08. October 2024 · Comments Off on Now And Again · Categories: Domestic, Random Book and Media Musings

So, another busy week at Chez Hayes – some work for a client, and all but the finishing touches on the WIP, the YA pioneer adventure story, with the working title of West Towards the Sunset. I might make it into a series, in the spirit of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. I loved that series, as a young reader, myself. Not all that fond of the TV series version, which spun radically away from the books in ways large and small. My everlasting conviction has been that historical fiction is a gateway drug into an interest in actual history. I think that more people initially became interested in the American Civil War through reading Gone With the Wind, or in the American Revolution through Johnny Tremain, or any number of other riveting narratives set in other historical periods … so why not throw my own books into the grand mix? My personal motto was always that of the Armed Forces Radio and Television  Service, an enterprise in which I served with  only moderate personal success. (Hey, I got a pension out of it, so, whatever…)

The motto was “To Inform and Entertain” – so it’s my hope that my own books inform and entertain, and perhaps inspire a life-enhancing further interest.

Anyway, West Towards the Sunset is all but done – just a few hundred words to the afterward/postscript, and out to the volunteer beta readers in the next day or so.

In the meantime – coping with a neighborhood concern. A close Aged Neighbor of advanced years and uncertain health passed away in hospital a week ago Friday. We were close – close enough that my daughter was on her Life Alert roster, and we had the names of her next of kin and their phone numbers (most of whom lived several states away.) We regularly walked her dog, Penny the Labradoodle, and had walked with her, when she was in better condition, so frequently that a couple of other neighbors thought that she was my mother. We found a kitten for her, a full sister to Miso, among the collection on the other side of the neighborhood, a fluffy white kitten which she named Snowy, who grew up to be affectionate and spectacularly dog-like, for a cat.

Then Penny the Labradoodle at 15 years old and arthritic, became reluctant to walk more than half a block.  Aged Neighbor fell a couple of times and went no farther than the group mailbox – propped on a walker, to the covert relief of us all. Then she crunched her car fender, and gave up the keys to the car to another neighbor … Anyway – a handful of us in the nearby houses were very fond of Aged Neighbor and kept a careful eye on her.

Aged Neighbor’s family are all touchingly grateful to all of us for having seen to her care and wellbeing. Snowy has been adopted by one neighbor. Another neighbor has a friend who may eventually adopt Penny the Labradoodle. Aged Neighbor’s family all gathered this week to sort out the house. They have no need of her household things, clothes, furniture, objects d’arte and monumental brand-new new cat tree, as they drove from out of state and have full households of their own anyway. We’ve been given a good share of them – including the cat tree! –  either to use for the Daughter Unit’s eventual home, or to pass on to Goodwill. The remainder have been given to other friends and neighbors. That took up the rest of our time this weekend.

And that was my week – yours?

I’ve spent time in the kitchen  this week – time that I should have spent on finishing the last chapters of the W-I-P, but this writer does not live on bread alone … but regular meals of relatively healthy, and home-cooked foods. One of the projects in the kitchen was the disposition of half a bushel of carrots. A friend of my daughters is another single parent, and one in a sufficient state of want to be the object of a gift of foods from a church pantry … to be precise, an enormous number of enormous carrots. Very fresh carrots, and not a bit woody and flavorless because of their gargantuan size. But carrots … the friend gave half to my daughter, and I spent a morning peeling, slicing, and brewing up brine to make pickled carrots. Yes, I have a large stock pot, and a collection of canning jars … and so, pickled carrots. Eight quarts of pickled carrots. And then, another eight quarts of mixed vegetable pickles from the Ball canning cookbook – giardiniera, which is wicked expensive when bought in smallish jars from the specialty foreign foods selection at the grocery store. It’s not so pricy when made from fresh, and even though the costs for fresh vegetables in season is a bit more  than they were three or four years ago … scratch made giardiniera is still cheaper. Even though I couldn’t find the teeny pearl onions that some recipes call for; I didn’t mind; those specialty tiny onions have always been pricy and are a major pain to peel  and prep.

The other project in the kitchen came about because we tried out a pulled pork spice mix, which turned out to be a bit lacking, even in the slow-cooker with a boneless pork shoulder at $1.99 a pound. (Which is excellent for that cut of meat.) I thought of using it as a filling for tamales. My mother, being a cook with four or five hungry teenagers in the household was a master of cheap eats. In the town where I grew up, there were maybe four or five elderly Hispanic ladies who made tamales from scratch, and Mom was the only Anglo. Back in her early married life, Mom learned Mexican cooking from the couple living next door in GI grad student housing at UC Santa Barbara. Traditional Mexican food has the benefit of relying on inexpensive ingredients, and being tasty and filling. So – I refreshed my memory of making tamales, found a recipe on line for what looked to a pretty good version … and oh, my – they were better than good. Light, fluffy, flavorful. I think the trick to this one was creaming the lard or Crisco, and then mixing in alternate thirds of the masa and  broth. I made up another full batch for the rest of the pulled  pork and packaged them in sets of four with the vacuum sealer for the freezer. I don’t believe we’ll buy prepared tamales again – this recipe was so good, using the Mi Tienda masa from HEB.

And now, back to finishing off the last two chapters of West Towards the Sunset.

29. July 2024 · Comments Off on Interior Desecrations · Categories: Domestic

Forgive me for stealing the title of one of the drop-dead funniest satirical take-downs of 1970s-era American interior decorating trends, as expressed in then-contemporary decorating magazines and such of that ilk. I giggled myself nearly sick reading the book back then, because I recognized so very many of the once-popular trends. Like the mad pash for avocado green and harvest gold. No, I thought they were vomitus then, and when the minor gods of home-goods retail marketing tried to bring them back by calling them lime green and lemon yellow, they were still vomitus.

This train of thought departed the station because I have been watching a lot of Toob of Yew channels about furniture and house restoration, construction or design lately. The house renovation videos largely in the time-lapse versions, just to get a sense of what a wreck the various owners/designers started with and what they finished with, and to skip over the tedious bits of breaking up concrete and tearing down sagging roofs. A lot of these are European, English, or Russian, even – renovating and renewing old farmhouses, barns, châteaux of ages antique to near-modern, or even just half a century … which by the European scale of time is modern. There is something vicariously satisfying about watching a tumbledown old barn, farmhouse, an ordinary residence or a ruinous but once-grand mansion, long abandoned to weeds, junk and general decay being cleaned up, cleared out and repurposed into a fresh and functional dwelling with all the modern bells and whistles. Floor heating systems, ultra-modern plumbing, efficient insulation and windows. Some of these projects are being done piecemeal by families as a long-term project, and some by commercial concerns, as nearly as I can tell. (A dead giveaway that it’s a long-term project undertaken by a family is the presence of a large RV or single-wide trailer lurking in the background. My parents and a lot of their nearest neighbors did that very thing – living quarters in an RV or trailer, while completing the main house project.)

The trouble is, though – I have usually been deeply disappointed by the final reveal, especially when the original building is pre-20th century, and old enough to be considered historic. There a handful of exceptions in Brits or Australians renovating the occasional chateau, and bringing back something of a period appearance to a historical building … but the remainder are just … ugh. Usually stark, sleek, chic and very, very ultra-to-the-minute modern. A greater incongruity to the outside structure can hardly be imagined. It’s most often strikes me as appearing like an Ikea display room wedged into an 18th or 19th century exterior, and that is just … wrong. In my opinion, the inside of a building should have some kind of aesthetic relationship to the outside, even if only a remote one. If you’re living in a late 18th century farmhouse, with authentic exposed beams, half-timbering and rustic natural stone fireplaces … oughtn’t the interior reflect that a little more, without going all whole-hog in recreating the original dim, cramped and drafty original.  It’s perfectly OK for someone to want all the domestic convenience and comfort that modern technology and development can bring to bear, but if that’s what you want, why not build all new while you’re going through all the trouble.

So many of the final results of these renovations just did not appeal. It did seem to be a trend among the European renovators. I suppose that if you have lived all your life in and among old buildings, you might be completely blasé about fitting one out with all mod cons, but the final reveals on so many of these projects were … dispiriting. As Dolly Parton remarked, in a completely different context, “You have to spend a lot of money to look this cheap!” And aluminum-framed thermal windows, vinyl plank flooring and ultra-modern hanging light fixtures … expensive as they probably are, do look cheap, installed in a two-hundred year old cottage in the Loire, or the Rhineland.

22. July 2024 · Comments Off on First Day · Categories: Domestic, Memoir

Wee Jamie started day care/pre-pre-K today, so I am rather relishing being untied from his very strict daily routine, while my daughter is, of course, wracked with feelings of vague guilt and concern at turning over her most precious offspring to the care of people who, at this moment, are strangers. Because she, as a real estate agent, is not tied to regular office hours. We could, theoretically, carry on as we have been, lo these last three years and three months – that is, I looked after Wee Jamie when my daughter has a class, or a showing, or simply must go to the brokerage. The main problem with that was that his chances to associate with other children regularly – on a daily basis – were almost nil. Everyone – me, my daughter, Wee Jamie’s various therapists (for his developmental delay issues) and his godparents all agreed; he needed regular company with his peer group; for the example they would provide when it came to eating anything but crunchies, potty-training and … well, just general socialization. Being cared for full-time at home when he was a baby was perfectly fine; I rather imagine that the pediatrician approved, as it would have reduced the number of germs and viruses that he might inadvertently be exposed to. But an active, lively toddler, full of curiosity and with a full fuel tank of go-go-go? He was ready for the wider world, although if the wider world is ready for Wee Jamie … the jury is still out on that one.

So, off he went this morning, for his first day at Montessori pre-pre-K, with his little rolling-bag full of several changes of clothes, a full package of pull-ups, a little all-in-one sleeping mat/blanket/pillow, a packed lunch full of his favorite crunchies and a sippy-cup full of apple juice – everything marked with his name, of course. He ran happily into the classroom, rounded up some things to play with and never looked back. We tiptoed away while he was distracted.

He’s a social little boy – I think he will enjoy it all. My daughter usually did, when she was his age. I’d carry her into the base day-care center, and set her down so that I could sign her in – and she would tear off for her classroom as soon as her feet hit the floor. She would still be having so much fun when I came in to collect her after the day of work, that she was usually pretty casual about tearing herself away from whatever she was playing at.

Oh, Hi, Mom – is it four o’clock already?

Me, at about the time of this incident – taken when I was doing the school-kid tours for the Public Affairs office, Mather AFB

There was one little girl in her classroom, though – who almost invariably came running up to me, holding up her arms and demanding to be picked up. A little girl with red-blond hair, who would cry when I set her down, collected my own child and made to leave. This happened almost every day, and I couldn’t imagine why the little red-headed girl would glom on to me, and then be absolutely heartbroken when I left. And then one afternoon at the end of the working day,  Little Red-head girl’s  mother and I arrived at almost the same time. Red-head’s mom was about my age, height, coloring, and the same short hair, and wearing the same Class-B uniform combination … otherwise, we didn’t really look all that much alike – but, gosh, it was good enough for Little Red-Head.

Jamie had a wonderful day today – he was having fun when my daughter went to get him, and he even managed take a little bit of a nap on his new sleeping-mat, when all the other kids napped as well.

08. July 2024 · Comments Off on Pining for the Fjords · Categories: Domestic

You know, all the way to California and back last month, in the back of my mind was a niggling worry about having an accident on the highway or byway between California and Texas with Thing the Versa – this is likely why I keep the AAA membership paid up. When we reached home safely by the first of June, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief … never expecting that our poor little Thing would get basically T-boned a month later, barely three blocks from home by a driver in a SUV bombing out of a parking lot and swinging wi-i-i-de into the far lane of a major boulevard. The exact same lane and at the exact time as I was innocently tootling along, returning from the local HEB, having picked up a couple of items with the intent of spending the Glorious 4th of July at Canyon Lake, looking at how low the water level was THIS year, because of the lack of rain.

Anyway, dear readers, there I was, one minute thinking about the left turn into the neighborhood and how I should get another couple of hours work done on one of the current projects for the Teeny Publishing Bidness, and in the space of another – after an awful crunching noise, as  if a baseball bat the size of a telephone pole walloped a tin can the approximate dimension of a full-sized trash dumpster – in the boulevard median with the steering wheel airbag exploded all over me in a cloud of whatever it is they are filled with, the windshield instantly cracked all over.

What the hell – I was thinking – where did THAT come from??!!

Yes, I have been in traffic accidents before. That last collision with another larger vehicle, I saw coming, and almost dodged out of the way. (Other driver found at fault, as it turned out. Yes, witness coming the other way.) I was not nearly as shaken up on that occasion as I was with this one, coming as it did out of the clear blue. The bruises resulting from the seatbelt suddenly clamping are freaking spectacular and quite painful. It also turned out there was also an airbag underneath the steering column, which accounts for the mystery bruise on my left shin.  I have not been this comprehensively battered since falling off and over practically every obstacle in Air Force basic training. Which occurred almost half a century ago. I have racked up considerable milage on the original-issue bod since then, and while in pretty good nick for being 70 on my last birthday … I am no spring chicken. So I am deeply bruised in an interesting pattern, my daughter is murmuring fearful things about traumatic brain injuries – although I didn’t actually strike my head at any point. Some cracked ribs are a distinct possibility, though.

I wasn’t bleeding, or concussed, and I did get out of the car on my own, so the attending EMTs were fairly unconcerned. The  other driver, luckily for me, is insured and did stick around for the PD officer to fill out the accident report, although he couldn’t be arsed to come and see if I was all right. It was a kid from the automotive garage around the corner who did see me to a place in the shade where I could sit down – shaking like a leaf in a gale, and probably would have fainted at one point, save that the sidewalk and the ground were pretty disgusting. A neighbor came and got me, at my daughter’s request, and drove me home, after retrieving my keys and the groceries from Thing.

Everything retrieved from the ex-Thing stinks of exploded airbag, and my daughter was infuriated yet again at seeing how the back seat compartment air bag exploded next to where Wee Jamie’s car set is. If he had been in the car with me at the time, he would have been at the least, badly frightened. And my daughter would, in an insane fury, have ripped the other driver a new bodily orifice.

The accident happened the afternoon before a holiday and a weekend that most places are treating as a holiday, so I don’t expect to hear from the insurance company for another few days. But I’m OK, for now, and back at work, although mourning the loss of Thing the Versa.