Risky Business

Okay.....So.....I've sent out a piece to GreenPrints magazine to see if they will publish it. I had a goal on my New Year's Papers that we completed on January 1, that I would try to get something published this year and it's taken me until November, but at least I've sent something out. It wasn't so much a matter of putting anything off--it was more that I didn't know where I would send the kind of writing that I like to do. And then I found this little magazine in the oddest place. I had gotten a Garden Supply catalog and I ordered some plant staking stuff from them and in the invoice that came along with the stakes was an advertisement for GreenPrints: The Weeders Digest. I looked them up on the Internet and could see that they were a publication for gardeners, by gardeners, but the stories weren't about how much fertilizer to put on your garden or how to get rid of aphids. One of the sample articles was called The No-Grow Azaleas, about a person who kept waiting for the azaleas to grow bigger only to realize that they were a dwarf variety.

That sounded like a publication that I might be able to write at least one story for, so I bought a subscription and while waiting for my first issue I started a piece about a hydrangea I have, that I bought for my brother's memorial service 6 years ago. The thing about the hydrangea is that it was very flowery at first, when it was in the pot, but has only produced one (very beautiful) flower since I planted it. In my story I compare the slowness of the plant's growth to the friendship my brother and I struggled to have. I was nearly finished with it when I got my first issue of GreenPrints. After reading it I was still convinced that I might have a chance, so I did the final polishing work on the story and sent it to them last weekend.

Now I wait. I don't really know why it's so important to me to get something published at this late date. I've dreamed of it for years, been in writer's groups, read Writer's Digest for a long time--I've written practically my whole life and have loved keeping a blog. I guess I've been thinking about what kind of regrets I might have on my death bed (which hopefully won't be for a long time, but you never know). I think I would regret if I never tried to do anything with my writing, if I wrote, put things in notebooks and none of it ever saw the light of day. I'm still looking for other places I can send things to, because now that I've sent one piece out I'm kind of hooked on the process. Blog writing is fun, but there's no risk to it, other than maybe putting an unpopular opinion out and upsetting a friend. I've never taken too many risks in my life, maybe now is the time. And how much of a risk is it, anyway? The only risk is that they'll say, "No, this isn't for us". Disappointing, but not life shattering.

So we'll see what happens. And I'll keep looking for other outlets and if you have any suggestions, let me know. You've been reading (I hope) the kind of writing that I like to do. And if you are a gardener, you might be interested in that little magazine. Here is the online address: www.greenprints.com

May I have this job please?

Can you imagine if your were the person opening the letters sent with applications for a job with your company and you received this?

"At school he is a student of advertising, on the streets of Chicago he is a student of culture and memes. This is Advertising, finding that elusive why. Charles understands the nuances of culture, the relativity of trends, the impact of memes. He is all of us, he is the Cultural Chameleon."

I looked up "memes" and I'm going to let you look it up because I have a hard time understanding exactly what that is. Great thing to put in a cover letter for a job application, isn't it? This was an actual cover letter sent by a job applicant to a Chicago advertising agency.

Recipe for Happiness

This could be a picture of me--it's not, but the look on that little girl's face and her fistful of cookies, her delight in that huge glass jar filled with delicious cookies--I can relate!

It's funny where inspiration comes from. I was reading an issue of USA Today this morning and reading The Final Word, Craig Wilson's weekly column. The title was: "The formula for happiness: Cookies and milk." I started thinking about my life-long love of cookies.

I am sure I loved cookies from the time I could dissolve them between my gums, but I don't actually remember eating cookies until I was old enough to make them. I started making them young. I used to watch a cooking segment of a local, King 5 show, paying close attention and being in awe of Bea Donovan, when I was a mere 12 years old. Bea was very organized, lining up her ingredients in tiny dishes, dumping the contents of each in a big bowl in the order called for in the recipe: flour, baking soda, cinnamon, oatmeal, chocolate chips, nuts, raisins. It all was so carefully done and it appealed to me tremendously. My Mom wasn't the greatest cook, didn't really care about baking, so I took over. I became the cookie maker and for a long time I measured out each ingredient into bowls and put them all on a cookie sheet, dumping each one into the bowl just like Bea Donovan. I began to collect recipes, then, too.

From the beginning I had opinions about cookies. I recall telling my mother that her friend Gerry's cookies weren't as good as they could be because she didn't sift the flour. I had watched her bake some cookies one day and noted her exclusion of this very important step. I also insisted on the best ingredients, the Toll House Chocolate Chips, the Quaker rolled oats, the better cinnamon, the nuts that had to be chopped, the freshest raisins. I baked cookies all the way through junior high and high school so when I married and started having children the habit was already formed. I baked cookies once a week. They never lasted longer than that, anyway. By the time I had my two daughters my recipe box was filled with a wonderful variety of cookies: Snickerdoodles, Oatmeal Raisin from the Quaker box, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Ginger Cookies, Frosted Kalua Cookies, Spritz, Sugar Cookies, Shortbread, Russian Teacakes, Frosted Nutmeg Logs, Grandma Butler's Date Bars, Grandma Ammon's Tarts, Aunt Carol's Roll and Ball Cookie Starter, Carolyn's Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, Cocoa and Bourbon Balls, Peanut Butter Cookies. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. Somehow I managed to keep my figure in those days, even though I was probably eating six cookies a day, if not more. It must have been the energy involved with raising kids and keeping house that allowed me to munch at will without becoming a blimp.

In about 1979 I bought my husband Maida Heatter's Cooky Book, because he was interested in cooking and had started making cookies, too. This cook book put the exotic into our cookie jar. Now we were making Big Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cookies (with chocolate glaze!), Chocolate Mint Sticks, Pinwheels, Oatmeal Snickerdoodles. When we divorced I insisted that I get copies of those pages in the book before I would let him take custody of it. In 1993 I met my Greek man and with him came more cookie recipes: Melomakarona (honey macaroons), Brandy Balls, Snow Balls. I have a recipe notebook now, in addition to the recipe index box, with all the cookie recipes I've cut out of the newspaper, out of magazines, from labels on packages, been given by friends. I certainly have enough for my own cookbook.

I love the results of making cookies, but I also love the making of them. I love to cream the sugar and the butter, adding the eggs and vanilla, the taste of it at that point. Then measuring and sifting the dry ingredients into the creamy mixture in the bowl and finally chopping the nuts and adding the raisins, chocolate chips or whatever extra added yumminess is called for in the recipe. I like dropped cookies best as that allows me to lick my fingers often and I don't let a drop of the dough go to waste, using a spatula to get the very last bits from the bowl, which are mostly consumed by me. What can be said of the aroma of cookies baking, except that it is one of the top ten most wonderful smells in the world? At the end they are all lined up on the counter on paper towels, cooling, filling the kitchen with their great smell.

I don't make cookies as often anymore because now there are no longer any kids to chase to keep me svelte--all those cookies go directly to my hips as they pass so deliciously over my taste buds. I make cookies to take to potlucks or to family gatherings or to send to my kids at Christmas and I make them once a month for my husband because he likes to have a "little something" after dinner. I am glad he requests them because if he didn't I don't know how I would come up with excuses to bake them.

There is a new baker in the family now. I was so thrilled the last time my granddaughter, Alison, came to visit me. She was drawing at the table and suddenly looked up at me and said, "Grandma, can we bake something?" Who am I to say no? I immediately got out the old recipe file and looked for one that would appeal to her. She required "cimmanon and vanilla" and since her Grandma likes oatmeal and chocolate chips and nuts, we made Oatmeal Chippers. I measured, she dumped ingredients into the bowl. Together we whipped up cookies made with love. We waited impatiently for them to bake and then we ate a whole bunch of them.

Panties Up the Flagpole

John Sleasman and Wayne Swenson

Chris Eddy Dosa and Blue Frosting Affect

Fred Just, Sandy Harkins, Terrie Baughman , Janet Dore' in the kitchen

Wayne with Captain Jack's Dark Ale

Randy Flowers

Jack Archer, our host

Sandy Harkins and Randy

Is there a better way to spend a couple of hours on a blustery, wet Fall day than with old classmates? I don't think so. Jack Archer and is wife were willing to host us this time, even though they thought they'd be grilling outside on their deck. The weather surprised all of us and we ended up inside, but they had lit candles and the lamps were glowing and I think they might even have had a fire going and the mood was cozy. We were all introduced to Mia, The Begging Dog, who we were not to feed. We are getting spoiled with these convivial home lunches--will we ever be satisfied with a restaurant again?

The topic of conversation that got most people's attention this time was "Who put the panties on the flagpole?" This came up after we'd been discussing some pranks that had been pulled in our senior year--the stink bomb in the hallway outside Mr. King's German classroom, among others. Jack piped up with, "There's just one mystery I want solved--who put those panties on the flag pole?" We thought John Sleasman would probably know--he was known to be a part of some shenanigans when we were in school, but he was clueless. Randy, who was a student leader back then, didn't know either. And even Dean, who said Mr. Huey would single him out to talk to when anything against school rules took place, because even if he didn't have anything to do with it himself, he would know who did--even Dean didn't know who'd done the flagpole trick. Legend has it that whoever did, greased the pole on the way down so nobody could get up there and take the panties down. I'm hoping somebody will read this who talked to somebody else, who knew somebody that was involved in this, because 47 years later it's time for these kinds of mysteries to be solved. Or is it more fun to guess?

Speaking of Randy, it was the first time in a long time many of us had seen him. He came down from the Bellingham area to be with us and I hope he'll consider coming again. He told us he is retired from teaching but volunteers at a grade school several times a week and is putting a daughter through college. Ralph, the Mail Guy, was with us via the phone, but he was resting in his Port Townsend house, getting ready for a trip to Israel and Jordan--incidentally, he had a pacemaker inserted on Monday of this week. Yes, folks, we all have our occasional age-related surprises.

The above pictures mention Jack's beer. We were talking about beer and wine and I mentioned that I love beer. Jack literally leaped up and asked if I wanted to taste his freshly brewed Dark Ale. He brought me a glass of a yummy, smooth beer with a taste that reminded me of apples. Soon I found out that this was Jack's private label, Captain Jack's Dark Ale, which he'd brewed over at Gallagher's in Edmonds. He had his own classy label and he gave us bottles to take home. I have heard that Gary Parker owns a brewery in Eastern Washington and that his beer can be bought at Central Market in Poulsbo. I will try to get more solid facts and share it here another time. It never fails to amaze me what we find out about each other when we attend these lunches.

Don't know when the next one will be, but I hope I see you there. Maybe you'll know who put those panties on the flag pole.

I like beer

The Ink House

Pizzeria Tre Vigne

Grapevine at Charles Krug Winery

When you visit wine country, Napa Valley specifically, I think you are supposed to come away from there with memories of the taste of the wines you enjoyed and bottles of wine that you bought. You are supposed to rhapsodize about the oakiness or the lack of, or the bright tastes or the petulant aroma, or the musky flavors, aren't you? I guess we didn't do it right because our memories are going to be of three fellows we met or observed, not that much about the wine.

The first fellow was our host at the Ink House bed and breakfast that we chose over the internet. We chose the place because it was moderately priced and it had an interesting history and Trip Advisor commenters liked it. Our host wasn't there the first two nights--he was off installing his oldest daughter in her dorm for her first year of college. When he returned he was present during the "wine reception" that took place every late afternoon. While we munched on interesting cheeses, crackers and fruit and sipped or guzzled white and red wine, he answered our questions. And my question was, "Will you tell us the story of when Elvis Presley stayed in this house." His Elvis Slept Here story was long, detailed and scrumptious, better than the wine we'd been drinking. He had details nobody else would have had and you could tell he relished telling the story and had done research to make it better. He hadn't been present in 1961 when El and his co-stars Tuesday Weld and Hope Lang stayed in the house during the filming of Wild In The Country, but he might as well have been, he knew so much about it. He told us how the actors had started out staying in the town of Napa but that it had caused such a ruckus that they moved out to the more remote house in St. Helena in order to be able to control the crowds. The production company proclaimed that Elvis would sign autographs for 2 hours each afternoon, on the front porch of the house, and the girls lines up for miles hours before the signing began. He told us lots more, too much to relate here and he enjoyed every minute of his story. He also gave us great tips to get around the wine tasting fees that every winery but one assessed and he gave us glimpses into the history of the area. I'm sure he could have talked for hours, but we had dinners to go to and he had computer work to do.

Our second character sighting was at dinner at the Pizzeria Tre Vigne. While Michael and I sat on the patio, slurped up spaghetti marinara and heirloom tomato salad and we dunked french bread into olive oil with a puddle of balsamic vinegar in the bottom of it, we observed what we came to call The Affluent Family, sitting near us. There were two families, each with two children. The children ranged in age from about 3 years old to 6 years old. Without exception the children were out of control, but perhaps their parents saw them as free spirits. They were crawling under the table (not an unusual sight--I've seen this before), they were running back and forth among the tables and the 6 year old little girl was eating salt out of the salt shakers from empty tables. It make me very leery of using our salt, let me tell you. One of their parents would scowl occasionally and ask the children to stop doing whatever they were presently doing, but then turn away and resume their adult conversations while the children continued to do whatever they were presently doing. At one point, I heard one of the mothers say to one of the little boys, "If you do that again, it's over." Exactly what would be over we never found out because the little boy continued to do what he was doing and the threat was never executed. The fellow I will remember in connection to these wild children was a man who reminded me of Ted Danson, tall, lithe, white haired, nice hair cut, but young looking, white golf shirt with turned up collar, khaki shorts, loafers with no socks, expensive watch--he had the air of someone with quite a bit of money. They were regulars, the servers knew them and probably were very used to seeing the unruly children running about. I hope they were good tippers. After we got in our car and were leaving, we saw one of the little boys far away from the patio of the restaurant and we considered picking him up and depositing him down the street a couple of blocks to see if his parents noticed, but we decided against it.

Last, but certainly not least in our memories of Wine Country, will be The Wine Snob. I'm so glad we had one, because our stories of this trip wouldn't be nearly as good without him. He was staying at the Ink House, too. He made it very clear early on that he knew his wines. He would start a sentence with, "Do you like Pinots?" and then launch into directions as to where to find the best ones. He was a young fellow, younger than most wine snobs I've met, probably in his mid-forties. He had a very nice, regular wife who worked for the state in their native Michigan. I think it was his Detroit accent that made the snobby comments even better, because when he said things like Cabernet or Pinot it was said with that thing that Detroitians do to their vowels that is so distinctive and so NOT snobby sounding. At breakfast one morning we were all talking about where we'd been the day before, the photo gallery at Mumm's, looking at the art at Peju, the lunch at V. Sattui's picnic area--and he just had to say, "I'm here for the wines." As it turned out, he certainly was serious--he had been to the Ink House five times and each time he came he bought 5 or 6 cases of wine and had them shipped home. My favorite remark of his, the one that nearly put me under the breakfast table was, "And then we had to relax our palates...". I love accents and I would have loved to talk to him some more so that I could have really absorbed his Detroit accent and gotten some more snobby quotes from him. I am afraid I egged him on a little, just to hear more.

In addition to the characters we discovered, we also discovered that we are not really wine connoisseurs . We don't have the sophisticated palates required to know the subtle differences between one Pinot or Merlot and another. They either taste good or they don't. There was one wine that instantly made my nose itch--I knew I'd not want to drink that one again! We didn't taste that many, partly due to the fees charged at each winery for tastings, but also because we weren't that interested. Twice we had beer with our dinners rather than wine. We bought only one bottle, at a winery that offered free tasting. I find that I have a refined beer sensibility instead. I know the differences between a Hefaweisen and a Porter, and regular ale or a pale ale. I don't yet know much about "hoppiness" but I am dying to learn. Too bad we don't have more local breweries around, so that there could be "brewiery tours" like the wine tours. I'd be signing up.

We'll have good memories of Napa Valley but they won't be about the wine. I have to go relax my palate now.

Viewpoint

Cheryl DeGroot, Corky Sunkel, Linda Greaves and Janet Dore'

Janet Dore', Terry Scatena and Ralph Erickson

Terry Scatena, Dewene Buffett, Sandy Harkins with Wes Tonkins and his wife in the background

Today I am happy that I keep journals and that I have been writing in them for forty years. Yesterday I was reading in journals from 2000 to 2003 trying to find a mention of a medical test that I knew I'd had done in that timeframe. I did finally find some evidence that I needed for my current doctor, but in looking I also found entries about what my life was like 9 years ago. That's not very far back when you think about how old I am now--I can remember as far back as 60 years, so nine in virtually nothing, a blink in time.

I was reading about myself, about my husband, about my kids, about my brothers and my mother and my Dad, about my oldest friend. Funny thing is, if someone asked me today what I was thinking and feeling in the year 2000 I'd remember it differently than how it really was. I would have forgotten that my kids were emailing me lots more often then, I'd have no memory of a rift between me and my friend that mimics a problem we repeated recently. I would not have remembered what my brother had said about our Mom and his need for her gratitude, which is similar to some feelings I am having now. I wouldn't remember that my Mother's memory was shifty and that my present observation of her way of thinking is really not new at all. I did not forget the emails that my brother and I exchanged in the two years before he died. I had saved them and printed them all, including the ones in which we misread each other, got angry and then made up, aplogizing and professing our love for each other. I haven't forgotten that because it was so precious to me. It was the first time we'd ever tried to understand each other.

I spent hours reading the entries. It was as though someone else had written them and of course, if I admit that I am constantly changing, then it's understandable that I am less familiar with that Christine than with the one I'm living in right now. I have been reading a book called Crones Don't Whine by Jean Shinoda Bolen. She writes: "The thought that we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path, has intrigued me since it first entered my mind". That thought intrigues me, too. That our spirits inhabit a body on a human path, something like Stephanie Meyers character in her book The Host, is a mind warping idea. This spiritual creature inside of this human body, changes so much that nine years later I barely recognize it. It is as though the body has stayed relatively the same, but the spirit has shifted. It has not necessarily shifted in a good or bad way, it has not necessarily learned to be better or turned toward a more negative way, it has changed. And in some ways it has not changed at all. The rift with the old friend has been repeated. The thoughts of my brother have become mine. My relationship with my husband has been affected by the events that have occurred and my reaction to them.

Isn't it that way with our perceptions of our school mates? We can see that their bodies have changed and we think we can remember what they were like and what our awareness of them was 47 years ago. But do we really remember with any accuracy? Don't we have to consider what time has done to our memories? Don't we have to imagine what the passage of those years and all of their experiences has done to the spirits inside of them? If we think about what time has done to ourselves, don't we have to consider the same for them?

In another book I am reading, (Astrid and Veronika, by Linda Olsson), Astrid, a Swedish woman of 80, waits for her despised husband of 60 years to die--when he finally does she realizes that he was not her misfortune, that her demons had begun long before he came into her life. Could it be that some of the things that bedeviled us in high school and that we may have attached to certain people, were anxieties that came from elsewhere, before we even met these people?

I have been told by some of my classmates that reunions are terrifying for them, that their high school years are a time they would like to forget. I was lucky to have had a good time in school, with good friends and, mostly, positive experiences. But I know there are others who were not as fortunate. I also know that some of my classmates have conquered their fears and come to the lunches we have been having. In some cases they have found that they have held misconceptions about old acquaintances and have not considered the spirits inside the bodies that they recognize. And they begin to see that what they know as their own changing has also been experienced by their classmate. Of course this is the case. How could anyone not change? But sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we cast people we once knew in a frozen state inside our memory. Like a fossil they are forever preserved in memory even though in reality they are different people.

Like the evolution of the Christine Who Writes in her Journals, consider your own and everyone else's evolutions. Have you changed? Of course. Have they changed? Of course. If you have not come to a lunch yet, please think about it. We want to see the changes to the spirit inside you.

Lunch on Joyia's Farm

In Joyia's back yard

Left to Right kneeling: Carol Enloe Weber, Joyia Mentor, Marty McLaren

Standing left to right: Terrie Baughman Tenney, Dan McDonald, Nancy (Roi) Goit Wamboldt, Esther Shafer, Bob Wheeler, Karen Jean Robertson, Jack Archer, Chris Eddy Dosa, Ralph Erickson, Wayne Svenson, Linda Greaves Phillpott, Dean Johnson, Joanne Armstrong, Fred Just and Corky Sunkel and Mike Traverso on the phone is Chris's hand

Another fabulous lunch on Wednesday with the oldest friends of all, the people we went to school with. This time we saw some people we hadn’t seen in a long, long time: Dan McDonald, Joanne Armstrong, Karen Jean Robertson and Esther Shafer. I believe Dan lives locally, but Joanne was here from Edmonton, Alberta and Jean came all the way from Boston. When I asked Jean how she ended up in Boston, she went all the way back in her memory to the day she decided that since she wanted to see some places she’d never seen before, she was just going to go—no matter that she was only two years out of high school and that the mores of the time said that girls were either supposed to go to a junior college or get married and have babies. She didn’t let that stop her and she never let it stop her from that time forword.

Those mores didn’t stop Esther Shafer either, who showed us a picture of a bumpy time she spent on the back of a dancing camel and told us stories about the years she spent as a missionary in Africa, snakes and all. And even though Terrie Baughman was married for 41 years and had babies, that didn’t stop her from digging up stumps and putting up sheetrock, among other macho endeavors.

Those of us who did what society dictated at the time also had adventures and did hard work, tested our fortitude, but it is always fascinating to hear of someone who took a different road, which always takes guts. And to go on the road or to end up in Africa when you aren't on vacation? Wow!

Thanks to Nancy for this group picture which I snatched off of her Facebook page and was taken by one of the spouses who came to the potluck. Thanks to Ralph for cooking up some delicious ribs, for Dean who helped me flip burgers and for Joyia who shared her beautiful house and grounds in which we basked in memories and ate food lovingly provided by our friends.

postcards from norfolk: Life In Triplicate

postcards from norfolk: Life In Triplicate

Click on the link above and read. My daughter created this list and I think it's fabulous. Can you think of any threes she missed????