Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

One of the few nice things about this so-far-severely-depressing twenty-first century is the ubiquity of cellphones which can take pictures, and sometimes of a very good quality. Just about everyone has a cellphone, and those of us who have them are wandering around with one in our pocket or purse, or whatever – have the instant ability to take a picture of interesting curiosities at the drop of a hat. Just not when we are setting out on a deliberate photographic safari, with the camera and all in our possession.

There are three such images which remain in my memory as things that I most deeply wish I could have taken such a picture, so that I could have shared the astonishingly beautiful, striking image. They are enshrined in my memory only – so I can’t possibly share them, save in words.

The first is that of a certain Japanese maple tree, a small one, barely the size of a large shrub, growing to the right of the main door to the old base library at Misawa AFB in the late 1970s. The library then was housed in a post WWII single story temporary frame administrative-type building, of the kind which our military put up by hundreds of thousands on bases and posts across the USA and the world during that era. To my eyes these buildings always looked rather like two Monopoly houses put together, long, with a shallow roof pitch and usually windows along the long walls. The little maple tree, which was otherwise not particularly distinguished, nevertheless had the most beautiful, deep ruby-red leaves, once the foliage turned to fall colors. No other maple tree I ever laid eyes on, before or since, had quite the same purity of color – the very soul of red; like bright blood. It was splendid enough … but at least once in the years that I was there, an early snowfall hit, while the little tree by the library was still covered thick in vivid red leaves. And that was the most striking, memorable sight – the red leaves against the pure white new snow. I am certain there were classical Japanese woodcut artists who did pictures of red maple leaves, on snow, probably modern photographers who have managed to capture the same image. But in my own mind and memory, nothing to compare to the perfect red of the leaves of that little maple tree, and the vision of them, against the pure white of new snow … simply incomparable.

The second image also involves snow More »

I had a publishing client meet in mid-November, the week before Thanksgiving, and the Daughter also had a necessary meeting with her agency on the same day and time, Since it was more professional-appearing for her to appear, unencumbered with infant offspring for that meet, I had Wee Jamie with me, in the back of my car … that is, the venerable 1990 Accura Legend; top of the line luxury, in the day when it was new. I am the second owner of that car, and regret to report that I have let it go sadly downhill, condition-wise. It doesn’t help that the leather seats have gotten crusty and dried-out, the radio (an original unit) is frelled, the AC unit needs a fresh injection of freon, the moon roof leaks in a heavy rain, and that the left-hand running light was thought impossible to replace since an inconsiderate elderly driver in a humongous SUV cut in front of me two years ago and bashed out that unit with the edge of his wheel-chair hoist. I shouldn’t cast aspersions on the abilities of that guilty party, based on advanced age, since (from the evidence of his insurance policy) he was the same age as your correspondent.

So, my personal car, the aged Accura Legend lives in the garage, safe from rainy downpours, which would send a shower of water down the back of my neck … and it’s the secondary car, basically, with the minimum insurance on it, which I now regret. It drives like a dream, otherwise – accelerates like a rocket, turns on a dime with three cents change, and does almost 300 miles on a full tank of gas. Our occasional car, for long-distance driving as it has cruise control and excellent gas mileage, in fair weather … anyway. More »

After our adventures a couple of weeks ago in sorting out the garage deep freezer, my daughter and I decided that we ought to tackle the pantry – which we had done a year or so ago and disposed of most of the badly out-of-date food and condiment items at that time. We did so again today, but fortunately this time the oldest item found was some ranch dressing mix from 2013. The few other items disposed of were of a much more recent vintage. There were two reasons for this project; the first being that we simply had to find the little jar of turkey brine mix that we bought last year after Thanksgiving. We had bought a jar of the same brand after Thanksgiving, 2019, and used it for the turkey breast last year, and it was absolutely splendid! Yes, we shop the marked-down shelves, after the holidays. Got a problem with that? (The way prices are going up on various items, this is something that all of us had better get accustomed to doing.) And, no, I don’t believe the quality degrades after sitting a year – it’s mostly salt, sugar, and an interesting blend of spices and dried fruit.

The other reason was that I had two lots of new air-tight pantry containers – various sizes, all to store the various flours, pastas, rice, grains, and beans in. The pantry was crammed to overflowing, with much of the contents in round glass jars in various sizes, which didn’t make economical use of space, and square containers with the contents marked, which would possibly make more efficient use of the space inside the  telephone-booth-sized pantry … (‘Mom? What IS this?’ ‘Either bulger wheat or wheat berries…’) (‘Why do we have three different bags or jars of jasmine rice/bean thread noodles/cornmeal?’ ‘Because we couldn’t find them the last time we were looking and just bought more…’) I understand that this happens with ill-organized garages. Can’t find the hammer – go and buy another, which is how people finish up with half a dozen hammers, or adjustable wrenches…

It turns out that we have a ton more of dried and canned beans, canned tomatoes, and various oriental noodle items than we thought we did. Our resolve to carefully store and label the darned things is renewed. And putting all the various dried staples into square containers and labeling them as to the contents turns out to have saved considerable space in the pantry, as well as making certain items much more visible, even if this project took up most of the day. Which should save time in searching for them, the next time we need a can of coconut milk, a bit of tomato paste …

We’re brining a turkey breast we bought some weeks ago, and putting together a nice small family Thanksgiving feast, turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, wheat bread and sausage stuffing, gravy and the usual pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce – all carefully calculated so that we don’t have too much in the way of leftovers … when I was growing up, we’d be eating turkey leftovers in various guises for most of the three weeks after Thanksgiving … and just when we polished off the last of it … there came the Christmas turkey and another month of leftovers.

For Christmas dinner, we’re planning on doing Boeuf en Croûte. The beef roast is in the freezer – we bought it a few weeks ago. May as well, while we can still afford it …

The San Antonio Zoo is a nice little place laid out on the edge of Breckenridge Park; it looks like many of the original buildings were a WPA project in the late 1930s, and so practically qualify as historic buildings on their own. Some of the older enclosures are pretty small and cramped by modern zoo standards, as set by say – the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park extension. There is a small shell-adorned aquarium with tanks of fishes and aquatic turtles, which was well-lit enough to allow some very nice pictures to be taken. Now the older enclosures seem to house small critters and birds, mostly – but there are some larger landscaped enclosures for elephants, big cats, kangaroos, and the like.