RADAR AND HER FAMILY

                                                            

We've had a long love and affinity for BUNNIES.   When we were first married, Chris knew I loved and missed having a pet in the house, and so surprised me with a precious pink-and-white baby rat.   She lived in an aquarium in aspen shavings, with a mylar-silver coffee-sack as her hidey-home, and traveled with us everywhere.   She'd travel in a charming small birdcage, and I'd sweep grandly into whatever motel we were occupying, with a scarf draped over her little house.   She was very easy to support---a tiny leftover from whatever our lunch/dinner was, her licky-water bottle, and whenever we got out of the car for any length of time in the Summer, we'd stand two or three icy cans from the drink cooler in her abode, to snuggle on to keep her cool.   We loved and cared for a succession of those little girls, for when one seemed to be gently easing into her last days, he'd being home a baby---Seven in all we had, over those first years.  

But before Penelope (christened PeePee forever by Daughter Two, when she immediately peed into her hand on first meeting)---there were Bunnies.  We lived in a tiny "mill" house in a charming little town on the Alabama line, and one cool evening near Easter when Chris came home from making calls on clients, our hug included a "Reach into my Pocket."    I obligingly reached into his blazer pocket, and encountered the softest, warmest little creature---she was white with a perfect little raccoon mask on her eyes and lop ears.   Due to the ears and the fact that MASH was playing in the background when he came home, her name was immediately RADAR.  He'd stopped by the local Rabbit Man's farm and picked her up for me.

And Radar loved living in that little house with the fabulous screened porch---she'd spend her days out there in the sunshine, and slept in her bin in the bathroom; the big old clawfoot-tub made a great hidey-space beneath til she got too tall to be comfortable under there.   We almost had to pay for renovations on that house---in the night, she would walk up to the bathroom wall, gently gnaw loose a piece at the bottom of the wallpaper, and start backing up, tearing that inch-sized strip toward the ceiling clean as a carpenter.   And WIRES!!!   Back then only our phones had charger-wires, and her great joy was to nip one in half and just keep walking.   And her HATE for a broom was lethal---she'd grab the bristles in her teeth, I'd swing the broom gently up in the air, and she'd hang on to give it an enormous KICK with her hind feet.  

Chris one day brought her home a Husband---a much larger long-hair Lop, and she had three babies in her bin in the tub.   The first one kinda escaped out into the tub, and was named Houdini; I was such a mystery fan we named the next two WhoDunnit and Sherlop.      And when we moved down to the coast, with a big yard, Radar's five babies with LONG hair like their Daddy were named Samson, Fabio, Rapunzel, Godiva and CrystalGale.   They found nice homes with neighbors and kin when we moved up here, and I 'spect there's a line of long-haired Lop-Ears still flourishing in LA (Lower Alabama in Chris parlance).

SUNDAY AT THE PICCADILLY

                                                           

Introducing two new folks, long-time residents of Paxton.

Estelle Emerson finished her after-church lunch well before her husband was done with his.   She never took much time with ordinary things like eating, because food had never appealed to her much; she considered a can of Beanie Weenies apiece to be a perfectly adequate meal.   She hated to have to cook and her sparse larder consisted of instants and microwaveables, with one shelf of the small pantry devoted to boxes of StoveTop and Minit-Raas and jars of Chef Boy ar Dee sauce.    She was a bright spot in the browns and end-of-Winter jackets and coats in her pink shiny jacket and a wide ferny skirt with a blaze of flowers.  

She consulted her purse and emerged with an old-fashioned gold compact, one that she had gotten as a graduation gift.   She did one of those chin-bob, three-point scans in the mirror, touched the corner of her mouth with her pinky finger, and dropped the compact back in.   Then she stood, took a quick brush at her skirt, and set a fast pace to the 50% Off Corner of the Gift Shoppe as her husband finished his pie.

Dennis, intent on scraping every last bit of coconut-laden filling from the stiff, lardy crust, sat there silently in his Sunday khakis and blue plaid 90%-cotton shirt as she disappeared through the archway.  He was used to Estelle's darting, dragonfly ways, her quick, deft movements around the house, and her no-nonsense economy of living life.       He dragged the side of his fork across every surface of the naked, perfect shell of the crust, opened wide and inserted every millimeter of the tine-end into his mouth.  He closed his lips around it, then withdrew it slowly from the tight channel, leaving it as shining as when he'd unwrapped it and its companion spoon and knife from their paper cocoon.   Giving a series of several satisfied little smacks, he checked his watch for Time-Til-Kickoff and sat back to wait.   Estelle liked to take her time.

And he liked to "Watch the Line."  There was always someone interesting or funny or dressed so special at these Sunday noon dinnertimes---from kids with tats and last-night's clothes, slept in or hurriedly recovered from a strange floor when noon-time sleep gave way to the quick, gnawing hunger of the young and hung-over.  Young guys with earrings slid unabashedly past cashiers with their trays of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, chicken noodles and slabs of chocolatey cake, while their dates heel-tipped past with small plates of green things which they might or might not eat, for fear of spoiling their lipstick or image or both.

An important-bustling smug-faced man with the large hair of a confident preacher herded several older folks to their seats, while a small caravan of well-dressed younger ones and several seasoned waiters followed with trays holding plates with one chicken leg or discreet small servings of turkey and gravy and big mooshy peas which comprised Walt's Senior Specials, along with little dishes of Jello or pie.

Dennis gazed longest at a petite, wrinkled lady in an outfit Twiggy would have killed for---tight little skirt and matching white pleather jacket with an oversized Newsie Cap in the same far-fetched material.   Her white GoGo boots and dandelion hair-to-match gave her the air of having popped onstage between scenes on Laugh-In, and stayed frozen there for the last fifty years, beginning as Goldie Hawn and ending as Golden Girl.     You could imagine her closet at home, with its lingering ghosts of Arpege and Intimate, hanging full of a lifetime of tee-ninecy ensembles of bright sweepy skirts, demure puff-sleeve white blouses, and little pumps with ankle socks.

Golden Girls Goldie's conversation matched her wardrobe---bright and effusive.   Her voice flew up and down the chirpy notes of the treble clef---sometimes like the tweetings of chattery birds, and at other moments, when she was really into her story and smiling wider than wide, it quite resembled the sound of the little plinky bar in a music box.

Estelle reappeared down the hall, carrying a flamingo-covered something which blended with her bright-splashed skirt and shiny jacket.   He realized that it was a bag---90-to-nothing there wasn't a thing in it, because Estelle was an acknowledged "Fool for Bags"---any kind, and shopping ones especially.   She even rotated them with the seasons and often, because her scant grocery list scarce ever filled two, and she liked to show them off.   

A stiff-haired crisp man in a black suit and squiggly ear-wire held the door as a smartly-dressed lady in an off-white pants-suit, pumps, and a dashingly-draped pink scarf breezed in.     Estelle and Dennis waited to go out, and the man's wary eyes continued scanning them til they stepped outside before he let the door swing shut behind them.  The smooth heavy white car, which they assumed belonged to the guarded lady, eased into a wide parallel at the curb, motor running and the driver as alert as the escort, as Estelle and Dennis, one brightly striding like a flitting gaudy bird, and the other headed for his La-Z-Boy, retrieved their own big Chevy, gently rounded a hitchhiking backpacker and turned toward home.  

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

 

                                                      

It’s such an honor to be amongst such wonderful, kind people whose words and pictures and ideas and sheer talents brighten every day. I can tune in and find humor, color, bright sayings, little fun tips and trips and stories of families and work and spiritual journeys to inspire and amaze. I’ve had my heart touched and almost broken, my funnybone tickled, my eyes filled with glorious images, and my soul sent soaring through other people’s sharings.

Today, the Springtime-Sunny morning has been brightened a hundredfold, over at LIFE AND LINDA with her invitation to visit her magnificent garden.   Even with all the GREEN springing outside our own doors, scented breezes drifting past the window-open sheers, and such sunny pockets of golden light all throughout our neighborhood, I have been right here at the screen for ages, sighing and smiling over her phenomenal way with plants and scenery and knowledge of the gardening world.   Do go and just get lost in all that wonderful place of such color and scent and fabulous landscaping.    You could just simply stroll and DWELL.   

PLAIN PLANES, PLEASE

 

We live in a little "Ranch" house with a split personality.   One of the main reasons we bought it was that the entire basement had been fully carpentered into technically five rooms---a big "den" space with room for a big dining table, a breakfast area, two "don't count to a Realtor" bedrooms, along with a laundry room with room for our freezer,  and a fully-tiled bath.   I mean "fully"---the very first owners owned a tiling company, and walls, floor, and shower are still shining with fabulous green tiles. ceiling and floor---you could hose the entire place down if you wanted to.    

The house came with fairly lots of Eighties carpets in all the upstairs; over the years we removed them all to uncover the honey-colored hardwoods.  Oddly, there were wonderful "bespoke" draperies on the five windows in the living room, and even when we bought it in 1997, a pristine Sixties Autumn Gold kitchen---counters, fridge, stove and linoleum.  And another kitchen downstairs---just plain green this time, with gleaming maple cabinets and room for our six-burner wide-oven black cast-iron stove, Miss Frankie.   The owners said that the wife liked to entertain her big family, but "not mess up the house," and thus all the gatherings were held downstairs, where everyone could come in the back door and straight DOWN.  

I had already noticed that there were no light "fixtures" as we knew them in any of the rooms---just a square, flat pane of glass screwed in the ceiling to hold several bulbs, which you couldn't change without a step-ladder.   And the walls were remarkably unmarked, as well, but we put that down to having a great plasterer when they repaired any nail or picture-holder before they showed the house for sale.   

But there was another explanation:  The wife hated the thought of anything hanging from the ceiling, or  on the wall or tables or a counter-top.  And she said so, frequently that one time I saw them at our little HouseWarming celebration---she went through the whole house with a frown on her face, and told me, "Well, it's not to MY taste, but if YOU like it . . ."     I did and do, all these years later.   And we took great pains not to burden her with such an unpleasance as our cluttered house thereafter--just wouldn't have been kind.   

                                           

I'd bought a fabulous chandelier on FB marketplace right before COVID, and just left it sitting in the box for these five years, and so the folks who re-wired the whole house last August hung it for us, to shine and flourish its pink tulle bows , and our Memory Tree remains decorated and lit year-round.   Four exquisite pastel silk Cheongsams, each a work of embroidery art, that I found in a pile at Goodwill hang on satin hangers over the guest room curtains, and not to mention, but I will, the pink Nutcracker banners in the dining room, the over-stuffed pink chair befitting Mole's wee abode, the brooches and necklaces and all sorts of twinkly things sprinkled around on windows and lamps.   Just looking into our front windows with all the glitter and sparkle would probably make that poor soul take to her bed.  

                                                 

THE POINT OF GRACE AND THE MOMENT

 

ONE OF MY LAST LETTERS TO MY DEAREST COUSIN SANDRA:

Oh, Sweetpea!   What a wonderful message from you!  You just say the dearest things, and have the sweetest, purest spirit of any adult I've ever known.   There's a wonderful innocence to your brilliant mind, a childlike faith and wonder at the simplest things---I remember your words about bread, about lavender, a Summer breeze, kneeling to receive The Cup, the little creek as it flows---plums and a fresh-ironed cloth whisked onto a table for supper, the gathering of your Loves around that table, growing young together.

Indeed, you DO have words---absolutely reams and scores of them, speaking of only the best of things, the sweetest parts, the simplest, deepest gentle murmurs of the way things should be, as you see them.   You have a way of portraying life as we'd all like to live it, in a simple, slow grace of BEING that we forget could be, or that we've never given a thought in our busy, moving, on-call, duty-filled, get-it-done lives.   You MAKE us think about those things---those better ways, those spirit-filled moments, those days of Grace lived in shade and sun, walking gently where we're impelled to run, to get things over with, to get on with it, instead of enjoying the simple charm of the NOW.

SO love to hear from you---would that it were every day, every hour.   I could read and read your words, drinking in those slaking words, filling up entire with the feeling of beautiful and pure. 

 Remember we loved that "simple" book several years ago---Beth Breathnach, was it?   We all seized upon it as a mantra of sorts, a missal for the Church of the Everyday Stuff---likening a dull morning to a garden ripe with delights, or a chore to a gift to our nearies and selves.  It was a wonderful, fulfilling read, propped in the arbor in the Summer shade.   We thought we could be JUST LIKE THAT, accepting the goods and the simples and the smalls.   Just NOTICING them was a great blessing; having them pointed out was a lovely gift, and would that it had lasted forever, for we drift, we allow, we succumb to the leaving off of things, the dusts of the days, the pilings of THINGS and STUFF and debris of shoppings and hoardings and receivings, stored up in their outlived, useless selves, merely on the possibility of their later use.  

 Oh.  My.   I have to get OUT of that track.   We were Yard Salers, Goodwillers, Thrift Store browsers, picking up a plate here, a set of dishes there, two cloths and an abandoned craft-basket filled with ninety-nine kinds of ribbon and wire, channeling Martha Stewart because we saw exactly THAT PLATTER in the magazine and who knows what entertaining marvels would ensue if I had one of my own??

Mine's all geared to nesting, I've found---home stuff and kitchen stuff and house things---and except for two china cabinets, our La-Z-Boys, and the computer and TV, every single thing we own came from Goodwill.   Piles and drawers of tablecloths and coverlets and curtains for windows I'll never own, with so few things costing more than a dollar or two---can't pass up that twenty-foot Battenburg banquet set, even though our biggest table is eight feet.  

DAYUM.

I'm verging away to the silly now, but life has been such ridiculous DEPTHS lately, of such a surfeit of things to walk over and trip over, that my mind is dropping to the level of those maze-rats---you can change course around blind ends and blank walls just SO MANY TIMES before you forget where and who and WHY you are.   I've lost my words into the ether so much lately, but now that the actual building is completed,  I don't weep so much for the losing of the words as I have of late in my usual self.  

So YES.   I Have lost my words,   And that's just what I've called it.   I can pretty well type anything, as the stream comes from my brain, but sometimes I have to stop and think "Now what is that A-word that I'm looking for?"   or "Do I really mean Accumulation or Assimilation?"   Or I've even gone so far as to offer a guest a cup of cigarette without missing a beat, though not a soul in the room smokes.  

I love you, faraway Sister-Girl.   Sisters of the Spirit---yours "rubs off" in the most lovely sense on me, and I just hope to send you some of the reassurance of your worth and kindness and so-enviable way of living life that I try to pattern and live.   I lived Serene for a long, long time, and the past few years have been beyond NOT.   You're keeping me centered on that sweet focusing-point of Grace and The Moment.

ONE OF OUR OWN

 

Yes, I'm wearing the Green today, in honor of my ancestors with long-ago roots in Ireland. They left the known for the unknown in 1730, when this country was still great stretches of unbroken green, wild and untrod, and those steps were taken on Faith and pure Grit. I'd rather claim those hard-working, hardscrabble farmers, leaving those smoky, humble crofts and taking only their hope and their callused hands to a new land, than anyone's born-to-the-manor family line.


In Keats' A Thing Of Beauty, the first line is widely quoted, often used, and most likely the only part remembered by most folks. But the last---Ahhh, the Last. It stands beautiful head and shoulders above any lines which come before:





I send my herald thought into a wilderness:



There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress



My  uncertain path with green, that I may speed

Easily onward, through flowers and weed. 

And to SWEETPEA, standing in Dublin this minute in her band uniform, ready to step out into the parade:   We're SO proud of you!!!    Happy St. Patrick's Day, with Godspeed and Traveling Grace to guide you back home.

ps   The parade was FABULOUS!!   We're sitting down to warm Bread Pudding and crisp bacon and several fabulous cheeses at 11:20.   May all your DAY be sweet!

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

CONTINUING YESTERDAY'S DISCUSSION OF OLD LINENS AND OTHER TREASURES:

REPLY TO MISS MERRY, OF THE CEDAR CHESTS AND HOPEFUL SWEETHEARTS WHO FILLED THEM:

Yes, those rough-handed guys who took SHOP while we took Home Ec---they made those lovely shining cedar chests----some from a tree they'd cut themselves on the PLACE, taken to the sawmill right there down the bayou, and cured before the making of those Hope Chests for a special Girl. They were the men who married that One Girl for whom they'd cleaned up nice on Saturday nights to take to the Picture Show, driving up and knocking on her front door to escort her to the car, and home safely after a Doris Day/Rock Hudson and Frozen Root Beer at the Dairy Bar. They walked in the sweet aroma from the one bottle of Old Spice shared amongst the brothers, but their own VITALIS, and then sat up in the Church Balcony with their girl on Sunday mornings.

And SHE---that beloved sweetheart from sixth grade on, probably filled that chest with help of Mama and Aunts and two talented Grandmas, and used those precious items long as they lived. I look back at my Decade, knowing my own MOTHER did all her stitching and crochet and sewing and homework by Coal Oil Lamps until she was a Senior, and current came to the county.

REPLY TO VIRGINIA, OF HER OWN LOVE AND PRESERVATION OF THE LOVELY ARTIFACTS:

An ad for Estee Lauder popped up several months ago, as everything-and-your-lunch seems to do nowadays, and I ordered a bottle, just because. Chris and I were very fortunate that all four of our parents spent the last days and moments at home, after fifty-plus years of living in the family home. And the house of my Raisin' was a three-roof house, with another two rooms added on twice at about fifteen-year intervals over their marriage.

The final hump across the silhouette spanned from their bedroom down into a step-down DEN, with an eight-foot little corridor whose sides were made of Mother's closets on one side, and a marble dressing table and mirrors on the other. And they were of the age of The Deeper the Carpet . . . so I just mentioned to Leah the other day that stepping onto her own cushy bathroom rugs, all warm from the furnace, and smelling the scent of that Estee Lauder on my sweater---deja vu to many a comfortable stroll in my socks in that warm, fragrant house of my childhood.

I LOVE that you honor your STUFF---those one-of-a-kind creations from hands long stilled, and that you've passed on that love of our past artistes' talents to your next generation. Chris teased me that he knew I don't wear jewelry and haven't a care for fashion, so he knew every time he presented me with a necklace or pretty brooch he'd found a Goodwill or a pawn shop, he'd say, "Will this go on a lampshade or a curtain valance?" I like my sparkles out there where I can see them, not on me.

And I believe in USE THAT GOOD STUFF!! (says I who made both parents JUMP at breakfast on one of my last visits, by bringing that suede-lined drawer of gorgeous Michelangelo flatware from the dining room and dumping it headlong into the one I'd just emptied of all the old stray forks and spoons that had limped along for decades, and saying "What are you saving this FOR?")

AND A REPLY TO NANA DIANA, WHOSE IMPISH AND SWEET HUMOR IS A MIRROR IMAGE OF MY OWN, AND SHE WISHED ME WELL ON FRIDAY THE 13TH:

I KNOW you do, Sweetpea!!! How can we not, with snarky imaginations like ours?? A couple come into IHop and sit shoulder-to-shoulder on one side of the booth---You KNOW they came in separate cars, and live WAY on the other side of town.

We were Lady Pepperell Percale only, all my life----pronounced in our area Per-CAL like California. I ironed all the pillowslips, so careful of the inches of crochet (variegated usually, to match the little fancy stitching of little arrowheads-in-a-line or ovals or that tulip shape that kids draw for flowers---that was done a few inches from the hem by a smart little doohickey attached to the presser-foot on the Singer). OH, were THOSE fancy, and a bride who got a pair of THOSE from Mrs. B---they were forever.

Just by chance, we lived for a year in the Home of Pepperell---over in Alabama on the Georgia line at the Chattahoochee, and sale weekends at the Mill Outlet Stores brought in Crowds like the Ole Miss-State game. They'd crowd all the fast food places in town, sometimes parking all the way over on our little street, and line up outside stores EARLY, those two-or-four-ladies-to-a-car, sometimes from states away for a shopping weekend with all those values. They'd search the wares in the "Seconds" store with little magnifying lenses in one eye like a diamond merchant, and haul out stacks and stacks enough of bedlinens to befit the Princess with the Pea.

Thank you!!! Friday 13th was a GORGEOUS DAY---clouds at wakeup, then bright sun and a Lion Pride's worth of WIND as I went into the store, and threatened to blow my immense pack of Bounty towels off the buggy and across the parking lot when I came out. Two of those fabulous rotisserie chickens (Better even than Sam's)---some for lunch with leftover pea salad and Watergate , and for Leah to debone for the freezer. Lunch on trays in the sunny-washed sitting room, and new episodes of Matlock and Elspeth, lots of texts and pictures from our girls touring Ireland, and some put-aways and til-next-years of decor, then the day ended perfumed with the three hours bone-broth simmering til bedtime. If I'd had a hat, the wind would have done the "turning around" for Luck. Lovely March Day.

ETSY SELLS EDGING

Yes, they do!   In a circumscribed, roundabout way I discovered this today, whilst hunting a photo for responding to a comment from two friends' comments yesterday that THEY, TOO, make up little stories and vignettes about folks they see out and about, or sitting in the dentist's office, or across the room in line at Panera.    They see more than that lady in the ill-kempt wig, or the stylish trench-coat, and travel light-years with a couple merely dipping their fries at Wendy's---we go right to where that person might be going, or what they're going home to.   It's a bit of a curse with me, I guess, for I get so carried away with my mental note-making and phone-fumbling to tap out a few hints for later (NEVER A PICTURE), I miss hearing my number called or how I should be pushing my buggy forward to close up the line.   

I expressed happy satisfaction that there were TWO like-minded souls admitting that quirk of the imagination, and the propensity for silent, never-uttered gossip about innocent strangers just awaiting some caffeine or the next bus.  (Thank you, Merry and Jeanie)  (Hearing an imaginary organ chord here, from my childhood radio "stories," when the SHADOW KNOWS ...).  

And in my silly way, I likened our common trait to having the same hobbies or crafts that created a shared kinship of mind.   I confessed my own lack of any hand-held skills or crafts, and my stumbly child-and-teen attempts at embroidery and crochet, to the dismay of my Mother and Mammaw Jessie---both whiz-bang at anything regarding thread, and their hardy efforts to help me learn.   No such luck--I'd even set my dusty-butt shorts onto a small chair, take up thread and needle and tee-ninecy stork scissors, hold my knees together beneath my Imaginary Jane Austen skirt, and  scratch away at the blue edges of ironed-on pattern ---I used the proper color Coats & Clarks, but only yielded a first-graders' swoops and swirls of their initial encounter with paper and crayolas.  

Mammaw would gently and valiantly take up my tatty mess and in an hour, have a queen-worthy inch of exquisite border trim all around the dresser-scarf/pillowslip edge, shaming its shambles from my needle.   I was not worthy.   But my Hope Chest (a handsome cedar trunk-on-bun-feet crafted by my high-school sweetheart-husband-to-be in SHOP) was repository of all those efforts-at-style, along with elaborate lacy trim around every one of the several dozen pairs of pillowslips from our wedding shower.    

The successive decades have occasioned many a careful removal and re-stitchal of almost every one of the beautiful skeins to countless new pairs of pillow cases from when we briefly lived in Shawmut, AL, home of West Point Pepperell, and known far and wide for "lady weekends" to shop at all the local outlet malls.    I can at least match the color and stitch wee, almost invisible stitches to reattach the lovely old laces.   I hope some of the five Grand-Daughters will like some of these---two are avid knitters, with one a genius at drawing with thread.    

And I can still smell the scent of my Mother's Estee Lauder and Coty on those long-ago linens when I open that cedar chest.  Funny turns a story can take, but that's what Wednesdays were made for.  

IMAGINE THAT

 

As we rode through the long olive hills of Kentucky a while back, I glimpsed a lady at the mailbox, comfortable in a yellow sleeveless blouse and jeans, putting in a handful of envelopes and swinging the small red flag to Attention.

So insignificant and so everyday was that small, familiar gesture, that I imagined her day there in that green spot, that immaculate yard with its baskets of petunias swinging on the porch, as she went back into the house, into the orderly rooms smelling of breakfast.   The Dawn bubbles in the empty sink are long-gone, along with their kin from the Purexed single wash-load, gurgled out and down into the faraway ditch in the field.  The almost-done clothes are now perfuming the hall with warm Downy air from the dryer.

She’d washed up the the few dishes “real quick,” except for the black skillet where she’d fried the bacon.   It’s sitting still on the stove, gleaming with bacon grease, for the supper cornbread she’ll bake later.   She’d written a few checks with her first cup of coffee, sitting there at the table in her duster and slides, and soon as she was showered and dressed, she’d run out to the mailbox to get all the bills in before the carrier comes by. 

She’s completed all her little morning rightenings---beds made, yesterday’s Bluegrass Press, well read before supper and folded in the can, and her long shelves of African Violets given their weekly feed of Miracle Gro beneath their blue-light awnings.   Her husband rode off early after his third cup of Folger’s, away to the Co-op to check out those new butterbeans that cook up like speckled ones, into a big pot of purple-brown pot liquor and soft, rich old-fashioned beans.   He’ll be back with the seeds, and probably a lot more, and put the hills in before suppertime, coming in smiling and muddy-handed, pants-legs wet up the shins, from giving the rows a good drenching with the hose. 

Marlee has done all the chores with the TV on louder than usual, for she’s been following along with that awful trial way out there in the West.   She’s followed it all the way through, missing in only a few places when she had to go out to help with the Missionary Luncheon, or the days she takes her Mama to the doctor, and she’d give anything to haul off and slap the smug smirk off that murdering hussy’s face.  Her and her "apostle" boyfriend and their unforgivable spree of mayhem---Marlee's just had about enough of the primping and smiling and lying, and she broke down completely yesterday when the family spoke about their lost brother and friend.  

Marlee is a good Christian woman, and does right by everybody, but she knows, sure as she knows her shoe size and all the grandchildren’s birthdays, that SOME FOLKS just Pure-D need killin’.

BUTTER SCOT PIE OR THEREABOUTS

I love my Cookbook shelves, "curated" in my fashion over the years from gifts, hand-me-downs, yard sales, Goodwill shelves, Half-Price--Books' lower tiers of immense coffee-table volumes with photos like portraits---those last ones retailing for the price of dinner at Ruth's Chris, and marked down to a shameful $3.00 remainder.  I treat them like novels, avidly turning pages, soaking up the scents and color, or marveling at some of the combinations or language.   They vary so widely as from "Now, skin your rabbit," to caramelization color wheels like from a paint store, and I love them all.   And, save for a few baking directions (the science of THAT gets into rocket science sometimes), I hardly ever use a recipe.    I've read over the ones that seem promising, and then I just improvise on the ingredients and taste combinations---my slipshod concoctions have turned out to be palatable, and some, including a crustless quiche that I improvised one Sunday morning in the Sixties, has probably spread over five counties, from word-of-taste request at a hundred weddings and parties over the years.    

 I still re-read sections of my Larousse just for the beauty of the words and images, and just bought a 1926 French edition of a generic Larousse, which I've been meaning to get to all Summer. Might be nice to see what it shows in the translation.

My favorite of all, I think, is the little spiral-bound cookbook by the ladies of our little church in Alabama. The small church volumes with the cardboard covers and little plastic spiral edge contain fourteen recipes for Green Bean Casserole, all printed so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. There are omissions, transpositions, and hilarious typos, in addition to some really outlandish combinations and seasonings.

But the little books contain the best of each cook's repertoire, gleaned from old McCall's and Farm Journals and from under the hairdryer. Mammaw's recipe for pound cake and Sawdust Salad, Mrs. Pund's uncooked fruitcake, the various alchemies which convert a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom into veloute, bechamel, whatever is required---those are the foundation of a kitchen and a cook's reputation. They represent the downhome, solid, family-around-the-table values which are disappearing like vapor from our homes and towns.

The little book I love most was in our little rental house in over on the Alabama/Georgia line, along with everything else which had belonged to the owner, an elderly woman who had gone into a nursing home. We slept in her beds, gathered the clean, fragrant sheets from her clothesline every week, ate from her cut-glass sherbet dishes, read her books, watched the children's almost-Easter-Egg delight at pulling radish after radish from the little garden rows of that one Spring garden we cultivated.   

When we were leaving, I knew her son was to auction off all the household goods, so I asked the realtor if I might buy the little cookbook with its margin-filled writing from its owner's hand. She gave it to me, and I've had it almost forty years now. I smile every time I look at the flyleaf---in her beautifully-formed letters taught to scholars in another time, in the shaky, still-elegant script of an eighty-year-old hand---thin, pale brown scribing, as slender as the trail of a hatpin dipped into a rusty inkwell, it reads:

BUTTER SCOT PIE. LOOK ON PAGE WHERE PIE ARE.

It's sitting there on my shelf, with its "Cream of Chicken Soup" right up there with all the gifts of Ripert and Bouchon and Escoffier's lingering aromas of demiglace and Poulard, and Anthony's timeless way with the Kitchen Language---that scuffy small brown book is a tiny parvenu whose provenance befits royalty to me.  

And snugged in-between in the pages of one of my Mother's "Taste of Home" annuals are the cardsfrom her recipe drawer for Squash Pickles and her Karo Pecan Pie, both in the elegant left-handed back-slant of her 1940's Sheaffer (her Valedictorian prize at graduation).    

Anyone else just "read" them like novels, and just enjoy the having?   Y'all have any treasured and tender souvenirs in your Cookbook shelves?

SCONES ALWAYS REMIND ME . . .

We had scones for breakfast---an odd, quick thought as I perused the shelves for something kinda special for at-home-on-a-cold-morning. We had Bisquick, which we never seem to have, but this was left from making the sausage balls for Christmas morning. And I'd been telling myself to try out making muffins to use up that quart jug of  eggnog left from Christmas---we never seem to drink it, but you just BUY ONE to be sure.  

So that's what I did; I measured out the Bisquick and threw in two teaspoons of sugar, then the custard, and stirred it all together. A handful of dried cranberries, and dropped from two spoons onto the silpat---a scatter of Turbinado sugar sparkles, then oven 425 for 20 minutes. A quick brush with melted butter, a few slices of bacon out of the microwave, and we sat down. It was lovely and different---I DID sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over the last two bits of dough in the bowl before I dropped them, just to try the different taste, and they were quite nice.

I go back often and read a little excerpt from a letter from my dear Cousin Sandra, gone from us way too soon---her imaginary, wonderful life filled with warmth and love, as was her REAL one:

 A rosemary bed interspersed with basil, lavender and multicolored zinnias lines the porch front.  We watch the sunrise and smell the scent of fresh baked scones bursting with blueberries to be painted with cream and sugar and eaten with cheese scribbled with honey, and some sun-kissed figs. We sit sipping coffee and telling our stories.

I will bike to the town square and open my little bookstore and knitting shop around midmorning. The sitting and chatting and loving each other is the first and most important part of our days.

The old worn stone pathway leads from the back door to the

kitchen garden where we gather hands full of herbs, baby field greens, yellow and orange tomatoes, tiny carrots, and pencil thin asparagus for shared meals.

The fresh laundered cloth gives off a faint lavender perfume as it is spread atop the farm table.   A vase of old garden roses sits amongst the just lit candles. The room is filled with the laughter of friends and kinfolk and little ones, and all will be blessed.  And all will be blessed.

We will sit on the porch in the evening and watch the rosy leavings of the sun. This pink-washed peace is for all of us. How I wish I could give away a piece of these days like loafs of warm bread.

As the day draws to a close, we kneel together and bow in adoration with thanksgiving, praying---O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed.   Then in Thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest.        Amen.

Always together at last light, we will hold hands and hug and grow young together in this place.

ANNE SHIRLEY WOULD HAVE LOVED MY DRAPES

 

Who has had Miss Sandy's curtains??   You know---those heavy Laura Ashley/Rachel Ashwell chintzy-folds and loops with corner swags like Princess Diana's Weddin' sleeves?   Surely somebody knows someone, or has viewed a prospective house that gave you an itch to grab down those great dollops of fabric and go SHEER for life.

I confess to a thoughtless moment of that loopy frenzy, in the last-house-before-we-bought-this-one:   It was a tall-front-steps leading in to MORE tall steps up to kitchen and bedrooms, with a small mezzanine effect between floors, carpeted and with double windows looking out front, like where a visiting suitor might sit with his hat on his knees til he was announced.      The carpet was a pale baby blue in that 8x10, perfectly sized for a Goodwill sofa we'd acquired, and since I had a bolt of baby-blue polished cotton stashed somewhere---that's all it took.    There were Sandra Lee kits all over K-Mart and WalMart, with all the snazzy do-hickeys to bend cloth to your will, but it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, everybody was gone to the movies, and I had the neatest little stepladder . . .  

I have mentioned quite a few times my absolute ignorance with anything that requires thread.   My childhood attempts at a Sampler would get you laughed off Antiques Roadshow, and any crochet effort became a Barbie hat in nothing flat.    And I didn't CUT the stuff, just rolled the bolt out on the floor til it looked like enough.     The curtain rod was a medium-heavy one, just round enough for a few good swags, with a long floor-length pulled to one side to get the proper "puddling," and surplus enough on the top corner for stuffing in a few dozen fluff-squeezed plastic grocery bags.   No rhyme or reason, no measuring---I just poofed them out to Anne Shirley's Dream of Glory.   They were big blue melony mounds on one end, and it took me quite a time to duplicate that over-blown swag on the other, but I got some semblance of it.    

Getting the "puddle" right on the other end, a big Rosewood vase of Chris' canes on the outer end, and we had a proper sitting room to befit a very unimportant manor somewhere.  It was indeed the mimic of Carol Burnett's Po'Teer dress, in a more modest color.    I smiled every time I went up and down those stairs, and sometimes would just stand in the kitchen and LOOK.   It was stylish at the moment, and I had sculpted CLOTH in to something recognizable, if not prim.   And it was the only place in the house that never had books or magazines or Coke cans or shrugged off sweaters lying about.   And that little bit of Serenity was worth it all. 

I took the whole thing down when we moved to this house, and used the yards and yards to wrap glassware, and have no idea where that great length of blue cotton went to.    I DO, however, have a decades-old little bolt in the front coat closet---happy little teapots on a pinkish sateen.    I just KNOW it will make a perfect cover for the cushions on the park bench in the up Sitting room, come Spring.   Better late than never, and I have some new rolls of duct tape.  

                                                                                                                                                                            

ABOUT GRITS AND BISCUITS

 

One of the glories of the Southern table--a Black Skillet of Biscuits.   This one was for a brunch, with Red Beans and Rice, and graced with the "Tomato Slice" utensil brought out only for special occasions and cranberry sauce.

I just had a question from a friend on another continent, asking about grits and what's the difference in biscuits and Southern Biscuits, what are beaten biscuits and what about Hominy Grits. My answer in the "comment" section went on and on, as I am wont to do, so I just moved it here.

I don't know a lot about anybody else's biscuits, but almost all "Southern Biscuits" or Southern Style Biscuits are made by starting with a shortening---originally lard, and it's still used by purists and a lot of the new gourmet cooks. Now, Crisco is the one of choice mostly, and most cooks use Self Rising flour, even if they do add a little extra salt or leavening.

And Buttermilk is the Southern mixing-liquid, with or without "baking soda"---rare is the kitchen in the South which has not a box of Arm & Hammer in the cupboard, for biscuits and other baking, and for cleaning drains, freshening laundry, and keeping the fridge and freezer fresh and odor-free. Right in there beside the Argo Cornstarch and the can of Clabber Girl.   They're the Powdery Trinity of a Southern kitchen, right behind Onion-Bell Pepper-Celery sauteeing before the roux gets going.

Grits is a singular food, and I still think and say "Grits are" because of the plural sound. One would never speak of "a grit," but I know it should be followed by "IS," just as you would say, "Molasses is."

There's corn grits, white made with the white center of the corn, or yellow, with the whole kernel, ground more coarsely than cornmeal, which makes such velvety, wonderful cornbread.

And there's HOMINY grits, made with the "lye" or (dictionary word) nixtamalized corn. It's dried, ground, and can be advertised as Hominy Grits, the old fashioned kind.

OH, and beaten biscuits---I've made them. Once. Just as an experiment on a lazy Saturday morning. They're like a cross amongst a Ritz cracker and a dog biscuit and a Communion Wafer---the really hard, tough kind found in Baptist churches, which, if they weren't tiny enough to get back there and crunch between your back teeth, would do some serious dental damage. Or hang out like a mint until they melt sometime between Lord's Supper and "Just As I Am."

I had a recipe once for a cake, from way in the day before mixers. You were supposed to beat it for six hours with a wooden spoon---I cannot fathom what form or sentient life the mass must be expected to assume from all that brutal activity.   The recipe even had the audacity to urge bringing in the children, and letting them take an hour or two.   Unh unh. Not me. Just smacking that biscuit dough "til elastic" with the rolling pin one time was enough for me. And nobody would eat 'em, anyway.

Grits and how to eat them have caused more family dis-harmony than politics---butter or not; sugar or not; gravy or shrimp or syrup on top.

I cook the plain old Quaker Grits, right off the grocery shelf in the round cardboard cylinder---the cook-it kind. Those crinkly packets which dump dusty powder into the bowl and change to part-mush, part-crunch under the boiling water---not spoken of in polite company.   And a gift of the Gucci kind of grits from an Artisan Grist Mill on occasion is quite welcome, and enjoyed respectfully and with gusto. 

The pot simmers for a bit whilst the bacon and eggs cook; a big pat of butter is scraped off the knife into the pot, left to melt, and stirred in just before ladling a good hot serving onto everybody's plate. Then it's every man for himself---treat 'em as you will. No censure from me.

Be sure and run an inch or two of warm water into the empty pot and replace the lid til time to do the dishes, or you'll be chipping spackle off that thing for a week.

Jeff Foxworthy says that every single garbage can in the South has one fork with white stone between the tines, that somebody gave up on. And if the Egyptians had had grits instead of mortar, there'd be a whole townful of pyramids.

MY FUNNY VALENTINE

                                           Valentine Roses, 2017

The Fourth of this month marked FORTY YEARS since Chris and I met, one misty night at a little redneck Holiday Inn in Mississippi.  (I do it an injustice---it was the FIRST FRANCHISED Holiday Inn in the world, opened in 1954--the second one after the original MotherShip in Memphis) but it was still boots-and-jeans all the way.   I'd been a widow for fifteen years, and never considered that there might be someone special out there.   WAY before the Internet became such a Meeting Place, we met through the small-town version of that---in a much simpler way, a more innocent time---through a sweet little newspaperish magazine available in grocery stores, quick-marts and fillin' stations. Ours was called "Tradewinds" and spanned several states, I think; you could find lily bulbs, hound pups, parts for your '58 Fairlane, recipes, and nice people to chat with or meet.

A week or so after New Year’s Eve, 1985 into 86, five of us "girls" who went out together on occasion went to dinner---one brought a copy of the little newsprint-paper magazine, and we all dared each other to answer one ad. I chose Chris, and I think it was because of the sweet way he mentioned his children, his love of reading, and his intentionally stating that he didn't watch football on TV that caught my eye, and they’ve all held true all these years.

You wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote the number of your choice on the front. That envelope went into a bigger envelope with three dollars, and was addressed to the paper. They sorted everybody to the right place, and a few days later, he called.

We chatted for probably two hours, and suddenly it hit me---I was sitting there on my bed like a teenager, forgetting that I was WAY late to pick DS#2 up at the bus-stop. I threw down the phone and FLEW, meeting him probably three miles toward home, walking that old blacktop road. I'd said, "I'll call you BACK!!" as I dashed for the door, but when I returned, I realized HE had called ME and I didn't know his number. He called back within a few minutes, and we talked til WAY late---somebody cooked supper, but it wasn't me.

We talked on the phone for a couple of weeks, and on Feb. 4, he would be calling on some clients close to my town, so we arranged to meet. I would not let a stranger come to my home, and I didn’t want him to know where I lived, so we met at the lounge at the local Holiday Inn where I knew several of the employees.

That brave soul walked into a redneck bar where he didn’t know anyone, carrying a long-stemmed red rose.

We had been talking for maybe fifteen minutes, when in strolled my two sons, who stood towering over him at the table. They swapped the new pickup for my big old car, to go pick up some friends, and since THEY had met him, scads of people had seen us together, and I had gone to high school or football games with half the police department, I figured I was probably safe. So we went to his room and talked until four a.m.

He had arranged the two chairs so that we sat facing each other almost knee to knee, and we talked all about our families and faith and friends, our home life, our lives and what we liked to read, and all sorts of get-to-know you stuff. He even had a bottle of wine stuck in ice in the sink, and he’d been to WalMart for two pretty glasses---I didn’t have the heart to tell him I HATE wine, so I sort of held the glass and sipped at it til it was warm and even more unappetizing.

The funniest part is---he also dislikes wine, and just thought it was the nice thing to do---have a glass of wine with a lady. We both choked it down, just to impress the other, I guess. Never again.

Then, when I simply HAD to go home, he walked me to the truck, and I couldn’t crank it---had never tried; we had just bought it that Christmas, and I’d never driven it. So Chris had to drive me home anyway, after all those stranger-precautions I took. And we were married that Summer---short courtship.

One funny coincidence was that one of my friends at work, seeing how well my experience turned out, placed his own ad, and met a lovely young woman whom he brought as his date to our wedding. She had answered Chris’ ad as well, but they did not get together because we had already met.

I still get chills at the "maybe not" of the whole thing, but he says it would have happened somehow. He subscribes to the theory that he'd have stopped to fix my flat tire, or some such happenstance. And we marvel often at the people we love, and the people we’ve met and had a part in shaping THEIR lives a bit, and they ours, as well as the Grandbabies who might be totally different people had we not met on that foggy night in February.

Life pays forward, and the far-reaching things we set in motion would astound us. For example, if we had not met, I would never have moved here, DS2 would never have come here and met the lovely young woman he married, their daughter would not be graduating this May, and another daughter would not have met her husband and added three more to the Family Tree.   How many lives have been changed and influenced by that misty night that we met and talked to 4 a.m.    We had thirty-four wonderful years together, all begun because of that one little magical magazine.