The Case of the Traveling Luggage Tag
Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) is a bit of a sneak thief. She's "a picker-up of unconsidered trifles." If it's in reach (and sometimes even if it's out of reach) and can fit in her mouth, she'll nab it. Pens. Power cords. Pieces of mail. Sometimes she just pulls them off a table, and then leaps back in surprise when they actually fall. Often she'll strut into the room with something in her mouth as if to say "look what I just stole because you were stupid enough to leave it where I could get to it."
We have a leather luggage tag that is currently making the rounds. It was on the floor of the closet in the music room. Then it was in the middle of the music room. Since then it's been circumnavigating the house, going on it's own world tour. A luggage tag traveling light, without luggage. It was by the bed yesterday. In the kitchen last night. And now it's sitting by my feed in the middle of the living room.
Unlike her other crimes, I've not actually seen the tag in her mouth. So perhaps I am maligning her unfairly. Maybe she is innocent and the tag is moving itself around the house, playing its own little game of freeze tag. But I have a feeling Cipher is behind it.
Right now she's sitting in her favorite perch, in the front window. Her back to me and the room; purposely ignoring the moveable tag. But I have a feeling when I come home from cat duty later today, the tag will have once again migrated to another room. And there Cipher will sit, all innocence, pretending she knows nothing about the case of the traveling luggage tag.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Red Means Gloves
Being a red cat volunteer is something of an education. Today I worked with three of them in varying degrees of mania. Cat number one was sweetness itself and should definitely not be a red. She spent 30 minutes curled into my lap, purring, nuzzling into my arm and generally stealing my heart.
Cat number two was all lollipops and light until he turned without warning and nipped me.
Cat number three was the stand-in for the shark in Jaws. She (I'll call her "Lulu") had no interest in anything other than having me for dinner. She didn't want to play. She didn't want the yummy cat snacks I carry with me. She didn't want to explore the room. She just wanted to swallow my hand.
I would back off to discourage this behavior, and then she'd wander over as nice as you please and try to put me between two slices of bread and spread mustard on me.
So out came the gloves. I hadn't had a reason to use them yet, but Lulu was a perfect illustration of why it was suggested I invest in a pair of leather gloves. I could have used chain mail, but they at least kept me from becoming a shredded, bleeding mess.
The weird thing is that Lulu looks very much like Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) except that Cipher has never tried to digest any of my limbs.
Being a red cat volunteer is something of an education. Today I worked with three of them in varying degrees of mania. Cat number one was sweetness itself and should definitely not be a red. She spent 30 minutes curled into my lap, purring, nuzzling into my arm and generally stealing my heart.
Cat number two was all lollipops and light until he turned without warning and nipped me.
Cat number three was the stand-in for the shark in Jaws. She (I'll call her "Lulu") had no interest in anything other than having me for dinner. She didn't want to play. She didn't want the yummy cat snacks I carry with me. She didn't want to explore the room. She just wanted to swallow my hand.
I would back off to discourage this behavior, and then she'd wander over as nice as you please and try to put me between two slices of bread and spread mustard on me.
So out came the gloves. I hadn't had a reason to use them yet, but Lulu was a perfect illustration of why it was suggested I invest in a pair of leather gloves. I could have used chain mail, but they at least kept me from becoming a shredded, bleeding mess.
The weird thing is that Lulu looks very much like Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) except that Cipher has never tried to digest any of my limbs.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: Jacques and Emilie
For my entire childhood the house across the street belonged to an old French couple named Jacques and Emilie. They never seemed to get older and, to my child’s eyes, were always about 120. I think they were probably in their 70s and 80s and were something like protective godparents to everyone who lived on the block.
Jacques would spend his entire day sitting in his garage with the door open. He had a white El Camino that was a favorite hiding spot for the neighborhood kids playing hide-and-seek. I don’t know why we always hid there because it was always one of the first places anyone looked, but someone was always there. He’d sit at an old chrome kitchen table with his radio tuned to either a baseball game (when there was one) or the 24-hours news station during the off-season. He’d putter in the garden, read four or five newspapers a day, make birdhouses that he’d give to every person on the street, and watch the world walk, skate, bite, and drive by.
My dad, who spoke some French thanks to his French mother and grandparents, would go over every evening after work and before dinner. He’d come home, change out of his suit and into his jeans and a faded blue work shirt, and walk across the street. There, like two old Basque farmers, they’d drink strong red wine out of water glasses and nibble on cheese and the sourdough bread that Emilie made from scratch three days a week.
The wine came in big gallon jugs that Jacques would pour over his shoulder in a fountain that never once missed the glass. It’s a maneuver that always impressed me. When I was a child I was equal measures terrified and fascinated by him. The trick with the wine seemed like magic. But his serious expression and strange accent intimidated the hell out of me. He was a small, compact, bull of a man and had too much the look of a garden gnome about him. I was then, and still am, scared of garden gnomes.
Emile, by contrast, was the kindly grandmother out of a fairly tale. She baked bread and cookies that made the whole street smell glorious. And for a child growing up on my mother’s dreadful cookie and cakes-from-a-box, the scent of homemade ginger snaps and the warm, yeasty aroma of fresh bread was enough to bring tears to the eye. Her house was always spotless and her vegetable garden was like Eden. I’d been raised on a steady diet of canned food, with the exception of salad and, for some god unknown reason, zucchini. But Emilie had rows of fresh corn and sweet orange carrots. Sweet beans that made a satisfying, candy-like snap and the wonder of warm from the sun tomatoes.
She sang old French songs that I tried, in my head, to imitate and, like Jacques, loved baseball. Her backyard was a veritable subdivision of her husband’s birdhouses. Every bird in town seemed to have a map to her yard where she’d leave small glass dishes of sunflower seeds and fresh fruit. They had two fat, sleepy cats that glared threateningly at the invaders but never had enough energy to actually attack. These cats, Miro and Lalu, hated everyone but Emilie. Her, they loved. They’d slink between her feet and fight for lap rights when she sat down in the evenings. They would tolerate no attention from anyone else, not even Jacques, though they would hang around the garage when my dad was over, hoping one of the men would drop some cheese or bread.
For my entire childhood the house across the street belonged to an old French couple named Jacques and Emilie. They never seemed to get older and, to my child’s eyes, were always about 120. I think they were probably in their 70s and 80s and were something like protective godparents to everyone who lived on the block.
Jacques would spend his entire day sitting in his garage with the door open. He had a white El Camino that was a favorite hiding spot for the neighborhood kids playing hide-and-seek. I don’t know why we always hid there because it was always one of the first places anyone looked, but someone was always there. He’d sit at an old chrome kitchen table with his radio tuned to either a baseball game (when there was one) or the 24-hours news station during the off-season. He’d putter in the garden, read four or five newspapers a day, make birdhouses that he’d give to every person on the street, and watch the world walk, skate, bite, and drive by.
My dad, who spoke some French thanks to his French mother and grandparents, would go over every evening after work and before dinner. He’d come home, change out of his suit and into his jeans and a faded blue work shirt, and walk across the street. There, like two old Basque farmers, they’d drink strong red wine out of water glasses and nibble on cheese and the sourdough bread that Emilie made from scratch three days a week.
The wine came in big gallon jugs that Jacques would pour over his shoulder in a fountain that never once missed the glass. It’s a maneuver that always impressed me. When I was a child I was equal measures terrified and fascinated by him. The trick with the wine seemed like magic. But his serious expression and strange accent intimidated the hell out of me. He was a small, compact, bull of a man and had too much the look of a garden gnome about him. I was then, and still am, scared of garden gnomes.
Emile, by contrast, was the kindly grandmother out of a fairly tale. She baked bread and cookies that made the whole street smell glorious. And for a child growing up on my mother’s dreadful cookie and cakes-from-a-box, the scent of homemade ginger snaps and the warm, yeasty aroma of fresh bread was enough to bring tears to the eye. Her house was always spotless and her vegetable garden was like Eden. I’d been raised on a steady diet of canned food, with the exception of salad and, for some god unknown reason, zucchini. But Emilie had rows of fresh corn and sweet orange carrots. Sweet beans that made a satisfying, candy-like snap and the wonder of warm from the sun tomatoes.
She sang old French songs that I tried, in my head, to imitate and, like Jacques, loved baseball. Her backyard was a veritable subdivision of her husband’s birdhouses. Every bird in town seemed to have a map to her yard where she’d leave small glass dishes of sunflower seeds and fresh fruit. They had two fat, sleepy cats that glared threateningly at the invaders but never had enough energy to actually attack. These cats, Miro and Lalu, hated everyone but Emilie. Her, they loved. They’d slink between her feet and fight for lap rights when she sat down in the evenings. They would tolerate no attention from anyone else, not even Jacques, though they would hang around the garage when my dad was over, hoping one of the men would drop some cheese or bread.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: The Parade
Every spring Silver Creek celebrated it’s terminal small-townness with “The Pansy Parade.” Of course now it’s turned into much eye-rolling and references to gay pride, but back in the 60s it meant just flowers. It was a kids-only parade, with the exception of the high school marching band and Mr. Grovner’s antique fire engine that he pulled out on any occasion even remotely appropriate for such a vehicle. And a few occasions where the vehicle was highly inappropriate.
The Pansy Parade featured a bunch of mortified kids riding bikes of pulling smaller siblings in wagons, all covered in flowers. Sort of a juvenile Rose Parade. Mothers all over town would spend hours raiding their gardens and the local hillsides for colorful blooms to turn banana-seated Schwinns and dented Red Fliers into mini monuments to horticultural exaggeration.
And for some reason, us kids were always put into costume. These costumes rarely, if ever, had anything to do with what we were riding or pulling. Usually it was last Halloween’s costume, resurrected with the addition of a flower on the lapel of a clown suit or painted insanely onto the sheet of a small ghost. You’d see a cowboy riding a tricycle covered in pink roses or a black-clad witch, complete with pointed hat, wearing a garland of sweet pea blooms.
Really, the whole thing was ridiculous. But the parents loved it as much as the kids hated it. The only ones who didn’t seem to mind where the really small ones, often pulled in a wagon by mom or dad. They’d happily clap their pudgy hands, pausing occasionally to nap or to try and eat the décor. The dogs didn’t seem to mind either. Somehow it became part of the tradition to braid a collar of dandelions or put a crown of yellow dandelions on Fido’s head.
But anyone over the age of seven had to be forced at gunpoint to take part. The whole town would turn out with their Instamatics to sip watery lemonade and line Union Street, waving tiny American flags and cheering like they were watching the Super Bowl. On the street, boys hung their heads in shame at being draped in daisies; the only consolation being that every other boy was being similarly debased.
Any girl who wasn’t a girly-girl hated this. And any girl who hated flowers, or had allergies, had it worst of all. Sign me up for all three. I loathed being forced to pretend to be a princess when I would have preferred to be dressed as G.I. Joe. And mom would take my bike and, with masking tape applied with such thoroughness that it looked like mummy wrapping, would cover it with these hideous little flowers that were not only creepy, but also made me sneeze incessantly. So there I’d be, in one of my older sister’s hand-me-down dresses and a Cinderella hat made from sheet of construction paper, trying to ride my overloaded bike down a street clogged with miserable kids; my nose as red as a carnation and my mind filled with images of revenge. One day, I told myself, I’d force my parents to cover themselves in leaves and pine needles, dress up like total freaks, and walk slowly down Union Street while all the kids in town snapped photographs and laughed.
Stephen King has nothing on the demon mind of a child forced to do something against her will.
Every spring Silver Creek celebrated it’s terminal small-townness with “The Pansy Parade.” Of course now it’s turned into much eye-rolling and references to gay pride, but back in the 60s it meant just flowers. It was a kids-only parade, with the exception of the high school marching band and Mr. Grovner’s antique fire engine that he pulled out on any occasion even remotely appropriate for such a vehicle. And a few occasions where the vehicle was highly inappropriate.
The Pansy Parade featured a bunch of mortified kids riding bikes of pulling smaller siblings in wagons, all covered in flowers. Sort of a juvenile Rose Parade. Mothers all over town would spend hours raiding their gardens and the local hillsides for colorful blooms to turn banana-seated Schwinns and dented Red Fliers into mini monuments to horticultural exaggeration.
And for some reason, us kids were always put into costume. These costumes rarely, if ever, had anything to do with what we were riding or pulling. Usually it was last Halloween’s costume, resurrected with the addition of a flower on the lapel of a clown suit or painted insanely onto the sheet of a small ghost. You’d see a cowboy riding a tricycle covered in pink roses or a black-clad witch, complete with pointed hat, wearing a garland of sweet pea blooms.
Really, the whole thing was ridiculous. But the parents loved it as much as the kids hated it. The only ones who didn’t seem to mind where the really small ones, often pulled in a wagon by mom or dad. They’d happily clap their pudgy hands, pausing occasionally to nap or to try and eat the décor. The dogs didn’t seem to mind either. Somehow it became part of the tradition to braid a collar of dandelions or put a crown of yellow dandelions on Fido’s head.
But anyone over the age of seven had to be forced at gunpoint to take part. The whole town would turn out with their Instamatics to sip watery lemonade and line Union Street, waving tiny American flags and cheering like they were watching the Super Bowl. On the street, boys hung their heads in shame at being draped in daisies; the only consolation being that every other boy was being similarly debased.
Any girl who wasn’t a girly-girl hated this. And any girl who hated flowers, or had allergies, had it worst of all. Sign me up for all three. I loathed being forced to pretend to be a princess when I would have preferred to be dressed as G.I. Joe. And mom would take my bike and, with masking tape applied with such thoroughness that it looked like mummy wrapping, would cover it with these hideous little flowers that were not only creepy, but also made me sneeze incessantly. So there I’d be, in one of my older sister’s hand-me-down dresses and a Cinderella hat made from sheet of construction paper, trying to ride my overloaded bike down a street clogged with miserable kids; my nose as red as a carnation and my mind filled with images of revenge. One day, I told myself, I’d force my parents to cover themselves in leaves and pine needles, dress up like total freaks, and walk slowly down Union Street while all the kids in town snapped photographs and laughed.
Stephen King has nothing on the demon mind of a child forced to do something against her will.
Why Bother?
Why bother trying to sleep when I have to get up at 4:45 anyway and it's now 2 am. It'll take me at least two hours, if not longer, to fall asleep if I can. So there seems little point in trying just to get 45 minutes of sleep. So I shall pull an all-nighter, which is usual for me, but not nearly as easy to manage as when I was in my 20s.
All-nighters are also easier when there's a goal. Studying for finals. Finishing a paper. Talking for 8 hours, lost in time, with a good friend or a new crush. But staying up all night watching movies because you know you're not going to sleep makes the time creep on. Perhaps I should write a paper just to give myself a task. "Examine the role of the voiceless woman in the novels and Dickens and discuss how the actions of his female characters either advance or hinder his plots."
Or not.
I read an article last week that said Michael Jackson took up to 10 Xanax a night. During this recent phase of insomnia and my comment how I had run out of Ambien, I heard from no fewer than 3 of my friends who were concerned to learn that I take sleeping pills and were worried about my becoming addicted. I take one pill every 2 or 3 days so that I can count on a few good night's sleep a week and my wonderful friends are worried about me. I love that. Didn't MJ had friends who watched out for him? Personally, I'm touched that they care enough to poke into my life and say "are you OK?" It gives me a total warm, fuzzy feeling. It doesn't alter the fact that I'm exhausted and cranky, but it does make me all warm and fuzzy.
I have the best friends in the world. Oh, and the most wonderful husband as well.
Why bother trying to sleep when I have to get up at 4:45 anyway and it's now 2 am. It'll take me at least two hours, if not longer, to fall asleep if I can. So there seems little point in trying just to get 45 minutes of sleep. So I shall pull an all-nighter, which is usual for me, but not nearly as easy to manage as when I was in my 20s.
All-nighters are also easier when there's a goal. Studying for finals. Finishing a paper. Talking for 8 hours, lost in time, with a good friend or a new crush. But staying up all night watching movies because you know you're not going to sleep makes the time creep on. Perhaps I should write a paper just to give myself a task. "Examine the role of the voiceless woman in the novels and Dickens and discuss how the actions of his female characters either advance or hinder his plots."
Or not.
I read an article last week that said Michael Jackson took up to 10 Xanax a night. During this recent phase of insomnia and my comment how I had run out of Ambien, I heard from no fewer than 3 of my friends who were concerned to learn that I take sleeping pills and were worried about my becoming addicted. I take one pill every 2 or 3 days so that I can count on a few good night's sleep a week and my wonderful friends are worried about me. I love that. Didn't MJ had friends who watched out for him? Personally, I'm touched that they care enough to poke into my life and say "are you OK?" It gives me a total warm, fuzzy feeling. It doesn't alter the fact that I'm exhausted and cranky, but it does make me all warm and fuzzy.
I have the best friends in the world. Oh, and the most wonderful husband as well.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: A Tale of Two Churches
My family was a two-church household. Mom (four-time President of St. Edith’s Women’s Club) is a die-hard Episcopal. Dad (Monday night Bingo caller for six years) was an equally die-hard Catholic. When they had kids they made a rule, they would alternate children, each parent claiming children to raise in their faith. My eldest sister, Kathleen was raised in mom’s church. My eldest brother, Ronnie went with dad. Diane came next and was claimed by mom. Peter went with dad. Then came me.
That was their big mistake; they had an odd number of children. The supreme and eternal question of my soul was decided on a coin flip. Dad won. I lost. My other sisters seem far better adjusted than I, having been raised on a diet of God lite and good will. I, however, had “Christ died for YOUR sins” ingrained in me from such an early age that to this day I feel guilty for everything from telling a little white lie to the oppression of slavery.
Every Sunday the other females in the family would turn left at the drive and walk down a tree-shaded street towards St. Edith’s. I, in a symbolism too hilarious to be ignored, would turn left with the men in my family and walk past Spender’s Mortuary, the Dead End Bar and Grill, and the sign for the city dump on our way towards the frigid bulk of Our Lady of Angels.
Where St. Edith’s was light, bright, and cozy with padded benches and happy hymns; OLA was dark, uncomfortable, and had two temperatures: cold and freezing. And it was filled with rows of hard wooden benches guaranteed to numb any butt within 10 minutes. No matter how often the church ladies changed the roses and carnations the place always smelled of rotten flowers and the hideous realism of the Stations of the Cross I swear look like sketches I’ve seen done by prisoners at Auschwitz.
When I was growing up, the iron, Irish hand of Father Patrick Sheehy, ran OLA with all the benevolence of the IRS. He was a big, grouchy bear of a man. And if you’re waiting for me to add the expected “with a heart of gold” you won’t get it. He was cranky, judgmental, cold, and absolutely the worst person to instill the warmth of God’s love in heart of a shy child. He was also, quite inconveniently, deaf as a stump. This affliction made confession a veritable cavalcade of embarrassment as, by the end, you were basically screaming out all your petty sins for the entire congregation to hear. It’s how Mr. Hopgood found out about Mrs. Hopgood’s tryst with his brother, and how my brothers found out it was I who told our parents about their flirtation with cigarettes.
Father Sheehy’s one concession to seeming human was the fact that he kept birds. He conscripted the boys club and had them build a huge aviary out behind the rectory and there he could often be found surrounded by his beloved finches, parakeets, and doves. Later on he badgered some of the fathers to build separate area where he could care for wounded pigeons and other wild birds. He even had a parrot for a few years, a large taxidermied-looking creature that dropped feathers out of its tail on a regular basis and yet never seemed to run out of them. This horrid creature made a noise like the unholy dead whenever anyone but Father Sheehy got too close and it was widely rumored that noise was responsible for Mrs. Luckweather’s final heart attack.
My family was a two-church household. Mom (four-time President of St. Edith’s Women’s Club) is a die-hard Episcopal. Dad (Monday night Bingo caller for six years) was an equally die-hard Catholic. When they had kids they made a rule, they would alternate children, each parent claiming children to raise in their faith. My eldest sister, Kathleen was raised in mom’s church. My eldest brother, Ronnie went with dad. Diane came next and was claimed by mom. Peter went with dad. Then came me.
That was their big mistake; they had an odd number of children. The supreme and eternal question of my soul was decided on a coin flip. Dad won. I lost. My other sisters seem far better adjusted than I, having been raised on a diet of God lite and good will. I, however, had “Christ died for YOUR sins” ingrained in me from such an early age that to this day I feel guilty for everything from telling a little white lie to the oppression of slavery.
Every Sunday the other females in the family would turn left at the drive and walk down a tree-shaded street towards St. Edith’s. I, in a symbolism too hilarious to be ignored, would turn left with the men in my family and walk past Spender’s Mortuary, the Dead End Bar and Grill, and the sign for the city dump on our way towards the frigid bulk of Our Lady of Angels.
Where St. Edith’s was light, bright, and cozy with padded benches and happy hymns; OLA was dark, uncomfortable, and had two temperatures: cold and freezing. And it was filled with rows of hard wooden benches guaranteed to numb any butt within 10 minutes. No matter how often the church ladies changed the roses and carnations the place always smelled of rotten flowers and the hideous realism of the Stations of the Cross I swear look like sketches I’ve seen done by prisoners at Auschwitz.
When I was growing up, the iron, Irish hand of Father Patrick Sheehy, ran OLA with all the benevolence of the IRS. He was a big, grouchy bear of a man. And if you’re waiting for me to add the expected “with a heart of gold” you won’t get it. He was cranky, judgmental, cold, and absolutely the worst person to instill the warmth of God’s love in heart of a shy child. He was also, quite inconveniently, deaf as a stump. This affliction made confession a veritable cavalcade of embarrassment as, by the end, you were basically screaming out all your petty sins for the entire congregation to hear. It’s how Mr. Hopgood found out about Mrs. Hopgood’s tryst with his brother, and how my brothers found out it was I who told our parents about their flirtation with cigarettes.
Father Sheehy’s one concession to seeming human was the fact that he kept birds. He conscripted the boys club and had them build a huge aviary out behind the rectory and there he could often be found surrounded by his beloved finches, parakeets, and doves. Later on he badgered some of the fathers to build separate area where he could care for wounded pigeons and other wild birds. He even had a parrot for a few years, a large taxidermied-looking creature that dropped feathers out of its tail on a regular basis and yet never seemed to run out of them. This horrid creature made a noise like the unholy dead whenever anyone but Father Sheehy got too close and it was widely rumored that noise was responsible for Mrs. Luckweather’s final heart attack.
Photo of the day: Bury Me With My Dog
I cannot explain the iconography of this memorial. A man who looks like a miner and his faithful sidekick. Is it St. Francis, patron saint of animals? Is it King the Wonder Dog? In any case, it's at Holy Cross, the Catholic Cemetery in Colma. Not too far from where my father is buried.
I cannot explain the iconography of this memorial. A man who looks like a miner and his faithful sidekick. Is it St. Francis, patron saint of animals? Is it King the Wonder Dog? In any case, it's at Holy Cross, the Catholic Cemetery in Colma. Not too far from where my father is buried.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: Summertime Jam
Every summer the ladies of Silver Creek went into a frenzy of jam making. I remember being roped into the berry picking as a child. Fat bushes of blackberry and delicate beds of strawberry. Apricots warm from the summer sun and baskets of wormy apples. For weeks every kitchen would be too hot to enter as the heat of the day competed with the steam rising from ancient, vast stoves as to which was more uncomfortable.
My mother, sadly, made the worst jam in town and it was always a disappointment to me to see such delicious fruit and know it would be ruined by mom’s hammer touch. The blackberry jam would have tiny bits of branches in it that you would find, all unexpected, smeared on your January toast. The strawberry jam would be so sweet that it was almost painful to eat. Tasteless apple butter. I used to love to go to the homes of my aunts and taste their wonderful jars of summer glory. Why? I would ask, did my mother and only my mother miss the cooking gene in the family?
But every year she would tie on her sunshine yellow apron and rope in the family to work. The boys would haul cardboard boxes of empty jars from the basement and then be free to be free. The girls, unfortunately, were tied by antique gender roles into washing and sterilizing jars, slicing fruit, and handing mom ingredients like surgical nurses during a fruit appendectomy. When my sisters got married and moved out it fell to me, the baby of the family, to do the work that three of us used to share. And we did it, knowing full well that all of this sweat would result in gleaming jars of crap.
Even my father, who worshipped my mother, wasn’t up to the task of pretending her jam was anything other than awful. He even developed a “berry allergy” that got him out of having to put the thin, purple substance that mom called grape jelly onto his morning toast. When all of us kids tried to claim we’d inherited the same allergy, she refused to believe us. She took me, as the smallest, and sat me on the chrome and red-leather step stool in the kitchen and force fed me spoonfuls of grape jelly then watched me like a hawk to see if I came out in a rash. I didn’t and, to her mind, that made all of her kids immune from dad’s affliction. To this day my brother Ronnie blames me for not being a better actress. I tried to tell him that Katharine Hepburn couldn’t produce hives on cue, but there is no reasoning with a man who was daily forced to eat the much-feared cranberry-orange relish.
Each year at the Christmas boutique benefiting St. Edith’s, housewives all over Silver Creek would proudly produce the fruits of their summer labors for sale. Large wicker baskets would be decorated with red and green ribbon or sprigs of fake holly and filled with homemade goods. The tables of the church hall would groan under the weight of golden loaves of pound cake and plates full of sugar-dusted cookies. There was an unspoken competition to be first through the door and then make a beeline for Mrs. Hudson’s basket with glistening jars of strawberry jam, packets of sweet macaroons, eye-wateringly dill pickles, and a little pottery crock of clover honey.
Unfortunately for mom, her ineptitude in the kitchen was well known and nobody ever wanted her basket. After one year when it was the last basket left, dad took to making a great show of buying hers first “before anyone else beat him to it."
Every summer the ladies of Silver Creek went into a frenzy of jam making. I remember being roped into the berry picking as a child. Fat bushes of blackberry and delicate beds of strawberry. Apricots warm from the summer sun and baskets of wormy apples. For weeks every kitchen would be too hot to enter as the heat of the day competed with the steam rising from ancient, vast stoves as to which was more uncomfortable.
My mother, sadly, made the worst jam in town and it was always a disappointment to me to see such delicious fruit and know it would be ruined by mom’s hammer touch. The blackberry jam would have tiny bits of branches in it that you would find, all unexpected, smeared on your January toast. The strawberry jam would be so sweet that it was almost painful to eat. Tasteless apple butter. I used to love to go to the homes of my aunts and taste their wonderful jars of summer glory. Why? I would ask, did my mother and only my mother miss the cooking gene in the family?
But every year she would tie on her sunshine yellow apron and rope in the family to work. The boys would haul cardboard boxes of empty jars from the basement and then be free to be free. The girls, unfortunately, were tied by antique gender roles into washing and sterilizing jars, slicing fruit, and handing mom ingredients like surgical nurses during a fruit appendectomy. When my sisters got married and moved out it fell to me, the baby of the family, to do the work that three of us used to share. And we did it, knowing full well that all of this sweat would result in gleaming jars of crap.
Even my father, who worshipped my mother, wasn’t up to the task of pretending her jam was anything other than awful. He even developed a “berry allergy” that got him out of having to put the thin, purple substance that mom called grape jelly onto his morning toast. When all of us kids tried to claim we’d inherited the same allergy, she refused to believe us. She took me, as the smallest, and sat me on the chrome and red-leather step stool in the kitchen and force fed me spoonfuls of grape jelly then watched me like a hawk to see if I came out in a rash. I didn’t and, to her mind, that made all of her kids immune from dad’s affliction. To this day my brother Ronnie blames me for not being a better actress. I tried to tell him that Katharine Hepburn couldn’t produce hives on cue, but there is no reasoning with a man who was daily forced to eat the much-feared cranberry-orange relish.
Each year at the Christmas boutique benefiting St. Edith’s, housewives all over Silver Creek would proudly produce the fruits of their summer labors for sale. Large wicker baskets would be decorated with red and green ribbon or sprigs of fake holly and filled with homemade goods. The tables of the church hall would groan under the weight of golden loaves of pound cake and plates full of sugar-dusted cookies. There was an unspoken competition to be first through the door and then make a beeline for Mrs. Hudson’s basket with glistening jars of strawberry jam, packets of sweet macaroons, eye-wateringly dill pickles, and a little pottery crock of clover honey.
Unfortunately for mom, her ineptitude in the kitchen was well known and nobody ever wanted her basket. After one year when it was the last basket left, dad took to making a great show of buying hers first “before anyone else beat him to it."
Photo of the day: Madeline
It's Bastille Day and I wanted to photograph something French. But aside from French's mustard and stacks of French music, there's not much around here that fits. So you get a refrigerator magnet. Sorry.
It's all part of my shameless plug, anyway. Tonight from 6-9 pm (Pacific time) I'll be playing an all-French special on my radio show. Vive la Revolution features such historic figures of French music as Charles Trenet, Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Maurice Chevalier. Plus current stars such as Sanseverino, Paris Combo, Arthur H, and Francis Cabrel. I'll also be playing music from French-speaking countries and French-speaking artists in Canada and elsewhere. Tune in to 90.1 FM in the bay area or over the internet at KZSU live. Or you can listen via iTunes radio; Radio -> College-> KZSU.
Vive la France!
It's Bastille Day and I wanted to photograph something French. But aside from French's mustard and stacks of French music, there's not much around here that fits. So you get a refrigerator magnet. Sorry.
It's all part of my shameless plug, anyway. Tonight from 6-9 pm (Pacific time) I'll be playing an all-French special on my radio show. Vive la Revolution features such historic figures of French music as Charles Trenet, Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Maurice Chevalier. Plus current stars such as Sanseverino, Paris Combo, Arthur H, and Francis Cabrel. I'll also be playing music from French-speaking countries and French-speaking artists in Canada and elsewhere. Tune in to 90.1 FM in the bay area or over the internet at KZSU live. Or you can listen via iTunes radio; Radio -> College-> KZSU.
Vive la France!
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