Domestic – Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

Thanksgiving Plans This Year

21. November 2023 · 4 comments · Categories: Domestic

So, call me a rebel against iron-clad tradition, but the truth is that my daughter and I don’t really care for the usual spread of Thanksgiving dishes. OK, turkey is fine. We like turkey just fine, although a whole one of the smallest available at HEB is usually way too much for the two of us, or even three if you count Wee Jamie, who is flirting cautiously with grown-up food of late. We’ve usually just gone with a breast or a half-breast – anything to avoid a whole month of leftovers, which was the case when I was growing up. Mom invariably went for a bird of twenty pounds or more, and we ate leftovers for the following month … and just as we finished the last of eternal turkey strong to save, it was time to face up to the Christmas turkey and another month of leftovers! (We avoid turkey for Christmas, these days – usually settling for Beef Wellington.)

But as for the other traditional side dishes – well, mashed potatoes and gravy are just fine, but bread stuffing just doesn’t warm over well. Baked yams with the usual trimmings of marshmallows and brown sugar are indigestible and sweet, and baked green bean casserole is just disgusting all around. And besides, all of them together are just too heavy, and even worse as leftovers. I don’t like eating myself into a stupor, and then to have rolls and cornbread on the side, and top it off with pumpkin pie…

Nope, just nope and nope again. We’ll serve up mashed potatoes and make giblet gravy with the roasting pan drippings, but for our Thanksgiving sides we’ll do oven-roasted brussels sprouts with red onion and slivers of kielbasa, and corn pudding. Pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust for dessert …

And we’ll go next door to our neighbor, and her niece and her friend from California with all of this. (Our neighbor, of whom we are very fond and have lived next door too since 1995, suffers from declining health. Niece and Friend have settled in to help care for her.) That will certainly take care of the 12-pound turkey that I bought on sale after last Thanksgiving at .99 cents a pound, and stashed on the bottom shelf of the big freezer, against the expected rise of food prices this year. And that’s our plan for next week – yours?

The local HEB was absolutely insane this weekend. We will do our best not to set foot in the place until after the holiday. Yeah, like we say this every year – and still wind up running into the grocery store on Wednesday afternoon …

Good Times, We Hardly Knew You

16. November 2023 · Write a comment · Categories: Domestic, Memoir

My daughter and I are off on a binge of watching Christmas movies, as it seems that episodes of Cadfael, starring Derek Jacobi and a cast clad in lamentably Ren-fair costumes, inspire nightmares in Wee Jamie. So to my regret, we ditched Cadfael … honestly, why is it that the top English actors are generally so ordinary, and individual in appearance? Too many American actors look like underwear models, one indistinguishable from the next, peeled out of the same mold…

Anyway, we started with Home Alone, and Home Alone 2 … although I do note that McCauley Culkin was one of those kid actors who did not ‘adult’ well as he grew. But it was sad to look back at the Home Alone franchise from a nostalgic point of view. No interminable wait to go through security at the airport, for example. And once upon a time, my children, it was possible to go straight to the gate to meet someone arriving. And Home Alone 2 was even more of a punch to the nostalgia gut – the top of the World Trade Center tower, shining and silver. The Plaza Hotel, with Donald Trump in a brief bit part, when he was just a flamboyant TV and tabloid celeb with a penchant for dating models … New York City streets without crazies punching out total strangers. No one wearing masks because they feared the Commie Crud. The first Gulf War was over and won, the Russian Iron Curtain had fallen … and oh, things weren’t perfect, by any means … but most of us didn’t fear our local cops and we trusted the professionalism of the FBI. We could be sure that our politicians and national media didn’t hate the guts of half the American population with a white-hot passion, and we were also pretty certain that kids in most public schools were learning the basics, and not being perved on by teachers and bullied by the urban thug element … well, mostly.

Life was pretty good – and we didn’t even know it.

Tale of the Moroccan Brass Table (And Stand)

30. October 2023 · 2 comments · Categories: Domestic, Memoir

So I was wandering though my YouTube subscription channels and noticed this one particular bit of restorage – a mid-century modern Moroccan brass coffee table on a wooden stand, which rather decayed object was being renovated and restored. And it reminded me very much of a similar table which served in my parent’s various houses for nearly four decades, until it was destroyed in the 2003 Paradise Mountain Fire in northern San Diego County. That fire pretty much obliterated Mom and Dad’s retirement house. All that was left standing was a quadrangle of conblock walls … everything else in the house burned to a crisp, unless it was a few things that Mom threw into the back of her car, or which the firemen grabbed when the fire began exploding the glass windows inwards. When all was said and done, the insurance claim paid off and the house rebuilt, I think Mom rather had fun replacing the furniture and contents to her own taste, rather than what had been a random collection of family hand-be-downs and stuff acquired because it was available and either inexpensive or free.

The Moroccan brass table that my parents had in their various living rooms looked more like this one on eBay: almost five feet across, engraved overall with an ornate deckle edge and a matching wood and brass “spider” stand, which folded flat. Mom usually had the current issues of her magazines arranged on it, with an antique globe-shaped bowl with blue irises on it in the center. When we were expecting guests, it was usually my chore to remove all the issues of Harpers, The Atlantic, American Heritage and whatever, to apply about a quart of brass polish and the equivalent amount of elbow grease and polish the darned thing, before replacing the array of magazines. But when Mom and Dad refurnished their house, the Moroccan brass coffee table wasn’t something they were fond enough of to replace. The one like it that I located on eBay is on offer for almost $900, nearly half again what it originally ought to have cost. The insurance would have paid for a replacement … if they had wanted one. And why did Mom and Dad give houseroom for so many years to an expensive, high maintenance but distinctly flashy bit of mid-century exotic modern? They didn’t pick it out or pay for it – it came as a gift from Great-Aunt Nan. And thereby hangs a bit of a family story.

I think Great-Aunt Nan worked a lot of different jobs in her lifetime – I am not entirely certain what some of them were; secretarial positions for certain, possibly up-scale retail sales, a telegraphist in the 1930s, a government job in WWII and an enlistment in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. She might also have had income from what remained of the family fortunes established by her father, my Great-grandfather George. She lived very simply in small rental apartments, and traveled when the urge took her … anyway, one day in the mid-1960s, she was tootling around one of the high-end department stores in downtown Los Angeles. It may have been Bullocks, could have been May Co., or Robinsons. For some reason, Nan went wandering through the furniture department – and spied the Moroccan table and stand.

Holy cow! It was priced at $60, which even then was a steal! Obviously, someone marking the price tag on that table had made a howling blunder by misplacing a decimal point; it should have been marked $600! Well, never one to disdain a bargain, Nan insisted on buying the Moroccan brass table (and stand) for $60, over the strenuous objections of the salesperson, and the department head, and for all that I know, the store manager. No, (said Nan, standing her ground as only a spinster lady of independent means and irreproachable English upbringing could) – she knew the rights of retail sales. What the price on the sales floor was marked as – that was what it would sell for, and she would have that Moroccan brass table (and stand) for the $60 marked price, or else… I have no doubt that Nan would have raised the matter all the way to the Bullock’s company president and the board of directors.

Of course, Nan emerged triumphant, with the $60-dollar Moroccan brass table (and stand) in her possession – an item for which she had about as much use for as a goldfish does for long winter underwear. It was the principle of the thing, and too good a bargain to pass up. She gave it to Mom and Dad, who also appreciated bargains, even if it wasn’t for an item which they liked particularly well. Free was an even better deal than $60.

And that is the tale of the inadvertently marked-down Moroccan brass coffee table (and stand.) You’re welcome.

Characters and Their World

19. September 2023 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, Luna City, Random Book and Media Musings

My daughter and I began watching this Britbox series last week: Living the Dream, about an English family locating to Florida to run an RV park, full of eccentric characters. The show only had a short run of two abbreviated seasons and doesn’t seem to have racked up much awareness but we have enjoyed it immensely, because of the ‘fish out of water’ aspect, and because all the characters, even just the secondary characters appear to have lives of their own, and are quirky and endearing. I don’t know if it’s because the writing for the series is intelligent, funny, and mostly avoided making vicious caricatures of Americans, the South, and Floridians generally, although given every opportunity to do so. There really aren’t any big name stars among the cast, either, although most seem to have had long and relatively unspectacular careers playing character roles in various TV series in the US and Britain; solid professionals, every one, who appeared to to have enjoyed themselves enormously filming on location in Florida.

This brought on some thoughts about how certain TV series and movies manage to give us the impression that even minor characters have fully-rounded lives – that they are just not walking on for the sake of supplying lines or plot points to the main characters. Some small quirk or quality hints at that aspect. I don’t know if it can be attributed to the screenwriting, or perhaps the skill of the actor in coming up with little bits of business that establish that individuality even in a small part, but it is there in some movies and shows, and absent in others. The first time I was made aware of this was in one of the extra features to a recent DVD of Breakfast at Tiffany’s; an examination of the crowded party scene in Holly Golightly’s apartment. One of the extras involved explained how long it took to film that scene and dropped the information that all the bit players involved had worked out all kinds of mini-dramas, played out as the camera glided past. Not just the party scene, but this also held out for the staff of the on-screen Tiffany’s; one had the sense that each person there had a life with a lot going on in it … but there was just this quick interaction with the customers, posing a slight interruption of that life.

In a way, this kind of creative character-building is right up my alley, what with the cast of characters in the Luna City series. With forty or more minor characters, who rotate in an out of focus, there is so much scope for making them individual by telling a story focused on an aspect of their life, present and past. It’s a heck of a lot easer with an omnibus epic like Luna City – giving small characters their own lives.

A Lovely Way to Spend The Day

06. September 2023 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic

My daughter decided that since Monday was a holiday, we ought to get out of the house and go … go do something. We have always loved Fredericksburg and the Texas Hill Country, and the new Nissan (now nicknamed ‘Thing’ because of three letters making up part of the newly-issued license-plate) gets incredibly good mileage … so, we thought we would. Zip up the 281 to Johnson City and over the 290 ‘Wine Road’ to Fredericksburg. Alas, since it was Labor Day, the Ranger Museum and Fort Martin Scott were closed, and so was the Dutchmans’ Market, immediately opposite was likewise closed … so we went straight into town and parked in the lot behind the Visitor Center. That public parking lot is almost always and at best three-quarters empty. Perhaps most casual visitors to Fredericksburg don’t know about that parking lot, tucked away across the street from the Museum of the Pacific War…

Anyway, Wee Jamie became distinctly bored and fractious, halfway between Johnson City and Fredericksburg, to the point where we had to pull into Wildseed Farm and take him out to let him decompress. It seems that not only has Wildseed Farm succumbed to the Wine Road mania and added a tasting room – but now they are going to charge, in season, to walk through the wildflower meadows. Which is another sad indicator of the turistification of the Hill Country … but business owners have to make a living, I know. At least one of the vineyards has built a whole castle keep alongside the road, fulfilling a prediction that I made early this century. (That the Hill Country would become the New Provance, seeing that there was already wine, olive oil, lavender, sheep and sheep’s milk cheeses … all we needed now was some castles and quaint hilltop towns.)

Oh, yes. Wine. Every mile or so along the road between Blanco/Johnson City and Fredericksburg there is another winery, varied with a couple of distilleries and an enterprise to brew mead. My daughter says that if you follow the Wine Road and stop in at every place for a single glass, you’d best get on the liver transplant list in Johnson City and have Live Flight waiting for you at Fredericksburg. A saleswoman in one of the shops on Main Street where we shared this, lamented that Fredericksburg used to be famous for peaches … now it was for wine. Many of the larger vineyards now have B&B cabins and spa-oriented hotel facilities available on the grounds, so I guess you can sample a lot of their wines and then crawl to a handy bedroom to sleep it off.

Le sigh deep. We rather liked Fredericksburg when it was a pleasant little German Hill Country town where they rolled up the sidewalks at 5 PM weekdays and there were only a few bars and restaurants open after that hour of the evening. The National Museum of the Pacific War was in the Nimitz Hotel complex, slopping over to a nearly-empty warehouse on Austin Street and a pole barn a couple of blocks away, Now, the very last normal business on Main Street, the 5 & Dime closed (the elderly owners of a 100-year old business wanted to retire, a clerk in another Main Street store told us) – and the Christmas shop on the corner of Main and Llano has now moved all the Christmas stuff to the side, and revamped as a fashion boutique. What used to be a gas station across from the Nimitz Hotel (which then became a coffee shop with an outdoor terrace under the old canopy) has been replaced by an ornate retail building with New Orleans-style metal balconies; but in line with the general late 19^th century look of Main Street. The Subway sandwich shop diagonally across is also replaced by a retail complex. The shops, galleries and boutiques have filled up Main Street and spilled into parallel streets one block either side, Austin and San Antonio Streets, which used to be mostly residential. An acquaintance at a book club meeting in Fredericksburg told us a couple of years ago that there were now more B&B beds downtown than there were regular residences. Another acquaintance at that same meeting told us that they carefully avoid the Main Street area on weekends…

There was a small special gallery display for children at the War Museum – and it was free of charge, so we checked it out with Wee Jamie. It focused on the home front, and the work of children who wound up helping on farms and ranches when their older brothers and sisters went to war. There was a display of necessary crops, and then one about the rationing system, and a mockup of a news stand with WWII-era magazines and newspapers on display. But the final third of the exhibit was (drumroll, please!) focused on a Japanese-American girl interned with her family because … reasons. Much was made of the unfairness of this, although my mother, who was 11 years old when Pearl Harbor happened, had a best friend who was Japanese-American, and interned with her family. Mom was old enough to overhear a lot, especially when the war news turned ugly in 1942, what with the fall of the Philippines, and Singapore. Mom was frankly relieved when her friend was interned – as they would then be safe from retaliatory mobs, since so much was reported even then about Japanese atrocities against military and civilians in the Far East, not to mention fears of Japanese invasion on the West coast. What would have been more relevant to a Texas audience would have been a mention of interned German and Italian-Americans in Crystal city … or even American families with their children interned in camps at Los Banos and Santo Tomas in the Philippines under conditions of great hardship and brutality. This is, after all, a museum of the Pacific War.

We did visit the bookstore and gift shop – where my daughter bought a small flyer’s helmet for Wee Jamie, which has inspired me to make him a little flight suit and faux-leather aircrew jacket for his Halloween costume this year. Pictures of Wee Jamie will be posted when the outfit is finished. For the rest of the afternoon, we strolled up one side of Main Street to Town Square, and down the other. There weren’t an awful lot of people in town, and the heat was not too awful – so it turned out to be a very pleasant way to spend a holiday.