditions." Even direct descendants cannot obtain information about their family members. 

There is no statute of limitations on the restrictions.

The Road to Gowanda Part 3

Into the 1990s, unclaimed inmates in NY State asylums (and many other states as well) were buried solely by number. The records for many institutional burials have been lost or sealed, but for this particular hospital, the burial ledger was given to a museum in Buffalo, and has since been transcribed into entries on the Find-a-Grave website. 

That afternoon we walked the lefthand section searching the cast iron markers for one that was stamped 584.

The story goes that when she received the notification call that her father-in-law had passed away Heidi's grandmother was confused. "I thought he was already dead," she told the caller, "kicked in the head by a horse years ago." Her husband never spoke of his father, and although she was in high school when her grandfather died, Heidi's mom never met him. Like her mother, she thought he was dead.

The Road to Gowanda Part 2

A sunlit clearing lined with neat rows of cement markers lay at the bottom of the hill. To our right and through the woods was another opening dotted with cast iron Ts and on the left was another. We turned around and headed back up the hill. I gave a thumbs up as the car came into view and Heidi's mom was climbing out before we got there. "This is it," I told her.

After spraying our legs liberally with bug spray, we leashed up the dogs and stepped over the chain again. Once seen, this is a cemetery one never forgets the description had read, and it was accurate. Our search was over, we had found the Gowanda State Hospital Cemetery where Heidi's great-grandfather had been buried at the age of 83 in 1962 after living the last 50 years of his life in one of New York's state asylums.

The Road to Gowanda: Part 1

The unmarked dirt road was not a road at all, but rather a couple of ruts at the edge of a grassy field. We had already passed it twice, admiring the cute gray cat lounging like a small panther in the tall grass. And we had already taken the only other turn off this short stretch of Wheater Road: a narrow way between cornfields that had dead-ended by an abandoned shanty at the edge of the woods. 

"The written description says it's here," I insisted as we idled on the narrow shoulder. "It's unmarked, at the end of a quarter-mile dirt road on the east side of Wheater between Bagdad and Rt 62." I opened the map app on my phone. Tapping the satellite image, I could see three light green clearings beyond the woods at the edge of the field where the cat was. "We're going in!" I said and put the car in gear. A hundred yards away I turned onto the grassy lane and drove to the back of the meadow. Over a small rise we saw a chained-off driveway that had been invisible from the main road. 

I pulled up to it and hopped out of the car. "I'm going to check it out!" I said.

"I'm going with you!" Heidi replied, and we left the a/c running for her parents and hopped over the chain.

The path curved around to the left and down a steep hill. I knew why they had closed it off; a car could easily get stuck going up or down this way. We flushed a flock of finches to the right and a woodchuck lumbered across the road ahead of us; clearly this trail was not well traveled by humans. It had been mown sometime this summer, but the grass was up to our knees in some places. Rounding the curve ahead of us, I stopped and pointed. "There it is!"

The Old Man

At dinner this evening, Heidi told her parents about a quick visit she made to a neighbor down the street. John was a childhood friend of hers, and he and his wife and their two teenagers live in the house that he grew up in.

"You were where?" her dad asked, cupping his ear. He hasn't replaced the hearing aid he lost a couple of months ago.

"John's!" Heidi repeated.

He nodded. "Were you talking to the son or the old man?"

Heidi was confused. I could tell by the look on her face that she thought her dad had lost his marbles. John's parents have been dead for 40 years. 

"I think your dad is calling your friend John 'the old man'," I guessed, knowing that his son was also named John.

"Right!" her dad waved a cranky hand. "Do you even know the kid?"

"As a matter of fact?" she answered, "I do. And I was talking to both of them."

Burst Bubble

Visiting Heidi's parents is always an opportunity to break out of the cultural bubble we live in. For example, here in Buffalo, the economic dynamic is much different than it is in the affluent, densely populated community where we live, right outside Washington D.C. and economics drives politics.

For one thing, the many national chains that have been sprouting up in the 20 years I've been visiting regularly are still matched by plenty of well-established, local businesses and restaurants that succeed because they have a loyal customer base, and they reliably deliver quality goods, just as they have for years. Another difference is the much higher proportion of blue collar workers and tradesfolk to office workers. Finally, there are many shoppers and tourists who visit the area from Canada, and their spending lifts the economy.

As I've mentioned before, Heidi and her mom are inveterate shoppers, and until the last year and change of COVID, no visit between the two was complete without at least one shopping day. Now that the crisis has been mostly managed, this afternoon we headed up to an outlet mall in Niagara Falls.  

Wow... The place was a ghost town and more than half of the stores were closed-- completely out of business. Those shops that remained open had pretty limited inventory; even Heidi and her mom were hard pressed to find anything they wanted. In our community, only a handful of businesses went under during the pandemic, and it was hard to relate to the reports of economic hardship in other areas of the country, but today I saw an example, first hand. The mall will probably recover, but with the Canadian border still closed, and many local workers still saving to recoup lost wages, it could take a while. 

Some Who Came Before

We spent the afternoon yesterday in the cemetery, or rather, in four cemeteries to be exact. Both sides of Heidi's family have lived in Buffalo for generations, and along with her parents and brother, we went to pay our respects to all 4 of her grandparents, as well as her dad's grandparents, and the brothers who were the first of their surname to come to the United States from Germany back in 1845. 

Remarkably, they were all laid to rest in what has become an enormous cemetery complex just south of Buffalo, in the town of Cheektowaga, NY. Originally known as The United German and French Roman Catholic Cemetery, it was established in 1859 by nine trustees, representatives of six parishes whose congregants were mostly immigrants. The cemetery quickly filled, and over the years several adjoining farms were purchased and used to expand the grounds. 

Five cemeteries are known today as The Mount Calvary Cemetery Group; in addition to Mount Calvary and UGF, the collective also includes Pine Lawn, Ridge Lawn, and Buffalo Cemetery. Adjoining the grounds are also 3 Jewish Cemeteries, a Lutheran cemetery, and two independent Catholic cemeteries, one, Holy Sepulchre, that was founded for Italian immigrants and another, St. Stanislaus, for Polish. Not far away is Holy Cross, originally consecrated for the Irish laborers who came to Buffalo to dig the Erie Canal, build the railroads, and work on the steamships that plied the great lakes. 

Standing in the shade of a silver maple and looking over gentle green hills filled with row after row of granite and marble stones it was easy to forget that each memorialized at least one real person with a whole life of joys and disappointments. Many were carved with a cross that was tilted at an angle, a symbol I was not familiar with until I looked it up. Known as a Portate Cross or the Cross of St. Glbert, it represents a burden laid down after a life well-lived.

Pray, Indeed

We had Thanksgiving dinner last night. The idea, at first, seemed a little silly, but as a houseguest, who am I to object to my hostess's meal plans? 

What started out as a simple roasted turkey breast soon included mashed potatoes and turnips. "All we're missing is the stuffing," Heidi's mom said, but since I knew there was a sliced batard in the bread box, that was quickly remedied. A can of cranberry sauce in the pantry completed the menu, and the five of us sat down to Thanksgiving in July. 

"It's my favorite meal of the year," her mom told us, and considering that the five of us are never together for that holiday, it seemed like a new tradition was being established. As we ate, I heard my own mother's voice singing one of the many little songs she had for every occasion. 

And pray, how could anyone ever be cross, 

with turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce?

The Sun is Not Sunny

The damp air is temperate and mild, as the dogs and I sit outside on this rainy, rainy day in Buffalo. A steady patter of drops on the yellow and white striped awning over my head is pleasant enough, and the light filtering through the solid cloud cover paints the yard an exquisite green, flooding the eyes and filling the heart. But the forecast? That it will be like this all week, the entire time we are here? Raises a tempest of concern.

Oh Thank Heaven

Quite often the estimated travel time from our home to Heidi's parents' is seven hours and eleven minutes, just as it was today. The distance is always 387 miles, and although we could drive straight through on a single tank of gas, we usually make one stop to stretch our aging legs and let the three of us pee, just as we did today. And usually? We can make the time up somewhere on the shaded mountain roads of the Allegheny State Forest, assuming we can avoid a logging truck or fracking tanker. If not, then I-99 or NY 219 is always a good bet to nudge the cruise control up a notch so that we can pull into the driveway in 7:11, just as we did today.

I See You, Summer

A thunderstorm rolled in this afternoon. Complete with high winds, lightning, sideways torrents of rain, and those peals of thunder you feel in your belly, it was a 20 minute wonder, good for the garden and landscaping (which looks fabulous around here). I was cleaning house at the time, dusting and wiping and mopping and vacuuming, but I paused to admire the torrents of rain sluicing down the driveway when a warm blast of positively tropical air blew in through the kitchen window I insist on keeping six inches open. And then? It was over. A late afternoon sun shone golden through the misty air, the pool reopened, and I sliced some tomatoes for dinner.

Decoration Negotiation

Years ago, I asked a friend for some fashion advice while shopping. "Do these match?" I held up a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

"They don't match, but they go," she answered, and my perspective was considerable widened. But the idea that things could be put together in a complimentary way without matching exactly did not fit my casual approach to dressing and decorating as easily as one might think. 

"Matching" is a yes or no question, but considering shades and colors and patterns in a more nuanced way requires some consideration. The absence of, pardon the pun, black and white rules can also make it difficult to agree with someone else about what goes together and what does not. 

And...

I think I'll leave it at that.

Family Matters? No Comment

"Who even reads your blog?" my neighbor asked today.

"Well," I shrugged, "my mom used to..." I trailed off, unwilling to explain why she doesn't anymore. "But," I continued brightly, "my brother and sister read it every day. And my friend Mary is also a loyal reader. And there are a few others who read from time to time."

"I can't believe your brother and sister read it every day! My brother would never read anything I wrote," she scoffed.

I thought it best to remain silent.

That's Why We Call It Practice

We were chatting with neighbors at the pool today when the topic of food and activity tracking came up. "We use MFP," Heidi said.

"It's great because it has so many foods in the data base," I added.

"I just think it might be hard to do it regularly," our friend sighed.

Heidi nodded sympathetically. "Tracey is really good at it, though," she reported.

"True," I confirmed. "I actually haven't missed a single day since May 2, 2015."

Our neighbors were stunned. 

"That's nothing!" Heidi said. "Tell them about your blog."

"I have posted my blog every day since March 1, 2009," I told them. "And I do this other thing where I post a selfie every day. That's been happening since December 2014."

I couldn't tell if they were impressed or convinced that there was something wrong with me. "It's just what I do to keep going," I said. "One day off and I'd probably quit."

"How do you find the time?" somebody asked. "What if you get busy or something?"

I thought about it a minute. "It probably doesn't take more than 30 minutes to do those things," I answered. "And to be honest, coming up with an idea to write about is the hardest part, so, thanks for that!" I laughed. "I don't always love what I wrote, but I am always happy when it's done."

You Know You're On Summer Time

...when you wake up at 6:14, stumble over to the spare room, roll out your new yoga mat, and join your live 6:15 Kundalini practice, then back to bed and fast asleep again by 7:10.

Because the garden, the baking, and the pool will all be there when you wake up.

Sorry Ladies!

We were halfway through North Carolina when we tuned our podcasts to the saga of Henry the Eighth's unfortunate wives. The iHeart Radio show Noble Blood does a nice 30 or so minute overview of each of the six. The episodes are cleverly and accurately titled "Divorced" "Beheaded" "Died" "Divorced" "Beheaded" "Survived", which sums up the careless brutality of the time and the monarch just right.

But I will say this: there's nothing like a little historical misfortune to pass the time.

Greatly Exaggerated

My 13-year-old niece wanted to go shopping at the mall this afternoon. School starts in just about a month down here in Atlanta, and after a year and a half of virtual learning, she had some clothes shopping to do before returning to 8th grade in person. So her mom, Heidi, and I all piled into the car and drove her out to the nearest "real" mall-- you know, the one with the food court, department stores, and Forever 21. 

As Heidi and Annabelle headed off together to browse the clothing, my sister and I literally poked through Williams Sonoma and then meandered along the upper level, commiserating about our loathing of shopping. "We used to love it though, remember?" I said, and we reminisced about malls of our past-- Lynnhaven and Pentagon City. Eventually we found a table and sat down to play gin rummy with a deck of cards I had found in the sale bin at Anthropologie.

A little while later we joined Heidi and Annabelle, and my sister was drawn into school shopping, but I kept on people watching. As the afternoon grew later, the crowds grew as well, and the place became a vibrant scene of American consumerism. Parents with strollers and little kids, teens and 20-somethings, and folks in their 30s drifted in and out of stores, ambling along with shopping bags from Nike, Urban Outfitters, Gucci, and Crazy Rabbit. Just the variety of shoes and hair styles was vast enough to hold my attention, although I avoided staring too much.

Coming out of one store on her way to another, Heidi laughed and compared me to her dad, who is infamous for joining shopping trips just to find a bench and sit while the rest of the group trolls the stores in search of that must-have item. 

Maybe the old guy isn't so nutty after all.

Carbo Loading

My sister hasn’t had a chance to ride the pandemic sourdough train, so I brought some sourdough starter along on our trip to Georgia. Rest assured Dear Reader, we have put it to good use. So far we have made sandwich bread, bagels, peach tart, and English muffins.

And it's only been five days!

Rules of the Game

My family is full of folks who love a good board game. As such, we have amassed quite a collection of them, and few holidays or birthdays are complete without unwrapping a sturdy box with a new challenge within. 

My nephew, Treat, is our go-to guy when it comes to figuring out the rules and set up of all but the simplest games. He is able to read and explain even the most complicated set of directions with ease and humor. 

Oh how my sister and I missed him today as we muddled through a beautiful and well-reviewed game that I received for my birthday. It took us over an hour just to get halfway through the instructions and set up, and we never did actually get to play the game. I have no doubt that once we figure it out, it will be a lot of fun, and the complications will be forgotten when the gameplay is familiar. 

My sister has vowed to watch the video tutorial tonight, and I plan to reread the rules in the morning so that we might put my gift to good use. Oh, and I am definitely going to get Treat to play it with me when I get back to Virginia, just in case we miss something important!