Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

The Green Apartment - Part Two

2012-02-08T13:45:00.004-05:00

A series of locks had to be navigated before Fattoria opened the ochre steel door and motioned Muriel to precede him into the apartment. At once she felt warm, her skin perspired, her clothes felt heavy with mist, and she had to close her eyes and open them again slowly, because this was a quality of light she had not seen before, it vibrated like a memory, like a thought passing from the plants to her. Fattoria took her coat and her purse and layed them on the one chair, a captain's chair, at the kitchen table. The kitchen was a the only room devoid of plants, despite the fact there was a window, but this window was made of stained glass, a depiction of Saint Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland into an angry sea. Muriel gazed at the stained glass, "It was here when I moved in, the window - this place used to belong to a very superstitious old Irish woman. I found whiskey bottles in every closet on the first day, some empty, some not. Cheap whiskey too."
"They say there never were snakes in Ireland . . . " Muriel couldn't believe how hot it was in the apartment, she wondered why it was so hot.
"They, my dear Muriel, are correct, no self-respecting snake ever swam to Ireland or away from Ireland. St. Patrick was no Moses. Would you care for a drink? It's cocktail hour, perhaps a glass of wine? Or join me in a gin and tonic? I leave for Rio in the morning and quinine is running in my blood. I quit taking malaria pills years ago. They render me helpless - nightmares, night sweats, and doubling me over with pain. The British knew what they were doing when they drank all those gin and tonics in tropical colonies, the quinine keeps the malaria at bay."
"Water for me thank you, I suddenly feel a bit warm." Muriel wanted to admit to feeling dizzy too, and there was now a slight ringing in her left ear.
"It's the plants, you'll have to live with it I'm afraid. I keep the temperature at a constant 82 degrees, they thrive that way, any cooler and they begin to weaken. Why don't you have a seat in the living room and I'll bring you some water straight away."
Muriel blinked and walked into the living room, although, it was nothing but an overstuffed leather chair with a small bookshelf and a lamp at it's side. The bookshelf was neatly arranged with nothing but botanical volumes, specifically dealing in tropicals. Fattoria was whistling in the kitchen, "Puccini?" Muriel thought, "Yes, Madame Butterfly . . . I am the happiest girl in Japan." Muriel heard ice cubes tinkling in a glass and this made her feel immediately cooler. She blinked again and began to feel overwhelmed by the plants that crowded the room. Great numbers of them, and they seemed to grow from the walls and the floors, if there were any pots, any soil, they weren't apparent. There were bromiliads, ferns, Elephant Ears as large as the windows, philodendrons, Bird of Paradise, Jade, and Canna Lillies. There were trees that reached to the ceiling and made a canopy so fine Muriel expected to see the night sky, the stars, the moon revealed through the leaves - Rubber Trees, Magnolia, Mahogany, banana, and olive. There was an orange tree heavy with fruit, and a fig tree and palms and a small stand of bamboo. Purple orchids reached toward her in the chair as if to say, "and who are you?"
Lights flickered. She heard water running and then stopping and then running again, soft rain, then the trickling of a nearby tiny waterfall. A series of clicks and then more lights came on and some went off. The room was very alive with plants and now she could see, alive with small hoses and wires and tiny grow lights, some only pinsized beams of light directed at one orchid.
"Do you know plants Muriel?" Fattoria swept into the room and handed her a large frosty glass of water.
"No, not really . . . I know what a Christmas Cactus is. I had one once. And there are so many ficus trees in the library, one really has to know what they are. Everything else is either grass or weeds or trees to me. One plant frankly is indistinguishable from another. Is that alright? I mean, will the plants need me to know them if I live here?"
"This is a Traveler's Tree. This is jasmine simplici folium, or just jasmine. Blue Plumbago, plumbago auriculata. This? This is Queen of the Night, selenicereus grandiflora." Fattoria lingered with the Queen of the Night and took a sip of his gin and tonic, then he jiggled the glass for some sort of icy punctuation and crossed the room, "Mother-in-Law's Tongue, sansevieria trifasciata, and here is the sublime Rice Paper Plant." Muriel listened as Fattoria waltzed around the room introducing the plants, as though they were debutantes at the ball. Each time he touched a plant and named it, the leaves seemed to swoon, to curtsy, to take a bow at their acknowledgement. Muriel could see Fattoria was deeply in love with his plants and the plants obviously returned this affection. Eventually Fattoria came to sit on a small jeweled Persian rug beneath the hibiscus tree and quietly finished his gin.
Muriel noticed something move among the passion flowers. She watched, the flowers went still again. And then the thing moved again, this time making a long sweep through the orchids and coming to a rest, curled neatly around a bamboo tree. It was as though a vine had taken leave of it's senses and decided to move house. "Mr. Fattoria?
"Yes, Muriel"
"Is that a snake?"
"Yes, Muriel, that's Iris."

Spaulding Gray Says . . .

2012-02-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

The odd thing about death is . . . everybody knows they're going to die, but nobody actually believes it . . .

Temple

2012-02-04T18:36:00.012-05:00

the hare krishnas keep a greenhouse near the road
it glows like a florescent lozenge at night
a spaceship filled with seedlings for the immense garden
that stretches it’s way to the temple
whose yellow paint is peeling away from the geodesic shrine
i don’t know why they worship in there anymore
when it’s perfectly obvious where the deity really is
he moved out there as soon as they turned on the grow lights
and he sits throughout the night meditating and levitating
smiling his beatific smile at the cars that roll by
he watches his followers file to the temple before sun up
and while they light the incense and lay their silken handbags down
the deity tastes green shoots and listens to the automatic waterer
he waits patiently for them to discover he’s no longer where they think he is
under that musty crumbling dome
the late afternoon sun sinks with the arrival of a pale girl
swathed in heavy saris damp with winter rain
she brushes past the deity and checks the progress of young radishes
the rain begins to fall heavier on the little glass ship in the garden
and the girl is overwhelmed with happiness

The Gate

2012-02-03T17:47:00.005-05:00

and what of the angry dark eyed boy
who whistles Suicide Is Painless?
loudly
and broken
but not so
it's unintelligible
no, it's a hard emphasis
mad breathy improv
as he goes through
the automatic doors into the market
and earlier it was the black iron work
in a gate that lead to a garden
a blacksmith's delicate parenthesis
against too many layers of white paint
that asked me to linger on the street
but the dog had other ideas
the smell of grass
cut in February
under bare beech trees
the green clippings drift into our path
and they seem as odd
as the boy's tune
and later we wind home
a black cat stretches fast
across the road in front of us
the dog wants me to let him go
but instead i spit for luck
and squint at the cold western sun

My Mother Jumping

2012-02-03T09:07:00.000-05:00

here she is around 1960

aboard Eleo Sears'

famous hunter Pikes Peak

Up On The Roof

2012-02-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

The Mexicans are whistling
and stretching strings
to make straight lines
and squinting in winter light
their voices rise
over the nail guns
and the whir of skill saws
and layer by layer
they are laying the new roof
and i'm down here
with a fever
with dogs
who think the end is near
because there are footfalls
above us
lunch hour comes with bright sun
i let the dogs out to roam
they're offended by the asphalt dust
that has rained down in their yard
The Mexicans play football
in the driveway
and eat their sandwiches
before heading back up the ladders
where they'll stay til dark

Dirty Laundry

2012-01-31T11:19:00.004-05:00

Before I can finish The Green Apartment or Sea Horse or several other projects I've begun, Wolfy needs to do a bit of housekeeping. I woke up with a sore throat yesterday morning, and that feeling of rabbits randomly thumping various locations around my being - and when they weren't punching me they were running inside my joints angry to get out. I gave in to my first affliction of this winter and spent the day prone on the sofa in the sun with my hounds changing guard throughout the day. And I got to do something rare, read the Sunday New York Times cover to cover. In the age of the Internet who has time to read a paper? Something happens when you read an entire paper, section by section - you discover much more than you do flitting from headline to headline on the screen of your computer, your tablet, or your Kindle or your Nook. Not only do you read more thoroughly, but you read articles that you wouldn't even find on the paper's website, because by habit, you have favorite sections you frequent on the site, and when you have the physical paper, well, it sort of commands you to see more. For instance, I rarely click on the Sports section, unless I want to read about horse racing, but yesterday, I was instantly drawn in by a photo of Joe Namath which lead me several pages into the cavern of Sports and there was a photo essay (a slide show if you will) of Broadway Joe and the picture of him on the sidelines in his five-thousand dollar mink coat nursing his famous knee was priceless.

Something else happens when you read the whole paper - articles connect to one another. It's as though the editors planned the juxtapositions to make you think harder. The colliding of worlds, the crisscrossing of information is eerie really. Two articles in particular struck me - A Publisher's Contradictions of the Heart on page 23 of the front section and The Bookstore's Last Stand in the business section. Old Publishing collides with the hard reality of selling books today - nobody wants to go to their local bookstore and buy a book, a paper book anymore - they want to download it on their Nook and their Kindle. The Virtual is replacing the Tangible. And the editors and publishers in their ivory towers are quaking in their tweed coats and weejuns.

As I read the story of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux president and publisher Jonathan Galassi, I saw something the writer probably didn't intend. The cloistered world of the New York literati is missing the point - I wondered to myself what has happened to art? While men of letters work out their foibles publicly, Amazon is making the Book as we know it unfashionable, defunct, antiquated, and obsolete. The inner circle roils as the rest of the world waits for the tide to come in - I don't think the old guard would be in such a pickle if they'd just look outward, be a little less provincial you know?

And Galassi's poems led me to think about John Cheever, my dear hero, who sublimation worked like a charm for -- which led me to think about his daughter outing him after his death with her memoir Home Before Dark and I remember how infuriated my grandmother was over that book. But people like to have the goods on people, or at least think they do and they get a great sense of power from using it, and they even make money from it-- the internet is full of vengefulness. A while back I wrote a memoir piece called The Gravy Boat and well, I intended it to be a mild catharsis and I didn't intend it to be vengeful, but a member of the family didn't see it that way, and well? He no longer speaks to me because of it. I could take the story down I suppose, but now it's probably too late, and besides, it's my take on something that happened a very long time ago, nobody says memory is fair or accurate or self-conscious. More recently, I got tangled in a step-family circus and the tables were turned on me when I tried to quietly back-away, the way one might behave when faced with a cobra in your bathroom, I was served a hellfire thrashing by way of a half-sibling's blog - she spared not the lash, even managed to publish my personal emails and texts with commentary proving her punishing points about Wolfy. Needless to say it devastated me, and crushed my creativity for quite sometime. Ironic? You bet. And now I laugh when I recall the rejection I received from an editor at Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux saying my memoir lacked Angst. Everybody wants Angst.

See what reading the Sunday Paper can bring up?

Folding the laundry now, sweeping the floor, squinting into the sun coming through my window . . .

Why The Chicken Crossed The Road . . .

2012-01-25T08:57:00.000-05:00

Came upon a rooster standing guard over one of his hens that had been hit by a car on Schley Road this morning. I stopped and moved the dead red hen to the side of the road. A lady thanked me and said, "How can people run over a chicken? Why does everyone have to be in such a hurry?" She drove away and another car sped by honking at the rooster that lingered in the lane.

The Green Apartment - Part One

2012-01-23T20:13:00.006-05:00

The apartment was on the third floor surveying the corner of 15th Street and Iris Avenue, upstairs from the used bookstore that was forever closing- the Clearance Sale sign never came down, the books were always half price. Pleasantly convenient to the Sea Dragon Noodle Shop, the apartment gazed down on the red Chinese lanterns who swayed quietly and hardly noticed by people hurrying from the train station on rainy nights - here, the train came over the river on a bridge of intricate iron work, far too elegant for this part of the city, as though it's engineer believed that one day this neighborhood would be frequented by bon vivants and duchesses down on their luck.
The apartment, unlike the lanterns, rarely went unnoticed by passersby. It stopped some people so suddenly that those following found it difficult not to step on their heels. A child declared to her mother while waiting for the crosswalk to change, "Mama, a sky terrarium . . . " and indeed the child was closest to the truth. Others would let their chopsticks fall from their fingers and look up through the calligraphy decorated windows of the noodle shop and wonder, "Is there a botanical museum up there?" No one was left untouched by the sight of the apartment from the street, and evening made the apartment a real celebrity, a solarium glowing like a lovely woman by the candlelight of a table in her favorite French cafe . . . what lover could resist a thing lit from within?
The windows of the apartment were numerous - two on the front side over the busted neon sign which should have read Used Books, but only sputtered U Boo, then three windows on the southern end of the yellow brick walk-up, and finally another three windows on the east side, facing the river and the train trestle. This vantage offered the plants abundant natural light. They filled the windows and pressed and reached their large leaves against and seemingly through the glass. There were times of day, depending on the light, that they cast shadows on to the street below, and this transformed the pavement into something other than the cold grey thing that it was, as though leopards and parrots would appear suddenly, perhaps, wave down a taxi. The windows seemed like leaves themselves - the glass was chlorophyll stained, no green of the sullen trees struggling to stand in the bricked walkways below could compete with this verdant light above -- it was as though the apartment was possessed by emeralds.

Muriel subletted the apartment through a friend at work. She had been working in the city library, the little branch, near the Unitarian Church, the one with the stained glass windows designed Frank Lloyd Wright, or was it the pews? It was the pews and the windows, and sometimes Muriel liked to sit in the little courtyard to eat a sandwich at lunchtime, and she wouldn't open the book she had brought with her to read, because the light through Mr. Wright's windows was far more captivating than anything some old writer could say to her. But she found herself nearly living on the street, because the woman she rented a room from died and the family was very greedy and rude, and they gave Muriel three days to vacate. She told Estelle in the Circulation Department of her circumstance and Estelle, who always had an answer for everyone, because, really, that is what a natural born librarian has, the ability to find almost any solution, said, "Oh, you must take Dr. Fattoria's apartment!"
"Who is Dr. Fattoria?" asked Muriel, suspicious that Dr. Fattoria might want more than she could possibly give.
"He's a botanist, and he's going to the Amazon to look for an orchid that nobody has ever seen before and he says he will be there just months and months. He wants someone quiet and sensitive to take his apartment while he is away. He'll practically pay you to live their sweetie."
"Why sensitive?"
"Because of his plants . . . "
"Plants?"
"Yes, you will need to water the plants."
"I can water plants." Said Muriel recalling the dead Christmas cactus she had to throw out only a week before.
Estelle called Dr. Fattoria and after some back in forth in Italian, "he speaks English, but prefers to speak Italian," made arrangements for Muriel, who spoke no Italian, to meet him that very afternoon. Muriel was to take the Purple Line all the way to it's last stop, Iris Avenue, and Fattoria would meet her in front of the noodle shop, but she wasn't to ask him to dine in the noodle shop, he deplored the Chinese and anything that they might eat, especially noodles.
Muriel had never been to that part of the city, and she felt like a pioneer as the train crossed the river, that roiled under falling snow. She marvelled as the snow fell and disintegrated when it hit the waves. She saw the apartment from the train, and she knew it was Fattoria's, because Estelle said "Look for the Green Apartment Muriel," - it was only a moment of green, but unmistakable behind the veil of snow. She disembarked the train and followed the few commuters down the black stairs covered in rock salt to the street. She continued straight on Iris Avenue until the Chinese lanterns came into view, and there, under the lanterns, stood a man in greenish tweed, he was bent against the wind, and he seemed to be embarrassed.
"Dr. Fattoria?"
"Muriel?"
"Yes, I am Muriel."
"Oh good, come with me. Your train was late and Chang kept opening the door and asking me to come in and have some ramen. Vile stuff, you know, don't ever touch it."
"Chang?"
"He and his wife own most of the block. I pay him rent don't you know? But I'll be damned if I ever eat his noodles."
Fattoria led Muriel across the street and into an alcove, "Here you'll find the post boxes, and this door has a buzzer for visitors. Are you familiar with these buzzers?"
"Yes, we have one in our apartment, well the apartment I am leaving."
"Estelle educated me of your situation. Deplorable, really. Well, I had my buzzer disconnected, if you want it reconnected . . . "
"No, it's not necessary, I rarely have visitors."
"Estelle told me you were reclusive Muriel. The plants will like that about you."

The Librarian . . .

2012-01-17T19:31:00.002-05:00

thought it was awfully warm for January 17th as she went on break - she spun out the front doors of the library after being in there since 7:30 in the morning. She crossed Margaret Lane softly and quietly in her shoes with the two inch thick foam wedge soles and her tweed skirt with the silky lining and her grass green cardigan buttoned up to her pale throat and her red hair piled absent mindedly on that bony skull of hers and a car went past her slowly and the woman inside, a bookkeeper dressed in nothing that would say she was a bookkeeper, thought to herself as she changed the radio station that woman must be the Librarian, because who else looks like that? And the Librarian had no idea that she really looked like a woman who had sat behind the desk in the Library for all those years, sweetly, and silently whispering to patrons directions to find the books. When she first worked there, she was careful not to dress like a Librarian, but somehow, the books and the desk and the patrons demanded she dress in such a way, that it was a dead giveaway, and she knew it, when she passed the big window of the Mexican restaurant across the street, that she looked nothing like the lawyers that came from the courthouse across Churton Street, with their pencil skirts and their practical pants, and their strappy high heels, and their big Fly sunglasses, no, it was unmistakable, they were lawyers who spoke with television reporters about guilty pleas, and she was the Librarian who read stories to the children who's mother's brought them for Story Time . . .

Ernest Hemingway Says . . .

2012-01-17T18:57:00.002-05:00

You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés,

When You Got An Itch . . .

2012-01-14T10:55:00.000-05:00

i'd been on the road for about 4 hours - it's a road i drive a few times a year, and this time of year it's bare and bleak and it never ceases to amaze me what people driving on a rural route can manage to hit with their cars . . . a red tail hawk, tail feathers fanned out over his downy chest smashed into the yellow line just outside the town limits of McBee.

i parked under the golden arches in Camden about three in the afternoon and rubbed my eyes. The parking lot was full of kids . . . chocolate shakes and silver Ugg boots and pony tails. i was greeted by a tiny wide old woman in her fast food uniform in the ladies room. She was propped against the corner of one of the stalls and she was gyrating back and forth and up and down, "Oh my back is itchin' somethin' terrible." i smiled at her, and said, "Well, when you got an itch, you gotta scratch!"

"Yes you do honey, yes, you do . . . " She continued to rub her back on the lavatory wall as i latched the door and sat down to pee, then she explained to me, "At home, now at home, I got one of those sticks, a real long one with the little hand with the little fingers on the end and I stick that down my sweater and scratch all I want, but here? I can't use my scratchin' stick."

"No m'am, I guess you can't."

"Oooh that feels so good!"

The whole ladies room was rattling to the rhythm of this old woman scratching her back. Another lady walked in while i was washing my hands, "Do you know how many salads we have to make before we leave?"

and the Scratching Lady replied, "No, no I don't know, they sent me in here to mop the floors."

"Well, come back in the kitchen and help me make salads."

"I'll be there in a minute, I gotta scratch my back."

The Salad Lady left, I dried my hands and bid good-bye to the Scratching Lady, "Bye now honey, you be sweet . . . "

She Ain't A Child No More

2012-01-14T10:30:00.001-05:00

Driving The Garbage Around . . .

2012-01-08T18:32:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you get to the dump too early, like a half hour early, and the gates are closed, and well, what do you do? You are way out in the country, and waiting by the gate for the nice Norwegian man who manages the dump on Sundays is just silly, so you take your garbage for a drive -- air it out, let it take in some scenery before it meets it's fate . . .

"where should we go?"
"i know! i'll show you the paint donkey i saw in a pasture last week . . ."
"ok"
we drive past the cows in the field with the mobile home that tilts as though it might topple and we get to the field where i saw the three burros last week, including the paint, and they're gone . . .
"where are they?"
"i don't know . . ."
"maybe you imagined them"
"maybe i did, but we can see the lovely paint pony across the road . . ."
"all is see is an empty field"
we drive on and there in another field is the beautiful paint pony . . . "See?"
"yes, I see"
"we could head out to highway 54, get some coffee at the convenient store."
"that's a good idea, let's do that."
We get out to highway 54 and turn left, a man eyes us from his truck as we turn and we say, "Yeah, we are driving our garbage around, shut up!"
We pass the feed store and turn into the convenient store parking lot, "Park way over there, cause people will talk about our truck full of garbage."
"They'll talk, but will they steal it?"
In the convenient store we buy a bag of popcorn, a cup of coffee, a small bottle of milk, a bottle of water, a lighter, and a mason jar of the local men's club roasted peanuts.
We drive on, it's ten minutes to one, the dump will open then, i take a route that will take us almost that amount of time . . . I think about the horrible old ochre velveteen chair in the back of the truck, "Pop's chair is taking one more jaunt before the end, ey?"
"Did you see that?"
"The green barn? Oh what a terrific barn!"
"No, the orange cable that went under the bridge . . . "
"Didn't you see the green barn?"
"No I was looking at the orange cable."
"I was looking at the green barn."
"That's an ugly house . . ."
"The cows are lying down."
"It's going to get cold and rain tonight."
"We're here!"
"The gate is open!"

white dog

2012-01-05T11:12:00.003-05:00

i know why the caged white dog sings
back there behind the old man’s house
where the field of collards and turnips grow green
under an asphalt sky at dusk
night is coming
and she paces to one corner
then the other corner
and the great blue heron takes off
like a b-52 from the pond’s edge
his shadow crosses her white back
she jumps like an easy spring
to the roof of her little white house
there she balances on the roof
she sings loud
her voice is loosed over the chain link fence --
the sound of her rises and crosses the street
to ricochet against the red barn
a flapping tin roof catches on a nail
and clears the way for her mourning howl
so that it can fly across the plow
and the tractor for sale
and the trailer where that lady used to live
the white dog’s song rises over the sweet gums
and the pin oaks and the iron woods
and brushes a possum and shutters a squirrel
the black birds coil around her low notes
as they descend to the creek
and mix with the green cold water
that talks over the soft stones
the white dog breathes deep and lets go again
her chorus hits the side of the old man’s house
and shakes the jars filled with last summer’s tomatoes
to the edge of the shelf and the old man opens one eye
and turns over on his sofa while the tv makes his dreams
the white dog’s song goes out his front door
makes the mistletoe sway under the little christmas lights
that should have come down by now
her voice runs through the carport
under his dead wife’s cadillac
past the planters of pansies crystal with ice like candy flowers
the white dog’s howl rides on the scent of last night’s fox
down the logging road
past the waiting deer hunter
louder than the shots of his gun
the white dog lays down her peace
raises her sharp saber tail
her song scatters vultures
on the side of the highway
skitters through bare honeysuckle
where the junkos roost roundly
the white dog’s song goes down with the last of the day’s light
and up with the moon that fades with fog

Red Dog

2012-01-05T09:38:00.002-05:00

the red dog spins kicking up a veil of red clay dust in the cold morning trailer yard down there in the hole next to highway 70 where the dogs are all tied to trees under christmas lights strung on garbage cans and a christmas tree leans on the steps that lead to the door ajar where i see the flash of a blue tv screen and a black boy stands in there waiting and waiting and waiting and the rest of his dogs are diving and pulling at their chains and shaking their cages as the red dog dances because he is free for just this moment until the boy catches him and ties his head up again . . .

Dryer Sheets & Black Eyed Pea Fritters

2012-01-01T18:12:00.004-05:00

Black Eyed Pea Fritters & Beer for New Year's Good Luck

It seemed like they were eveywhere, the dryer sheets, like little ghosts of laundry past and well, they were beginning to rule my life, i was constantly picking them up and depositing them in the nearest waste basket. The final straw? i was falling asleep one night, not long after Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving in which i invited my inlaws and they didn't like my cooking, in fact, they had never seen an acorn squash, and well, they were afraid that it just wasn't food, but, i'm digressing into family politics, which is not a place i want to go ever because it's a dark place, and remember i suffer from achluophobia, come to think of it, because of family politics, but ANYway, there i was, trying to fall asleep and i was overtaken by a cloying perfume, so flowery in fact, that i sat straight up in bed, and searched the dark for a whore. But there was no Lady of the Night, only my fast asleep husband and three hounds who were dreaming of rabbits -- they all sleep much sounder than me, and i told myself that this must be a dream, a waking dream of some terrible embrace from an old woman of my past, a woman who i did not want to be near, and she enveloped me in her fat arms, and her fat breasts, and my young cheek was pressed against a cold cameo that hung from a chain around her fat neck, and the perfume she wore overpowered me. i tossed and turned, and finally went to sleep under the lavender cloud of this perfume. The grey light of morning came, and i rolled over to look at the clock, and there, on my bedside table, as though a hotel worker had placed it there like a mint, was a fresh, unlaundered dryer sheet, emitting the perfume of my terrible dream. It was no seizure of my senses at all, it was just a wayward Bounce that somehow traveled from my laundry room to my bedside.

And so I begin this New Year with a myriad of promises to myself including an alternative to dryer sheets, which is now firmly glued to the inside of my drier, something akin to a bar of soap, somewhat cloying, yes, but, stickum makes it stay in the dryer, and that's a minute or two of my day now not spent collecting wayward launderous ephemera.

The other thing my New Year begins with is Black-Eyed Pea Fritters from Madhur Jaffrey, the Julia Child of India, the cook who made living in Bermuda just a little sweeter, the woman who taught me how to make rice properly, and taught me that Curry Powder is not Indian cooking, but something of a joke upon British Colonialism.

So if you're tired of eating black-eyed peas with collards to bring you luck the rest of the year, you might want to try this one New Years, or really any old day, cause we can use luck all the time, can't we?

From Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian

Black-Eyed Pea Fritters -- Akara -- Nigeria, Mali

Different versions of ackara can be found in nearly all of western and central Africa. The dish traveled to most places the slaves went and is eaten today in the Caribbean and in South America as well. (In Brazil, it is called acaraje, a word not too far from the original.)

These delicious fritters are not very different from the North African/Middle Eastern falafel, except that instead of chickpeas or fava beans they are made with black-eyed peas. They are generally eaten as a snack or as part of a meal in Africa, but you may also serve them with drinks, offering a spicy dipping sauce (Shannon likes spicy peanut sauce, soy sauce, any kind of hot chutney...experiment!). Of course, you may eat them just like falafel, stuffed into pita bread along with shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and tahini sauce.

For those who do not have a food processor, the African method of making the batter is to put the soaked peas through a meat grinder and then to beat in the hot water in order to make a mixture that is light and airy with a drop-easily-from-the-spoon-consistency.

1 1/2 cups dried black-eyed peas, picked over and washed
(if you live down South, you can get fresh black-eyed peas in the
grocery store during the holiday! Don’t ever ever use canned, you’ll regret it.)

1 small onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (Wolfy likes more cayenne, but its up to you!)

Peanut or canola oil for deep frying

Soak the black-eyed peas in water to cover by 5 inches for about 16 hours, changing the water once in the middle only if it is a very hot day. Drain the peas and put them in a large bowl. Cover them well with fresh water. Dip both hands into the bowl and rub the peas between your palms. You will loosen many, though not all, of the skins, which will start to float in the water. Skim off the free skins with a sieve or slotted spoon; leave the stubborn skins alone.

Drain the peas thoroughly and put them into the container of a food processor along with the chopped onion, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Turn the machine on (medium speed if you can control it) and process, pushing down with a rubber spatula again and again until you have a grainy paste. Slowly add about 5 tablespoons of hot water, (be careful not to get the mixture too wet!!) processing all the while, until the paste has a dropable consistency. It should also look light and airy but remain very slightly grainy.

Put 1 inch of oil in a frying pan and set it over medium heat. Allow it to get very hot. Now work fast: Stir the batter gently and remove a very heaped teaspoon. Using a second teaspoon, drop the batter in the oil...the fritters will be about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Repeat until the frying pan is full. Fry the fritters for about 1 minute at medium heat , turning them over as they darken, and then turn the heat down to low. Continue to fry for another 5 minutes or so, turning the fritters now and then (cooking time varies...Wolfy says they may cook faster than this.) You should end up with fritters that have an even, rich reddish-brown color and are cooked through. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Make all the fritters this way, remembering at the start of each batch to (a) turn the heat back up toe medium and get the oil very hot again and (b) stir the batter once very gently from the bottom up. The fritters should ideally be served as soon as they are made (smile!).

Leftover fritters may be stored in a closed container in the fridge.

Makes about 40 fritters; serves 6

thumbing it . . .

2011-12-27T19:53:00.001-05:00

the day after Christmas i waited for the crosswalk light to transform into the green man, the man who crosses the street with no fear of automobiles running him down, but wait, it was the red hand of stop that caught my eye because it had no thumb, it blinked and blinked and then became stationary, like me, and it's thumbless presence made me wonder if all the red hands of stop were thumbless? How could i have missed this? This four fingered hand that tells me not to go, or go if you please, but i won't say i told you so when you lay there on the rain soaked pavement with tire marks across your belly, four fingers are just as adamant about the stop as five, aren't they? The green man, who walks with his elbows and knees bent at the exact same angle pushed away the thumbless halt who goes there? And I crossed, and forgot the slightly handicapped sign as thoughts of my nephew crossed my mind, the boy who is twelve who already has a mustache and is so much like my husband that Nature vs. Nurture arguments are no longer in question to me - genetics make the man . . . ah, another crosswalk, next to the Mexican restaurant which is busy with families tired of Christmas Ham and this hand of stop owns a thumb and i am wondering who will replace the tiny red bulbs back up there at the corner of King, so the thumb can return? Because, no one can really come to a full stop without the full hand can they?

An Expat's Christmas

2011-12-21T09:38:00.006-05:00

So, I wrote this little story for The Royal Gazette's Christmas Story contest back in 1997 -- I did not win, did not even get an honorable mention - why? well, first off, they probably threw it away the moment they saw it was written by an Expat, and secondly? It's subject was probably a bit too political and dark for them. But nonetheless, here it is, here it is, warts and all:

An Expat's Christmas

    It was Christmas Eve in Bermuda. Night was falling and a northeaster had begun to blow. Hamilton sent her workers early and fast to their bright warm festive homes with their heads filled with thoughts of Christmas hams, time with their families, and a bit of rum to warm their hearts. The streets were deserted and filled with driving rain. Boats in the harbor rose and fell on the grey cold sea. The Christmas lights that lined the streets were twinkling and shivering in the storm. The palms at the Foot of the Lane leaned hard into the sea faring winds that had come from somewhere deep in the snowbound heartland of the America to Bermuda to wish all a Merry Cold Christmas.

    Yet one tiny window overlooking the harbor still remained lit. This was the office of Henry Hall. Henry was desperately trying to repair a line of computer programming code that had crashed his company’s system earlier that day. The problem was which line of code? He would need most of the night to ferret the code out of hiding. The office had gone silent except for the buzz of the overhead lights and the computers.

He heard his boss’ words from earlier that day over and over in his mind, “Henry, do you ever watch nature shows on the tv?”

“Sometimes.” Henry answered as he stared in disbelief at the network that lay dying on the screen before him.

“Well, did you ever notice the way lions rip into the flesh of their prey? And the way there is always another animal waiting out in the wings for that lion to give up?” Henry’s boss was leaning into his ear now.

    “I don’t follow you, sir.” Henry kept staring as his computer screen continued to announce the terrible news; his network was completely trashed. His coworkers were in their offices pulling at their ties and their hair, because they couldn’t get the information they needed. Outside the wind was singing an eerie Christmas carol against Henry’s window.

    Henry’s boss continued, “Well Henry, my man, its very simple. If you don’t get this network back up by Boxing Day, the Hyenas will have their chance, finally, or even worse, the vultures. Oh, look at the time. I need to shove off before this storm gets too bad, what with last minute presents to buy for the family. Merry Christmas, Henry.” Henry’s boss whirled out of the room and minutes later he announced that everyone could go home early, “Its Christmas, you know.” All except Henry dashed for the doors. Henry was used to being left behind, sometimes it was necessary to work on the systems when no one was about.

One person did stop to wish Henry a good Christmas and that was Clarence DeSousa.. Clarence was the young and only Bermudian who worked in Henry’s office. Clarence was the mail clerk who recently had applied for the Assistant Network Technician position and Henry would be his boss if he managed to get the job. Henry knew deep down that Clarence didn’t have the background to get the job and the company would probably bring another expat in to do the job. “Thank you for the interview last week Henry. I really hope you guys give me the chance. See you next week.” Henry waved without turning Clarence’s way. “Fool.” Henry thought, “He’ll never get past the mail room in this place.”

    The hyenas. The vultures. He understood what his boss was driving at and it frightened him enough to stay and work all night. Even on Christmas Eve. He began to work so frantically that he forgot to call his wife to tell her he wouldn’t be coming home. He became so immersed in the code scrolling by on his monitor that he didn’t see the torrent of rain washing down the streets below. He didn’t see the boats in the harbor being tossed about in the black churning waters. He went into a state of oneness with the network that he had worked so closely with for the last year and a half; such a state that he forgot there was a world outside. He forgot that he was on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that was presently besieged by what would be remembered as one of the worst northeasters to hit in over a century. He forgot that it was Christmas.

    Henry became so frenzied that he began to get very tired. He had been working for hours now. The sun had set and the street lights reflected in a wild collidiscopic burst through the rain. Henry had not eaten and most importantly he had not had any coffee. The lack of large amounts of caffeine and sugar had drained him. Henry fought the awful tired feeling that was wrapping him up. He shifted in his seat. He turned up the music on his cd rom. But nothing was going to save him. The code was just within reach, he could taste it. Alas, poor Henry fell asleep.

    He slipped from his chair and curled beneath his desk. His head rested upon that day’s edition of The Royal Gazette which contained another letter condemning expats and their apparent greed; these letters always made Henry so frustrated. From this position, colored Christmas lights that had been strung across his door blinked and shown down on his sleep ridden face. His skin turned the colors of a terrible Christmas card. On and off. On and Off. On and Off.

****

    “Henry? Henry wake up!” Henry could hear a voice. A familiar voice. “Henry wake up right now man.” The voice was closer now and Henry opened his eyes. He was in his office. The sun was shining and a figure was standing over him as he lay on the floor. “Man, you got the nerve fallin’ asleep on the job. You’re lucky its me and not the boss finding you. C’mon get up, it’s a gorgeous Bermuda day, I got something fascinatin’ to show you.” Now Henry knew. It was Premier Gordon. She was dressed in a bright pink suit and shiny patent sandals. Her smile was wide and she held out her hand to Henry to help him up.

    “Ms. Gordon. I mean Premier. I’m sorry you found me asleep on the job. I know how important it is for expats to set a good example for Bermudians. But I was just so tired.”

    “Never mind that now Henry. I must show you something of the greatest importance to you’re future in Bermuda.” She seized his arm and helped him up. Henry was surprised by the strength of this tiny woman who had come to visit him.

    The Premier led Henry through his office door and to his great surprise they entered his old living room in his old house back in the States. They stopped behind the sofa and Henry looked down to see himself and his sweet wife sitting and watching the television. “You remember this night Henry. It’s the sixth game of the World Series. Its October of last year and it’s the night they called to ask you if you would like to work in Bermuda. You remember Henry?” The Premier was squeezing Henry’s arm just enough to remind him of a kindergarten teacher he once knew.

    “Yes, yes! How could I forget?” With that the phone rang and Henry on the couch let out a huge growl as he got up to answer it. “Who could that be? Its ten o’clock!” His wife was equally annoyed at the interruption. Henry watched as his self left the living room hanging on to the phone. He would be on that phone for an hour and then would return to ask his wife if she had ever thought about living in Bermuda.

    “You know the rest Henry.” The Premier said as she started to turn Henry around and around. Henry became dizzy and then the Premier stopped him. “Look Henry, its Christmas.” Henry rubbed his eyes and before him he saw his living room packed with boxes and his self and his sweet frazzled looking wife were knee deep in newspapers.

    “Can you believe this? Everyone we know is relaxing and drinking eggnog and we’re packing up to move to a rock in the middle of the ocean? I’m tired and I want to sleep.” Henry’s self sat in a pile of paper’s.

    “You can’t stop now. You can sleep on the plane tomorrow. What was your family thinking when they gave us presents?! We’re just going to put them in storage. Henry are we going to survive this?” His sweet tired wife sat down in the paper with him.

    “We’re going to more than survive this. We’re going to make more money than we ever thought we could. We’re going to finally get ahead and out of debt and to top it off we’re going to be living on a tropical island.” Henry kissed his wife.

    “That’s sub-tropical.” The Premier interjects. “C’mon Henry. You’ve seen enough. It’s time for you to go back to your office. Henry is softly weeping. “Premier, ghost. Whoever you are. Why have you shown me this happy past? I was so hopeful then that Bermuda would be the answer to all our dreams.”

    “Now, Henry don’t go mushy on me. Get back to work. You have a lot to do. Merry Christmas.” Henry was now back in his office. He sat down at this computer and started to work, but it was no use, once again he fell asleep.

****

    “Hey mate! Wake up, we got to get you home for Christmas.” Henry was once again woken by a familiar voice. He raised his head from his desk and turned to see his company taxi driver, Cecil Butterfield. “Its too damn windy outside for you to be ridin’ a bike. I’ll give you a lift.” Henry sleepily rose to his feet and followed Cecil out of his office and suddenly he was sitting in Cecil’s warm clean taxi and Cecil began to sing. “Oh de weather outside is frightful, but de…”

    “Cecil, how did you know I was still in the office?” Henry was rubbing his eyes.

    “I have my ways, mate.” Cecil was driving fast through the empty streets, the taxi seemed to have a mind of its own as the winds and rain blew all around them. “El Nino is causin’ dis storm. Dat’s what dey are sayin’ on de radio.”
    “Yeah, well maybe that’s what killed my network today, Cecil.” Henry was staring out the window.

    “Dat all you think about, man? Work? Hey we’re here.” Cecil slammed on the brakes and Henry fell forward off his seat. He crawled back up on his seat and looked out to see that they were not at his house, but at a little pink house somewhere in Somerset. There were bright Christmas lights all over the windows and there was a warm glow in the window. “Henry, I want you to see dis.” Henry followed Cecil out into the rain and cold and they walked up to the glowing warm window and peered in. “You recognize that family? That’s Clarence DeSousa and his sweet wife and their wee one. Dey ain’t got much, but dey are hopin’ de New Year brings dem some luck. You catch my drift, Henry?”

    “Yeah, I’m beginning to see the light. Can we please get back in the taxi and go home? I’m freezing!”

    “Yessir!” Within moments they were at the end of Henry’s driveway and Henry saw that all the lights were off. “Cecil, do think my wife is mad?”

    “Yep. She went to bed two or three hours ago after calling family back home. She ate a frozen dinner and cried a while. Yep. She’s had enough with you and Bermuda, Henry.”

    “Cecil, take me back to my office. I don’t want to wake her up.”

    “Whatever you say, mate.” Cecil turned the taxi around and they sped back into town, but at the Foot of the Lane, the taxi cut out. “Sorry Henry, I seem to be out of gas, you’ll have to walk from here.” Henry got out into the wind and rain and began the long walk up Front Street to his office. He was cold and lonelier than ever.

****

    Through the curtain of the storm, Henry spotted a horse and carriage approaching him. The driver was bent against the rain and the horse stepped lively despite the river that now replaced the road. The horse and carriage stopped in front on Henry and the driver waived Henry up in the seat beside him. Henry peered under the driver’s black hood, but he couldn’t see a face.

    Without warning, the rain stopped, but the clouds and light wind remained. They were driving along the South Shore and Henry looked out to see a suspended highway that surrounded the island, with huge arching bridges crossing the parishes. There was a smell of gasoline in the air and the houses were now high rises. There was garbage washing in with the tide and Henry saw people sleeping along the roadside. They turned back toward town and though it was morning, Johnny Barnes was not there to wave and welcome everyone to town.

    “Oh ghost, what has happened?”

    “The island was abandoned by the foreign companies and workers. They left an over-developed island with natives unable to keep her going.”

    “Ghost, must it be this way?” The unearthly voice remained silent as they drove down an unrecognizable Front Street to come to a stop below the huge dark building that had replaced Henry’s company.

****

    Henry awoke with a start to find himself under his desk. The storm had passed, but the power was out making the island seem eerily quiet. “Have I missed Christmas?” Henry got to his feet and ran out of his building to get on his bike. He sped home and passed a couple walking on Middle Road, he stopped and asked them, “Is it still Christmas?” They nodded yes nervously. He continued to speed home.

    Henry burst into his house and hugged his sweet wife. “ I am so sorry for missing Christmas Eve. But we will have a wonderful day.” She smiled up at him and kissed him. “But first I have to call my boss. I want him to hire Clarence DeSousa as my new tech assistant.”

    “Are you sure? He’ll need so much training.” His wife looked puzzled in her flannel bathrobe.

    “I have never been more sure in my life, mate.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Eat This . . .

2011-12-19T09:17:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, i bought a little fat spruce tree and decorated it with plump Christmas lights and it glowed all evening out on the porch in the blue cold, while we were warmed by a supper of braised chicken, carrots, radishes, and turnips with leftover risotto. Leftover Risotto? Yes, my dear readers from San Jose, there might be only one thing that is better than Risotto, and that is Leftover Risotto. Braised Radishes? I'll talk about them another time, but you can hold me to this, I may never eat a raw radish again.

So who do you turn to for the purest of Risotto recipes? Of course you head straight to Venice's Calle Vallaresso, near the Piazza San Marco, and duck into Harry's Bar, where else? And listen carefully to Arrigo Cipriani when he demands, "This is the simplest risotto--there is nothing extra to hide mediocre rice, a bad butter, or a tasteless Parmigiano." Got that? Don't be cheap with anything in life, especially risotto. And when he advises that the chicken stock be homemade, take him for his word on that, but if you can't, find a good organic, low sodium stock at the store, and no bouillon or may the gods strike you dead. Once you have mastered this Risotto, then you may spread your wings and dare to make things so delicate as Risotto Alla Milanese (Saffron Risotto), or Risotto Con Asparagi (Risotto with Asparagus), or Risotto Con Porcini (Risotto with Porcini Mushrooms) - one of my favorite ways to enjoy Risotto is to find wild mushrooms at the market (not in the woods, all you will find there is poisonous mushrooms!) and sauté them with a couple of slices of bacon and then add peas. The Harry's Bar Cookbook is rich with Risotto ideas really, let your mind run wild . . . what will i have with my risotto tonight?

RISOTTO PARMIGIANO
Basic Risotto with Parmesan Cheese

(from Arrigo Cipriani's The Harry's Bar Cookbook)

This is the simplest risotto--there is nothing extra to hide a mediocre rice, a bad butter, or a tasteless Parmigiano. Everything has to be perfect. . . Once you have made it a few times, you'll find it comes as second nature. It's a good idea to have some boiling water on the stove, in case you run out of stock before the risotto is finished.

SERVES 6 AS A FIRST COURSE

5 to 6 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade (1.250 to 1.5 ml)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 1/2 cups short-grain Italian rice, preferably Vialone or Carnaroli (about 250 g)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature (45 g)
2/5 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (80 g) plus extra to pass at the table
salt
freshly ground pepper

Bring the stock to a simmer in a saucepan and keep it a at bare simmer.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed 3-quart (2 3/4 liter) saucepan and cook the onion over medium heat, stirring until the onion is golden but not brown, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the rice and stir with a wooden spoon to coat the rice well with the oil and onion. Turn the heat to medium-high, add about 1/2 cup (125 ml) of the simmering stock, and keep the mixture boiling, stirring constantly. As soon as the stock has been absorbed, add another 1/2 cup (125 ml) of stock and stir until it is absorbed. You may have to adjust the heat from time to time--the risotto has to keep boiling, but it must not stick to the pot. If your risotto tends to stick, put the pot on a Flame Tamer (Wolfy has one of these things and she cannot recommend this tool more highly). Continue adding stock about 1/2 cup (125 ml) at a time, stirring constantly and waiting until each portion is absorbed before adding the next, until the rice is creamy and tender on the outside with each grain still distinct and firm. This will take at least 20 minutes, maybe as long as 30 minutes, depending on your pot and your stove. If the rice is still a bit hard in the middle after you have used all but a few tablespoons of the stock, add boiling water 1/4 cup (60 ml) at a time, stirring it in as you did the stock, until each grain of rice is tender but still has the slightest bit of firmness and the mixture is creamy.

Remove the pan from the heat and vigorously stir in the butter and the Parmesan. This stirring will make the risotto even creamier. Taste and season with salt and pepper. While continuing to stir vigorously, add the few remaining tablespoons of hot stock (or boiling water if you've used all the stock) to make the consistency softer and softer. In Italy we call it all'onda--like a wave. Taste carefully for seasoning and serve immediately, passing a small bowl of Parmesan cheese.

Wolfy Note on Leftover Risotto: i like to put the risotto in a lightly oiled baking dish and bake it at 350 degrees until its slightly golden. But as Arrigo says, there are many ways to make leftover risotto, such as his "pancakes" -- To reheat risotto in a frying pan: Use a nonstick pan. Heat the pan over medium heat and melt 2 tablespoons (30 g) of butter. When the butter is hot, add rounded tablespoons of risotto and flatten into pancakes with the back of the spoon. Fry the risotto until then are golden brown, then turn them and fry on the other side, adding more butter as needed.

Wine Notes:
Italian: Arneis "Blange" - Ceretto
American: Chardonnay - Mt. Veeder

The Man and the Cockapoo

2011-12-14T08:19:00.000-05:00

While waiting for the light to turn green on Monday afternoon, I watched a man holding a cockapoo in his arms at the corner of King and Margaret. The man of sixty or so was slight and neatly dressed in a tweed coat, wool pants, and dark leather shoes. The cockapoo was full grown, but had the dark naive eyes of a puppy, his popcorn tresses ruffled in the early December wind and he hung alert in the mans’ grip. The dog wore a collar and a leash and this baffled me as I wondered if the man was holding the cockapoo because it was the only way to restrain the dog, but this wasn’t necessarily so. The dog was calm, and had an air about him of complete comfort. The man was equally calm as though this were a normal thing, to carry his cockapoo, but I could see him shift the dog slightly back and forth to redistribute his weight - it could not have been easy for him to hold the dog, who looked to be at least fifty pounds, maybe more. The cockapoo didn’t seem to be handicapped in any way, nor was he a dog who looked panicked. I wanted to roll down the window and inquire if they needed assistance, but as I watched them, there didn’t seem to be anything I could help them with. Perhaps the cockapoo was unruly on the leash and the man preferred to carry him when navigating town? But then again, perhaps the dog was in distress? Postictal from a seizure? Perhaps the man simply liked to carry his cockapoo -- a relief to some deep anxiety. The light turned, the man crossed the street, the cockapoo rested quietly in the man’s arms and moved to the rhythm of his confident stride and they disappeared from view near the courthouse as I drove away.

Poems For Jamie Wyeth, Part Five

2011-12-12T19:58:00.005-05:00

New Year's Calling

the snow stopped just after we fed the horses tonight
did you see the clouds speed away over the fields?
and the stars rang on as we walked up to the house
no, i don't suppose you did
you're too occupied with what happened
and how the horse made you a fool
i told you not to take him out on Boxing Day
too many damn fools and you insisted
and now you sit there wriggling in your cumberbund
which couldn't possibly feel right
three broken ribs and a black eye
and here we go to the Von Tooten's New Year's Party
and yet, just this once, i wish we had stayed home
there's a perfectly fine bottle of champagne in the ice box
and plenty of duck for sandwiches
Sylvia will be the first one you know
she'll tell you to sell the horse
for cheap
and she'll be the first one to make the offer
because she knows he's game
too game for you
and it will be veiled in concern
but next year he'll win the Maryland Hunt Cup
and she'll send us the notices from The Chronicle
don't eat the Merry Tomatoes by the way
they're soaked in vodka
Tommy damn near broke his neck
on the icy steps last year . . . do you remember?
of course not

II

i love you
i can't tell you how much
the snow betrays me
just look at the headlights
across the fields
i know i dreamed this night
when i was a little girl

III

if Tommy even looks at you
i'll punch him in the mouth
i won't hesitate
i'll do it
i'll drag him through the parlor
out the french doors
into the snow
and beat him bloody
like a christmas pig

IV

Do you remember the Merry Tomatoes?
Yes . . .
I won't make that mistake again
Oh, do, you were so funny . . .
I was?
You were darling . . .
They were delicious
Of course they were . . .
Like little bloody mary bombs
you almost broke your neck . . .
How many Maryland Hunt Cups?
8, no 9 . . .
And I've never come out of the tack
But the Merry Tomatoes . . .
Were my match
I'm going to make you a lovely cocktail plate . . .
I dare you
I'll do it . . .
And I'll devour them all

V

the puppies will come tonight
i just know they will
she'll have 8 or 9 or
ten!
and we'll be here
in the snow
in the ruffle
let's just have one drink
and slip home?
i don't want her to be alone
in the welping box
like a common foxhound

VI

is the President coming?
no . . .
but you said he was coming
well, she called and said that the snow
the snow?
the snow would keep them . . .
oh, well, i suppose, this will make things simpler
yes, simpler . . .
Sylvia will be broken-hearted
Sylvia will live . . .
Sylvia always lives

VII

there's a Great Dane in the driveway
that's Hester's dog . . .
why isn't it put up for the night?
Hester lets the dog do whatever it likes . . .
i heard the President is coming
well, then the President will meet the Great Dane . . .
M'am . . .
what is it?
M'am, there's a big dog in the driveway and it won't move
just drive around it Skeet . . .
but, M'am, i don't want to get stuck in the snow
it's okay Skeet, just drive around the dog . . .
why didn't you tell me the President was going to be here?
well, no one knew, until the hunt breakfast . . .
on Boxing Day?
yes, where were you?
i was in the emergency room with Carroll, three broken ribs
oh!
that's a damn nice horse, he has no business. . .
Carroll has no business riding a mule
if i'd known the President was coming I would have worn my little elephant . . .
M'am?
What is it Skeet?
M'am, i've run aground of something . . .
Just hit the gas Skeet, but don't run over the dog
you know, my little gold elephant . . .
yes, with the pearl tusk and the ruby eye
all the same, the President is doing a fine job
i wonder if she'll hunt with us in the morning?
well, if she does, let's hope they give her a nice horse . . .
Carroll's horse?
oh!

VII

. . . "Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow." . . .

there's never a poet
never
just once
i'd like to come to this thing
and be surprised by a poet
there i'd be,
standing on one foot
filling the other with champagne
juggling Merry Tomatoes
and up comes a poet
and recites to me
something a flame
something baudy
something
anything
to make me forget
another year has gone by
another goddamn year
but instead
Sylvia will whisper in my ear
something about volunteering
for the Hunt Ball committee
and i'll just die
just die of boredom

Poems For Jamie Wyeth, Part Four

2011-12-03T18:36:00.000-05:00

Skewbald

i am sensational
the hounds were not impressed
the huntsman was appalled
when i appeared with her
the morning of the Boxing Day Hunt
Mrs. Whooseyshoes asked,
"did he run away from the circus?"
and she answered, "yes -
do you know he used to run with elephants?"
and Mrs. Whooseyshoes sniffed,
"but can he run with hounds, dear?"

i heard the horn
i heard the the fields rise up
cold beneath my round spotted belly
she fed me ginger snaps
from her pockets
and told me, "Ware hound"
and this funny three-legged
lemon colored bitch
ran between my legs
and i wondered to myself
what is an elephant?

i wait for her
on these summer nights
and she takes me
for long walks on the roads
she sings and talks to herself
and once she asked me,
"did you smell it? the fox?"
and i heard the fox
go to ground
before the first star trembled

Shhhhhhhhhhhh

2011-11-22T21:55:00.002-05:00

wolfy is cooking . . .

Poems For Jamie Wyeth, Part Three

2011-11-16T10:14:00.002-05:00

Mushroom Picker

i don’t care for mushrooms myself
they smell like cellars
but i was talkin’ to Calvin
at the feed store
and he told me his brother quit
workin’ in the mines
and started growing mushrooms
in their old sheep shed
all kinds too
the kinds that people,
mushroom aficionados, so to speak,
pay a lot for
so i got to thinkin’
about Calvin’s brother
breathin’ the soft damp
air of mushrooms
instead of coal dust
and how accustomed
he is to gettin’ around in the dark
with nothin’ but a lamp on his head
must be a relief for him
knowin’ the roof ain’t gonna cave in
and he probably has lunch up at the house
with his wife now
where they can look out the window
at that old pony with the one blue eye

Island Library

the librarian’s afternoon began with a quandary
and ended with an embarrassment
only four attended the carefully publicized
Travel Writer’s reading
and one of the four
an impressionable nine year old
who refused to sit in a chair
and instead lay in the grass
in an ill fitting gingham dress
with one sock up and one sock down
blowing enormous bubbles
of her gum
as the Travel Writer read stories
of his summer in Sicily
in 1972 or was it 1962?
the librarian was in such a state
the year of his jaunt hardly mattered
it was difficult enough when he spoke
of the blustery red-faced Englishman who came to his villa
asking for matches when
a light for his Cuban cigar
wasn’t really what he wanted at all
sordid enough was that tale
but then to speak of the fantasies brought on
as he ate pastries;
minne di Sant’Agata,
she hoped while he paused
that a translation would not follow
but it did
the breasts of Saint Agatha,

he held the candied cherry nipples

on his tongue . . .
and well,
the nine year old
let the pink bubble deflate
and the gum descended over her lips and chin
and her mother looked far out to the sea
where a sailboat appeared and disappeared
in the waves of a distant storm

Poems For Jamie Wyeth, Part Two

2011-11-14T19:22:00.002-05:00

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson

what i remember

is the clock

over the doors

mechanized by a series of weights

strung on wire cables

descending into beautiful round holes

cut into the foyer floors

and the revolving door

that led into the dining room

slaves on one side

placing silver trays of food

and spinning the door

so state secrets

stayed on the table

like bread crumbs

and most of all,

his bed

it was lilliputian

and built into the wall

of his chambers

he slept like a book

upon a shelf

i could imagine him curled

in velvet and lambs wool

reading by the sparks of a fire

until a slave woman

doused the lamp

Portrait of Andy Warhol

who was the pale man?

which one?

the one i sat next to,

he looked like a vampire . . .

that was Andy Warhol's boyfriend

but how?

did you like your hamburger?

yes, but how?

Peter owns many of his paintings

yes, Marilyn is in the living room

or is that Liz Taylor?

there's a little soup can in the bathroom

but how?

what?

I don't think he liked me

who?

Mr. Warhol's boyfriend

he doesn't like anyone

not even Andy

Portrait of a Lady

i follow my sisters

foolishly up these hills

they speak of chestnuts

but all i've found

is old barbed wire

and the bones of a dog

a bell rings

in the valley

he's gone to church

where he'll strike a deal

for winter hay

all for sweaters

his wife makes of us

on the loom

near the chimney

Poems For Jamie Wyeth, Part One

2011-11-13T10:35:00.005-05:00

Winter Pig

one doesn’t go to sleep
expecting such a sight
as this
in the morning
where is my field?
where is the sky?
where is my breakfast
of last night’s cabbage and
bread and rutabagas?
this is most extraordinary
indeed

Runaway Pig

if this is my only moment
let it be the fleetest
my belly is full
of half risen dough
and the last of the beets
from the garden
i spent most of the night
digging them up
under her window
as the moon glittered
in the hemlocks
certainly she will find
my house dark and quiet
and empty of me
will she drop the bucket
of celery roots
and boiled rice?
who will she call?
or will she ride the pony
alone in these woods
to find me
finally asleep
near the cliffs?
then
yes
i will follow her home
and the pony
will shake his tail
at the thought
of capturing pig

Pig And The Train

first time
it went by
i was a suckling
now i am
near slaughter
and the fields
are full of
dried golden rod
i know it’s coming now
the horn in the distance
and the steam
mixing with the grey sky
the birds tell me
it’s full of rutabagas
but i know better
it’s full of coal

Little Fox Hunters . . .

2011-11-13T09:49:00.000-05:00

Autumn Menagerie

2011-11-13T09:20:00.000-05:00

Immortality

2011-11-11T07:36:00.002-05:00

A literature teacher asked me last night if i was worried that that someone might steal my stories off my blog . . . the thought had occurred to me, but then again, at this juncture, in my lack luster writing career, i believe i would be flattered if someone stole a story.

seriously though, there are all sorts of writers out there sharing their work on blogs for free and i think the chances of someone plagiarizing are low - unless a desperate creative writing student in Nebraska just happens to need a story for class the next day.

i do wonder what all those hits from Russia and Poland are about some times, perhaps my stories will show up in a collection written by some Moscow hack who will be touted as the next Dostoyevsky. And because it will be years and years before it's translated back to English (as it was stolen from me and originally in English) - then well, i will never know about it. But someone, some literary blog historian of the future will make the discovery, will see that this Russian's prose are actually the work of Wolfy, and he will be exposed and his bronze statue will be toppled in Red Square. That kinda thing could lead to my immortality. So having a story stolen from my blog wouldn't be so bad after all.

Repatriation

2011-11-09T12:38:00.003-05:00

Last night I dreamed we were moving back to Bermuda. My husband didn’t have a job there yet, but we were packing boxes and in a rush to make a plane. I looked around our house and realized that we couldn’t possibly pack everything in the time we had. The last thing I remember about the dream is asking, “Why? Why are we going back there?”

This morning I realized I never finished telling my story of Bermuda. There are many chapters I haven’t written for you and perhaps the dream was my brain’s way of saying, “Finish the story.”

We were repatriated -- if you flip through the pages of my passport, you will find a stamp dated August 1, 1998 declaring Involuntary Repatriation. It’s an awfully nice way of saying we were required to leave the country. We weren’t exactly deported, we were just no longer expats. Repatriation rings of some sort of chemical process, as though we were pasteurized, reconstituted, hydrated, and reanimated. We were powdered patriots, they added skim milk and we were full on flavorful patriots of the United States again. But at the same time it’s sounds as though we did something outrageous, as though we scoffed the law and the powers of Bermuda tracked us down on a remote reef and airlifted us back to the States - as though we were extradited and locked up in the Hague, oh, wait a minute, that’s what happened to Goldfinger only a few years after we were excommunicated from paradise, but that’s another chapter in this complicated little yarn.

A month before everything went to pieces, we were watching the BBC evening news - it was May, the beginning of the High Season in Bermuda, the time when all the tourists would begin streaming in. The waters were warm and sapphire, but we felt an unease, not for any particular reason, just that we had been on the island long enough to know a storm was coming, even if one could not be detected on the empty sea horizon. But on this particular night, the BBC was telling the story of an African country that had plunged into war practically overnight and a violent coup d'état had made the situation so unsafe for expats that they had been ordered to leave as soon as possible. There were harrowing scenes of American and European aid workers dashing across broken tarmac and climbing desperately into planes with nothing but the clothes on their backs furiously waving their passports. My husband commented to me, “I would like to be in that situation just once, you know? To have only a few hours to get out of a place incredibly dangerous and to experience the fear and then the thrill of the plane lifting off the ground whisking you home.” I laughed, and said, “Yeah, like Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in The Year of Living Dangerously . . . ” The thought of being loosed from all your possessions, of dodging bullets, of being a refugee has it's allure I suppose, but only for a moment.

It would come by way of Houdini, the news that is. Every day Houdini brought my husband and his two coworkers lunch at the small converted farm house where they would be programming away, writing code to make Goldfinger richer. It was odd that they were cloistered away in the farm house near Goldfinger’s horse stable, while just a few miles away, down in Flatts Village, the traders who played with Goldfinger’s money worked all day on his private trading floor. The farm house was quiet and on the surface it seemed logical to have the engineers work in isolation from the daily hubub of the futures and bonds traders who made alot of racket on the phone all day. But there was a territorial element, the engineers were building an automated trading system that if completed would render the human traders redundant. We were always kept slightly on the outside of everything for fear that hostilities would replace the usual good manners everyone used with one another. And to keep the engineers fueled and coding away, elaborate lunches were delivered by Goldfinger’s driver Houdini. But it wasn’t just food that Houdini brought on that day in the end of June. Houdini came to the door somewhat stricken by what he had seen while delivering lunch to the trading floor. Goldfinger had fired everyone in a fit of rage over what he perceived as an inexcusable loss of his money over the past several months. He cleared the decks, even firing his longtime partner and friend, The Egyptian - a man who had worked for him since the days of selling cars in Holland and then orchestrated singlehandedly the cornering of the world oil market a decade before, shocking the international trading community. The Egyptian had been through the fire bombings in South Africa and Holland with Goldfinger, his firing sounded like pigs flying over hell.

Houdini warned my husband and the other boys in the farmhouse that Goldfinger was on his way to fire them too. Py didn’t wait around, he got on his motorbike and came straight back to Casa Verde where I was eating my own lunch after working at the Aquarium all morning. Jack the dog barked the bark that told me Py was headed up Lolly’s Well Road and I knew something wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be home til cocktail hour. I went out on the veranda and saw him round the corner past the quarry and the sound of the bike was even wrong. Jack and I met Py out in the driveway, “It’s over, everyone’s been fired. Even the Egyptian. We’ve got 30 days to get home.”

Now 30 days might seem like alot to you. But when you’re living on a rock in the middle of the ocean and you have very little savings because living on the rock has drained your account, it’s a damn short time to plan re-entry. We had no jobs, no home, we had to sell a right-hand drive mini car, a motorbike, and a few pieces of furniture that we couldn’t take back to the States. And we had two cats and a dog. We were adrift.

Hey Jerry Bailey, I'm Talking to You . . .

2011-11-07T12:54:00.004-05:00

I'm the daughter of one of the first women to earn a New York Racing Association Trainer's License - she paid her dues in sweat and hard labor and keeping her head high when men on the track tried to take advantage of her. She arrived on the track with practically nothing back in 1969 and by 1970 she was galloping horses for Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkins. And in 1975 she struck out on her own with a trainer's license and a handful of owners. My mother was a pioneer and it's women like her who have paved the way for Girls on the backstretch and without those efforts jockeys like Chantal Sutherland wouldn't be where they are today.

But it seems that nothing has changed.

Imagine my mother's reaction, not to mention mine, while watching ABC/ESPN's coverage of The Breeder's Cup, when you, Mr. Bailey, said that Sutherland is "known more for her activities off the track than on." Now some might say you were referring to her Vogue coverage or her role in HBO's upcoming series Luck, but to some viewers the implications of this statement are pretty torrid -- you might as well have said Sutherland was just another pretty face who has slept her way to the top of racing. As I listened to you and your fellow commentators discuss Sutherland's career, I had a hard time believing that you were discussing a professional jockey. The next thing I expected you to quip was if Sutherland was lucky enough to pull off a victory in her upcoming race, she might just get a date with Bobby Flay.

Men like you are perpetuating chauvinism in racing -- a sport that dearly needs to examine the successes and contributions of it's woman workforce -- and I'm not talking about the wealthy owners and breeders, but the women who work seven days a week on the backstretch in all kinds of weather with low pay and minimal protection if they get hurt.

I'm sure you and the TV executives have all sorts of excuses for why you blurted out such an irresponsible thing, but it would be just that: excuses and jabs at someone who might be taking all that you say too seriously. And others might say Sutherland is "prostituting' herself through the media, but a Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do and bottom line, Bob Baffert wouldn't have put her up on Game On Dude if she couldn't ride. Somewhere out there young women riders are watching your coverage of racing and wondering if it might be the career path for them -- I just hope they got steelier and more determined when they heard you make a mole hill out of the mountain that Sutherland and other women who work on the track have had to climb. And then of course, Chantal's stunning second place finish in the Classic might just have wiped your comment off the their mind's completely.

Question of the Day

2011-11-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

Overheard in the produce section, one senior citizen to another: Don't they have any normal bananas?

Their Own Electricity . . .

2011-11-04T18:09:00.000-04:00

On this barely sunny morning i was dazzled by a spear of light from a black man’s gold tooth as he smiled and strided up Churton Street against the traffic . . .

After the sun came, it went, and the sky filled with wet asphalt clouds and in the woods we couldn’t quite believe our eyes -- the river was filled with rushing water once again after months of drought and the trees with their remaining leaves glowed in the weirdest lime green . . . the scarlet maples and the ochre poplars were put to shame by the leaves that had remained green into this first week of November, it was as though they were injected with phosphorescence and they blinded us with this light that seemed to have been saved from the brightest summer day for this stormy morning.

Following two yellow school buses, i rounded the corner near the water treatment plant and was caught up in the slightly hysterical gate of a skinny man in his navy pajamas with white horizontal stripes . . . he was barefooted and looked as though he had escaped from somewhere, but i saw him stop to open a mailbox and finding it empty, he left the little door ajar and he dashed wildly back under a deep green cedar toward a crooked mobile home with a grey door.

Autumn Slides into November

2011-11-03T18:08:00.000-04:00

the autumn woods were a green-eyed calico cat in the late afternoon sun . . .

The Bear

2011-11-02T17:17:00.007-04:00

“I’m going to try the Souvlaki . . .”

“What? Nobody eats that stuff, have something normal like a grilled cheese.”

“But it’s on the menu. It’s always been on the menu. It’s a Greek diner, why not have something authentic?”

“Because nobody has ever ordered it, I guarantee you. They have some souvlaki back there in the freezer. It’s been there since 1972 because nobody has ever ordered it. You want 40 year old eggplant?”

“I guess not . . . ”

She shifted in her seat, the bear suit was getting warm under the artificial Tiffany chandelier in the booth. She took off the bear paws and laid them on top of the little juke box. The waitress came and leaned over the table to straighten the little bowl of candy corns, “Hi honey, nice bear suit. I wouldn't eat those candy corns, they're just for decoration ya know.”

“Thanks . . . ”

“What are you two in the mood for tonight?” The waitress smoothed her red hair, and brought the end of her long pony tail over her shoulder. She readied her pumpkin topped pen at the top of her order pad.

“Well, not the Souvlaki,” he said and winked at his bear.

“No? I just had some in the kitchen on my break, good stuff, but no one ever orders it.”

“The bear and I will have the grilled cheese plate - and can you put a slice of ham in mine?”

“Sure honey. I’ll be back with your drinks, Coke right? You two always get Cokes.”

The waitress returned to set the Cokes down and put two straws on the table, “So she’s a bear, but what are you dressed as?” she asked.

“I don’t wear Halloween costumes.” He said this while carefully tearing the paper away from the straw, he pushed the straw through the ice at the top of his glass and simultaneously handed the other straw to the bear, who waved it away and just started drinking her Coke from the glass through her bear muzzle, “You should use a straw you know,” he said to her.

“Oh, so your costume is The Serious Guy, right?” Said the waitress.

“What?” he looked slightly pained at the waitress.

“It was just joke honey, right little bear?” The waitress winked at the bear and spun away to take more orders.

The two of them sat there quietly for a while, and she could hear Billy Joel softly singing she’s always a woman to me in the next booth. She liked what the waitress said, she thought it was funny, The Serious Guy and the Bear go out to the diner for Halloween. What kind of Serious Guy takes a bear to a Greek diner anyway she thought. A diner where no one orders the Souvlaki. And why shouldn’t she drink her Coke straight from the glass? She felt beads of sweat running down her rib cage, it wasn’t so hot at the party, but the party was outside, in the dark, and near the beach, there was a breeze. It was a nice place to be a bear, under the weeping willows with the pumpkins all aglow and the silly crowd of friends who she hadn’t seen since graduation. Most of them went to college, but she stayed behind to work in the seafood restaurant with her father. Some day, some day she would go to college, but right now her father needed her to make clams on the half shell.

“So Samantha, I’ve been thinking . . . ”

“Yeah Sam?”

“I wanted to ask you why you dressed up as a bear tonight.”

“It’s my homage to John Irving, I thought you knew that.”

“Oh yeah, you mean Natasha Kinski.”

“Yeah, in Hotel New Hampshire. . . she’s the bear.”

"You mean the lesbian bear.”

“Yes, if that’s how you want to think of her, the lesbian bear.”

“But you could have dressed up as Jodie Foster you know . . . in the school uniform, with the short kilt and the knee socks.”

“But nobody would have known it was Jodie Foster. They would have just thought I was wearing a Greens Farms Academy uniform.”

“Yeah, but it would have been sexier. Oh wait, I know, you could have dressed up as Natasha Kinski in a snake.”

“That was a Vanity Fair photo silly, it had nothing to do with John Irving. And anyway, where am I going to find a snake that big?”

“It’s just . . .”

“I know Sam, you wanted me to dress like the other girls do on Halloween - like a French Maid, or Cat Woman, or Marilyn Monroe. Something so sexy that you want to rip off my costume at the end of the night right?”

“Samantha!”

“Well?”

“This is almost as bad as last year. You went too far you know, you cut off all your hair and went as Joan of Arc Burning at the Stake.”

“Hey! That was my best costume ever.”

“You looked ridiculous tied to that post all night.”

“But I thought men wanted their girls all tied up?”

“Samantha!”

“Sam!”

The red headed waitress returned with grilled cheeses, “Grilled cheese with ham for the Serious Guy and a plain grilled cheese for the bear, with a little sample of Souvlaki on the side honey, maybe you’ll like it.”

“Thank you so much,” Samantha picked up her fork and her big hairy elbow knocked her Coke over and it spilled across Sam’s plate dousing his grilled cheese in ice and soda.

“That’s it! Samantha you’re just too weird for me.”

“Wait -- one night a year I don’t dress the way you like and that’s it?”

“No it’s not just Halloween, it’s everything. You know what your problem is?”

“Gosh Sam, what is my problem?”

“You don’t want to be like anyone else, you go straight out of your way to be infuriatingly counter clockwise. And besides, you always smell slightly like your father’s fish house” The redheaded waitress stooped with a small towel to stop the ice and soda from running off the table and into Sam’s lap.

“Honey, I don’t mean to butt in here, but you two been coming here since junior high and well . . . ”

“Would you PLEASE leave me alone!” Sam stood up and tore his overcoat from the coat hook on the side of the booth, “I’m sorry, I gotta get outta here.”

“It was the nurse wasn’t it?” Samantha grabbed the waitress’ arm, “Please stay, I want you to hear him answer me.”

“Okay honey, I’m right here for you.”

“What nurse?”

“The nurse at the party, the one who told you to listen to her heart with the pink stethoscope. She gave you her number. You’re going back there to pick her up. And you’re going to leave me here to walk home in a bear suit.”

“It’s not that far of a walk, you live on Long Lots Road.” Sam put his coat over his shoulders, “I’ll pay the check. Don’t call me anymore.” Sam spun around and walked straight into the little Hungarian hostess with the silver bee hive teetering on high heels, she was carrying two Manhattans on a tray and the tray flew from her hands, the amber liquor drenching her little blue grey Chanel knockoff. The diner froze and Sam never stopped, didn't even pay the cashier.

The redheaded waitress sat down in the booth with Samantha, “Honey, do you need a ride home?”

"You know what? I don't think he even knows that Jodie Foster's a lesbian . . . "

"What's that honey?"

"Oh nothing . . . don't worry, I can walk home.”

“Really? In a bear suit?”

“Yes, in a bear suit, who’s going to bother a bear on Long Lots Road on Halloween?”

“Nobody I guess. But eat the souvlaki before you go, that way it don't go to waste.”

More From Project Vacate Facebook

2011-11-02T08:32:00.002-04:00

Ultimately, Facebook is like being stuck in a traffic jam. The long road trip began with such promise. You were on your way to a land of old friends and maybe some family. The highway was wide and there were so few cars the miles zipped by. The vistas were filled with bright sky. But the lanes narrowed and became more numerous. The cars seemed to be coming at you from every direction. You made a wrong turn and suddenly you were on a one-way toll road to Montreal with no exits. Finally you get to an exit, near the Canadian border, and the toll lady sees your panic, she tells you, “Take a right and a right and another right, and that might you get back to where you want to be . . . deary.” And so you do as she told you and next thing you know you’re in four maybe fives lanes of headlight to tail traffic and you decide the only thing you can do is roll down the window and change the cd in the player -- maybe listen to some Neil Young for a change. But then you are drawn to listen to the music coming the car next to you and before you know it you are reading all the bumper stickers - so many bumper stickers . . . inspirational, angry, political, and then there are ones that make no sense at all. You look to your right and watch a copper colored minivan roll by - it’s packed with a family. Father is driving. Mother is making peanut butter crackers for her hypnotized children in the back - they are all staring up at individual flashing blue tv screens and they do not blink. Father answers his cell phone. Mother puts down the crackers and knife covered in peanut butter and begins to text. Then they are gone and you see a woman in a convertible . . . is that a red Thunderbird? And she’s in a bikini and her hair is blowing in the wind although she is only going two miles an hour and she is steering the little sports car with her perfectly manicured painted bare toes while she sells vitamins on her Blackberry. It begins to drizzle, and then snow, and you are running low on gas and then? A man leers at you from his Wonder Bread Truck. You roll up your windows and change the cd again, now you decide is a good time to listen to something from Bob Dylan and you stop reading the bumper stickers and instead decide to clean out your glove compartment. You’re hungry. You miss home. You’re running low on gas. The engine is making a noise. What would happen if you got out of the car and walked? Would anyone care? Just beyond the big Dairy Queen sign, someone hits you from behind. It’s quite a jolt. You sit for a minute and try to take in the implications of this. If there’s damage, then it’s going to be a big complicated mess - what with being out of state and all. But it’s their fault you tell yourself, it’s always the one who comes from behind who’s to blame . . . right? You catch sight of a tweed coated figure stomping toward your door in the rear view mirror and you see the sparkle of broken glass on the wet pavement . . . you take a deep breath and reach for your registration because you know exactly where it is now that you cleaned out your glove compartment, and you roll down the window. The tweed man leans in and smiles, “You should have been paying more attention!” Night is falling, the distinct glow of GPS units seems to come from every car as you near the Tappan Zee, like little stars. Ice fog is rising from the Hudson and a train horn blows in the distance and then you see the train just like a toy in a Park Avenue window at Christmas time making it’s way along the big river from the City into the suburbs where it will deposit commuters like coins in their little towns - they will go home and eat reheated pizza and watch bad movies while they text their lovers. The exits are numerous now, the parkway has no tolls, you pick a familiar place and decide to stay there for the night . . .

Sea Horse . . . Fragment One Revisited

2011-11-01T17:18:00.001-04:00

He'd been alone on the island for three years now. Or maybe four, he couldn't keep track anymore. Why keep track? He was inclined to getting depressed if he knew it was Tuesday, a day of the week with terrible associations, so this is what he did. He watched the stars and the phases of the moon, and he noticed when it was getting cold -- he knew the seasons by their presence, not by some calendar.

The island was three square miles, he had flown over it once in the government helicopter, during a military survey and it struck him strange that the island was shaped like a trophy he'd won as a schoolboy for running a cross country race, some sort of overgrown pewter bonbon dish. He smiled every time he thought of it, that he lived in a bonbon dish in the North Sea. His wife would have smiled too.

The government gave him an out after the accident. They'd set him up on the continent for life; they even sent a psychologist to talk to him, to explore the tears in his armor, to reason with him -- did he understand isolation? Yes was the answer, yes . . .

There was the lighthouse to attend, the weather station, and now experimental gardening plots. The supply tug came the third Saturday of every month and with it a month's worth of mail -- memos from the government updating him on the Dispute and letters from his father in Vancouver -- wouldn't he visit please? No was the answer, no . . . The Dispute was three hundred years old and the government was always reassurring that the Opponents' claim was fallow. He read the memos always with a glass of whiskey and sometimes late at night mused at the idea of being overrun by the Opponents - he saw them coming by many small fishing boats covered in seaweed and carrying hand made swords and chanting in Portuguese. They'd slit his throat at dawn and burn his thatch roof -- all that would remain is the stonewalls of his home at the base of the lighthouse. The government would send exactly three military helicopters, but the pilots would retreat at the sight of the practically prehistoric Opponents -- they'd bear away from the island, radio in, and say Let them have the godforsaken place.

*****

It was a good day for fishing. There had been a horrendous storm two nights ago that beat the sea to a black froth and kept him at the lighthouse post for thirty hours. The radio was full of voices and static and word of a freighter that had gone down some sixty nautical miles from his cliffs. This was the sea to him, the water took prisoners occasionally just as the moon drove some mad and the sun burned men who were foolish enough to cross the desert. But when the skies cleared, when the sea's belly was satiated, he always crossed himself, and thought of the ship's men, of their bones whitening with the salt of the sea, of their wives left behind . . . sea widows were his sisters.

And the sea always was happiest and at its most beautiful after a rage, after a kill, and these were the days he felt fine enough to sail and fish -- the sea wouldn't want him or his little green skiff and he could leave the lighthouse and the green house and the puffins. He'd had terribly good luck finding sailfish and dolphin on a southwestern current last time he'd gone out and he decided to take the same tack this time, pushing off from what Adelle used to call Tern Rock.

One mile out, he dropped his sail. He watched the surface of the water as he prepared his rod, pushing bait, mussels he'd pulled the night before, and two hawksbill turtle heads bobbed momentarily, snorted softly, so that only he could hear them, and then they dove. Indeed, it was a good morning. He cast his line and settled in with no expectations -- his father taught him as a boy that expectation rang down the line and tinged off the end of the hook making for nervous fish. His mind drifted to the dream he'd had the night before -- she came to him often in dreams, sometimes it was just an afternoon in the lighthouse, and up the stairs she'd come with tea and a piece of cake, but other times, such as on this night, she crawled between the sheets with him. It was unbearably good to have her straddle over him, her hands pressed on his shoulders, her thighs holding his hips together. And waking was always horrible, because all that was left was the air. He wondered if his longing for her would bring the fish to the hook.

But something came with the green current that wasn't a fish at all. It heaved with struggle, was it a hammerhead? It wasn't. It was something not of the water, this he knew. It was black and monstrous as it made its way toward the skiff. He reeled his line in, empty and light, still laden with mussel meat and tossed the rod back on the deck. The dark apparition came closer and closer, and he caught sight of the white of an eye, and then the horrifying realization came over him that this was nothing but a horse! It blew water from its nostrils as a whale might blow water from its spout. He absentmindedly reached for the one life jacket he kept aboard the skiff, but realized this was a ridiculous effort, and went instead to raise his sail as the panicked horse pounded the currents at his hull. He called out, "Horse!" and the horse rolled one eye up at him as if to say "Man!" and the wind filled the sail, as the skiff lurched back toward the island, so did the horse. He held the skiff as straight and fine as he could, but his eyes kept falling on the horse who rose and sank with every stride, for she wasn't swimming, she was galloping beneath the currents -- her broad back, her hind quarters machined in a weirdly watery way, as though she was born of the fishes.

A Crash In The Night

2011-10-31T19:42:00.006-04:00

it's Halloween, and i live in the woods at the end of a long wooded driveway - nobody comes here to Trick or Treat and if they did, well, i wouldn't answer the door, because a sure sign that someone isn't right in the head is to go Trickertreatin' in lonely places.
My sweet husband has gone to town for Tai Chi class, his first in a few weeks, since he's had the Epizoudic as my grandfather used to call it - the cough has kept us up for nights now, and usually i'm the lung case here, but this time it was him.

So i'm here alone, with the fire going, and a slate blue sky that is the afterthought of a rainy afternoon that gave up. If there's a moon, my hounds will have to find it for me. The pines are black and thick against the western sky.

i'm making Julia Child's Potage Veloute Aux Champignons - that's Fancy for Cream of Mushroom Soup and you can find it on page 40 of Mastering The Art of French Cooking. I wouldn't normally make such a thing, but i bought a chicken and roasted it a few days ago, because i had a dream about attending a banquet where little roasted birds were served on pearl white plates and well, after a dream like that, you must make a roasted chicken, and then make a lovely stock of it's remnants a day or so later. Well, I used half the stock on a risotto with asparagus and white wine, and now i'm using the remainder to make this Potage Veloute . . . i have failed to mention here that i bought far too many crimini mushrooms at the market today because i was listening to a nearby conversation and in order to stay put i kept putting handfuls of the cool round fungus in the bag and besides, there is something rich about mushrooms isn't there? Oh the smell of dark dirt they carry.

so there i am in the kitchen, just a while ago and i have fed the hounds their dinner and have tended the fire . . . have i mentioned i can build a hell of a good fire? It comes from years of visiting my mother in her unheated house where the only source of warmth was her fireplace - they made me sleep on the sofa near the fire, warm indeed, but it came with a heavy responsibility, stoke the fire all night, or we all freeze by morning . . . i understand the Three Log Rule, and if you know about fire, you know what i'm talking about.

so anyway, there i am, i've brought the stock to a boil and i've carefully sauteed the onions in butter and added the flour and i'm getting ready to add the stock and chopped mushroom stems from a pound of mushrooms, along with the bay leaf and the thyme and the parsley, to the stock, when i hear a Crash.

No ordinary crash, it's the distinct sound of breaking glass.

you know that sound, it's a sharp shrill and then a tinkling like Tinkerbell just arrived, am i right?

Well, i was torn - i was at a critical point with the stock and i hear my hounds running through the house. This was quite a challenge for one such as me - i'm not only afraid of the dark, but am quite prone to Madam Panic -- yeah? Oh shuttup.

i decided to do what Julia wanted me to do and i combined the boiling stock with the other ingredients and i forged on and my hound Boogie showed up in the kitchen, repelled by the steam, but drawn by the chicken essence in the air, with a boding look in his eyes, "They broke something . . . " Boogie never busts things up around here, the girls do, my girl hounds are simply unable to control themselves, and so i looked at Boogie, "they have and well, i can't come right now, because i have to bring this back up to a simmer and make certain the flour doesn't clump, got me?"

But then i had visions in my head of one of the girls with bloody paws, so i left my fungus stock and began the search through the house for the source of the Crash in the Night.

You know, the night before my grandmother died, there was a terrible bump in the wee hours of the night. It woke my grandfather and my grandmother's Polish nurse who was very Catholic and heavens-to-Betsy more superstitious than my grandfather, and this so frightened her that she ran to Pop's bedroom and woke him and said the sound meant Death was near. My grandfather told her to go back to bed, but knowing him, he was completely undone by her declaration. She insisted he walk the house with her to find the source of the sound, but they found nothing. My grandfather deposited her back in her bed next to my grandmother's bed, my grandmother who had been out of her mind for over a year at that point. The next night my grandmother died, choking on her medication after dinner - it was middle March and there was sleet falling and the Polish nurse ran from the house and waited in the dark cold driveway for her sister to pick her up and take her to the train station. Pop told her she could wait in the house, but she refused, Mr. Death was too close for her comfort.

So, i hated to leave my soup, but i ran down the hall and found one Hound Girl in my office with a very guilty look on her face - she had my loofah from the shower and was getting ready to tear into it. There was nothing broken in the room - no shards of glass anywhere. I took the loofah from her and she followed me down the hall. I found my other Hound Girl standing in the hallway with that Veronica Lake smile, "What did you two break? I heard breaking glass . . . where is it?" They took off down the hall and asked to go outside. I let them out and proceeded to turn every light in the house on and found NOTHING. I returned to my soup and told myself that perhaps I was hearing things. Perhaps it was in the music i had been listening to. My heart began to pound. No. No. I heard glass breaking. Nothing else sounds like glass breaking.

I looked at the clock. My husband was a half hour into his Tai Chi class by now, but something frightened me, i had found no source of the terrible sound. I went back to the soup. I lit the burner again, and like Julia prompted on page 41, I brought the stock to a simmer and set the timer for 20 minutes. The windows went black and thoughts of my husband's car in a ditch somewhere between here and there came to mind. I texted him, "Are you okay?" I asked. No reply - of course not, he's in Tai Chi class, i tell myself, or or or or, dead . . . the stock began to steam slightly and the hounds stared at me through the glass doors, "Yes, yes, come in." They wanted cookies and then it occurred to me i had not checked the office downstairs, my husband's office, and i went down there, and it was terribly dark, and the dogs came with me, "Whatcha doin? Whatcha doin?" They always want to know, don't they? And I turned on the lights and I stared at his empty chair, and some weird sadness came over me and i burst into tears at the sight of all his computer monitors . . . there are so many, and they were dark, usually they are lit with terrible amounts of information on them, and then i moved his chair, and i heard a clank . . . a ting tang of glass . . . yes! his green banker's lamp was laying on the floor under the blinking lights of our servers, it was in a million pieces on the tile floor. I exhaled. And then my phone made that high pitched "the Quiche is done" signal . . . and it was him, my good husband texting me, "I'm on my way home."

The dogs stood in a small battalion at the foot of the stairs, "Well?" I asked them.

"Trick or Treat!"

Project Vacate Facebook . . .

2011-10-31T15:27:00.000-04:00

Jamie Wyeth's

Pumpkinhead, Self-Portrait

(1972)

Happy Halloween my dear imaginary readers of San Jose! After a successful trial run in September, I am once again vacating the land of social networking and returning here to a place I feel most comfortable - I will endeavor to remain a loyal Pumpkinhead servant until at least the New Year, if not beyond, unless something stupendous happens and I have to share it with my 230 friends . . . or was it 229? But I doubt earth shattering news will befall me anytime soon, and so I will hunker down and try to wrestle some stories into shape for you.

Have I ever mentioned my obsession with the Wyeths? All of them? N.C., Andrew, and Jamie? What men! What artists! True testament to what living in bleak landscapes can do for creativity - really. The bleaker the better - empty fields, bare trees, weird reclusive neighbors, and only crows and pigs to observe. I keep this in mind all the time as I look for inspiration on the lonely soybean field horizons.

So it's just us now, let's see if it's a Trick . . . or a Treat.

Skateboards Not Guns

2011-10-31T08:33:00.001-04:00

Skateistan

Faster, Faster!

2011-10-30T17:06:00.002-04:00

<p>&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;s</p>

so this morning, this was on the tube - this amazing weird tale of revenge with Lionel Barrymore. What the trailer doesn't show you is my favorite scene, perhaps one of the most wonderful scenes I have ever witnessed in a film, really. Barrymore, disguised as an old toy-making woman, enters the office of one of her victims and lays a toy circus pony on the man's desk. But this is no ordinary toy pony, Barrymore urges the man to ask the pony to do something, anything he wishes, and all the man has to do is think that he would like the pony to stand, and the little painted pinto circus pony comes to life on his desk and begins to walk in a circle on one corner of the blotter, next to the leather pen holder and not far from the telephone. The man asks the pony to go, "Faster, faster, " and the pony obliges with a trot, and lovely perfect trot in the same space on his desk. Round and round the delightful pony goes. Barrymore picks the pony up and begins his ruse with the man and the pony is never seen again in the film. I sat there all morning waiting for that pony to come back. And when he didn't I searched google and youtube and vimeo in vain for a clip of the magical lilliputian pony. I want THAT pony . . . sorry, but it was one of those cinematic moments that I will never ever get over.

Roasted Acorn Squash ala Wolfy

2011-10-30T10:26:00.003-04:00

So I made this the other night as a practice run for Thanksgiving, and a few folks asked me for the recipe when I told them about it. Here it is, but know that I made this thing by "feel" and I have tried to apply measurements here, but you may want to add or delete ingredients or put more or less of some things in -- it really is a cornucopia, so have fun with it. And btw, you can make several of these in a large roasting pan, that's my plan for Turkey Day at least.

1 medium sized acorn squash
olive oil
6 strips of bacon, cut into one inch pieces
1 onion, chopped
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup diced apples
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup green pepper, chopped
fresh rosemary to taste
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to taste
1/2 to 3/4 cup feta cheese
5 or so tablespoons of apricot preserves or plum chutney or chutney/marmalade of your liking

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the acorn squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and now cut the halves in half again, and place the four squash pieces meat side down in a baking dish that’s been smeared with two or three tablespoons of olive oil. Put in the oven for 30 minutes.

While the squash is cooking, in a saute pan cook the bacon til it’s soft and has rendered some fat, now add the onions, the raisins, the apples, the walnuts , the green pepper and the rosemary, and season with red pepper and salt. When everything is sauteed to a nice softness, take off the heat. If you want to be really decadent, add a tablespoon or two of butter.

Pull the squash out of the oven and turn them over so the meat faces up. Take your sauteed filling and spoon over the squash, do your best to fill the squash, but it’s okay the just smother the squash in the all the filling. Now crumble the feta cheese over the top and dollop (what a word!) the preserves or chutney over the top. Put the dish back in the oven and cook for about a half hour or til everything is bubbly and carmelized.

From The Department of Observations . . . Near Halloween

2011-10-29T17:51:00.001-04:00

The light on King Street turned green and the wind blew poplar leaves across the courthouse lawn and a small crowd, not the lunchtime crowd, but the midday Trick or Treater crowd anxiously crossed the street - Princess Leah's pale hands let go of her son, Darth Vader, all of eight years old perhaps, and 75 pounds of nervous energy, gangly and spider like in black pants, black long-sleeve t-shirt, and a cape that lifted him over the curb, he turned his masked Vader visage to me for just a moment before he ran a Jerry Lewis sprint to the next candy stop.

My Halloween fright came in the form of a turkey vulture lighting heavily, like death i suppose, from the low limb of a pin oak on the edge of the road my dog and i were walking -- the vulture came hauntingly close, noisy with his feathers, upset by our nearness, he swooped up into a pine, and sat satisfied, as though he'd been sent . . .

The wine colored leaves are coming down and the air is still warm enough to smell the remnants of last night's rain . . . a sense memory of a boy walking to my house to borrow a book overwhelmed me to tears, but i swept it away, because although i felt it, as though it was the present, it never really happened.

Chores

2011-10-25T09:44:00.003-04:00

So there we are at the Dump, me in the back of the truck tossing stuff in the dumpster and Boogie at his station, the driver's seat with his big old head out the window, and a man with a white beard and full camo coveralls backs up his truck next to us and starts unloading his trash, when he stops and looks over at Boogie and says to me, "That's a big hound, you must live in the country!"

Yessir . . . and then we discussed blood hounds and coon hounds and red bones like we were having coffee together, but the trash ran out so we parted ways.

And on the way home, the early autumn morning light all kinda golden like came through the foggy windshield and lit up Boogie's muzzle which I noticed for the first time has turned completely grey. Don't you just hate it when your dog gets old?

Pictures of the Day

2011-10-20T08:11:00.002-04:00

the world seems to be on fire today . . .

A Blast From The Past . . . God Drove A 1965 Mustang

2011-10-19T11:51:00.000-04:00

so this is the only story i have ever had published - it's really old, and i'm still happy with it, even though i wrote it when i was 20 years old, which is so many many years ago - it was published in The Greensboro Review (number 40, Summer 1986) and i suppose if i tried much much harder, i could get another story published, or my book published (but my agent is working on that), but how much harder can i try? i mean, really . . .

God Drove A 1965 Mustang

    God drove a 1965 Mustang...I was sure of it. His hair was almost black, almost blue-black like the car and it flew wildly as he drove. The first time I saw him I was walking to school and the flash of his sunglasses in the sun made me melt. After school I stopped at Henry’s for a Coke. I was sitting with Bernadette by the window and God drove in the Exxon across the street. Bernadette was talking about her Pop and how he wanted her to go to beauty school or something when we graduated next spring. I was watching God. I kept wishing he’d get out of the car so I could see how tall he was. Bernadette got awful mad at me cause I wasn’t listening, but I pointed to God and she about died. “What a fab car,” she said. Yeah, what a fab car.

    You know when you’ve got an infatuation and you’re looking all over for the guy, but you don’t see him? You forget what he really looks like...he’s just pieces in your head like those crazy Picasso paintings, some sunglasses, some hair, a fire-bright flashing chrome bumper. Well, I kept expecting God to appear at school or at least his car in the parking lot, but he was nowhere.

    Every Friday night Bernadette and I used to go to the movies. It didn’t matter what movie it was, we just went to see who was there. You couldn’t even hear the movie for all the yelling. We always sat in the very back row so no one could spit in our hair or snap our bra straps. Well, on this night, Mr. Bronson, the manager of the theater, got really mad and turned off the movie. All of a sudden it was dark except for the red exit signs and the one thin white line of light that comes through the crack of the swinging doors and travels down the aisle. We thought the movie broke, so we were yelling at Mr. Bronson to fix it, and three minutes later the swinging doors opened, and Mr. Bronson was standing there all black and square like Frankenstein. He told everyone to shut up and you know what? You couldn’t hear popcorn crunching. “I’m going to shut all you brats here and let you all kill each other.” “Hey, man! Don’t oppress us.” It was God. He was all white in the light. I didn’t know what he was saying, but it sounded good.

    “What’s your name, boy?” Bronson asked.
    “I ain’t got a name.”
    “Don’t play games with me, son.” Bronson wasn’t breaking, but God just turned and walked out the exit door. Bernadette grabbed my arm. “What a fab guy,” she said. I didn’t say anything, I was numb.

    We all left and headed for Henry’s. Bernadette parked her car and asked me if I wanted a cigarette. I lit it and we went around the front of the diner. At the door I knelt down to fix my sock. I turned my head and saw the silver hubcap, the symbol of the Mustang’s stretched stride in flashing light. In it I saw my face reflected and all screwed up. The car was ticking with heat. I stood up and looked at the car, every inch of it. He was there, he was at Henry’s the same time as me.

    Bernadette and I took a booth by the door. The diner was smoky and green white with flourescent light. There was talk, loud mottled voices all about the movies and a rebel. While Bernie was ordering a Coke, I spotted God, sitting in a booth alone in the back. He was staring out the window. His face reflected bright in the blue lit window full of stars and headlights off the highway. He was thinking hard.

    “Bernadette, don’t look but he’s in the back.”
    “Smile at him,” she said, intent on her cigarette. God, she’s stupid sometimes.
    “Shut up, Bernie! That isn’t the way to do this.” But I looked over at him by accident and he looked back. We didn’t smile, just electrified each other...or at least me.

    Then Sam and Ely had to come and throw themselves into our booth. Bernie liked Sam, but I thought he was a real jerk. And Ely, he always wore the same plaid shirt and told me how pretty I looked. His nose was stuffed up that night and it made him uglier. Bernie would say, “Be nice to him, Marina, he’s Sam’s friend.” I would say didn’t that tell her what a jerk Sam was? But she was blinded by love and the fluorescent lights off of Sam’s greased hair.

    Sam and Bernie were giggling and talking with their faces real close. I sank down, I didn’t want God to see me with this nerd Ely. I tried to get my mind off it and looked at Bernie’s pink dress. It was tight and the material was sort of old and nubby, she looked fat in it. The dress was falling off one shoulder and I kept thinking she should pull it up or let her red hair hang down over it.. “You have hair like Elizabeth Taylor,” Ely said. He’d moved closer to me when I wasn’t looking. I told him his nose was running. He turned white and ran all spindly legged with his face down, out the door. Boy, was Bernie mad cause Sam followed Ely. “Sometimes Marina I...I...hate you!” Then she left, I saw her catch up to Sam outside. He put his arm around her and they disappeared among the cars and darkness.

    I looked at God, he’d finished his Coke and was getting up to leave. I decided to finish my cigarette and walk home. “Where’d your friends go?” Geez! He was talking to me.

    “Oh, I don’t know, they all got mad about something and took off. Now I’ve got to walk home.” Honestly, I didn’t mean that as a hint.

    “Wanna go look at the universe?” he asked. I almost died, right there.

    He opened the car door for me without a word and I got in. The interior was black and leather and clean. God right in and started the car. I threw my head back and closed my eyes, all I could see was him. Tall and lean, he wore tattered, almost white blue jeans and a black t-shirt. His black hair hung straight and shiny into a sharp bony face with quick eyes, almost like a bird.

    “What’s your name, girl?” he asked.
    “Marina,” I said.
    “That French?”
    “Yeah,” I said. His face suddenly go dark as we moved out away from the neon of Henry’s sign. “My name’s Gunther, call me Gun if you care to.”

    “How come I’ve never seen you at school, Gun?” We drove out in the flat fields and the wind flipped our hair about as to almost pull it out. I felt a rushing in my body all hot, all cold. Gunther-Gun-God. What a fab name. “I don’t go to school, I’m a poet. I’m here to learn.”

    “Learn what? There ain’t anything to learn around here,” I said.
    “Yeah there is. There’s the corn and sky and the diner,” he said.
    “Where do you live?”
    “Nowhere, I guess. In my car.” I had a hard time believing that, it seemed too clean. I felt I’d found something in my mother’s drawer that I wasn’t supposed to. We kept silent and Gun pulled off the road onto the edge of a cornfield. The corn was high and spoke when the wind asked it to. Gun closed his eyes and took my hand. “Marina, water, harbor, fish. You make me think of the beach with a name like that.” I didn’t say anything. I just looked at the purple night. The universe, bigger than any of us, bigger that our town. It was all lit up with fiery stars like a bunch of hubcaps. “Where have you been?”

    “Lotsa places, girl. The last place I was in was Coney Island. At least it was the last place I stayed for more than a week. I ran the Ferris wheel. Carrying souls round and round, high and low. I used to stop it and hold people transfixed in states of high or low. Then I got sick of controlling lives and came here to see the flatness.”
    “How long are you going to stay?” I wished forever.
    “I’m splitting tomorrow. Gotta find me something new.” I felt something fall from the top of my body to the bottom. But he leaned over and wrapped his arms around me and made me fell like I’d touched something for a while that nobody ever had. We sat there till the sun was striping the sky, watching the universe move.

    When Gun dropped me off I stood in the road and watched him turn into nothing but a black pinpoint with flashing red taillights. I turned and I saw my Pop standing at the screen door. All blue in the face, he screamed that I wasn’t going to anymore Friday night movies. I told him, “Don’t oppress me.” I didn’t know what it meant, but it sure did make him shut up.

Ode To Ogden Nash - Persimmons

2011-10-18T17:16:00.000-04:00

i have one persimmon tree
but persimmons don't appeal to me
you may have them all my dear
too bad you're far and not so near!

for Anne Corio, October 18, 2011

Of Riding on the Road and Ashford & Simpson Redux - a reading for The Mane Event, a fundraiser for The N.C. Therapeutic Riding Center

2011-10-15T09:10:00.003-04:00

Before I read you a story, I have a confession to make - I’m not a volunteer, I’m a thief and I steal joy.

I am a vagabond, and the people, horses and riders of The N.C. Therapeutic Riding Center are the sultans.

Oh I’ve got everyone fooled into thinking that I give my time to people less fortunate than myself, but just the opposite is true.

The trick is in the continuous feedback loop of healing and joy that exchanges between us and the riders as we work - a centrifugal force that holds us together and a valuable currency that I fill my pockets with every time I leave the farm.

I should be ashamed, but I’m not.

Right from under their noses I steal patience, peace of mind, inspiration and perspective in an ever changing and confusing world. I feel so privileged to work with NCTRC - it’s more than my Happy Place, it’s my Nirvana Place.

When I was a kid, any time I fell off my pony I was told, “it’s a long way from yer heart” in other words, “Yer not dead, get back on the pony” - as though the heart were this mystical temple that could never be breached, never be violated by mere bumps, bruises, and broken bones.

NCTRC is a testament to the distance of the impenetrable heart .

We can ride, no matter what . . . and that is the key to life, isn’t it?

That’s finally off my chest . . .

Now I can read you a story, a story from my memoir My Mother Jumping. There are a few things you need to know about this story; my childhood was largely unsupervised. I was raised by horses and my grandparents, while my mother pursued a career in horse racing. One of the characters in the story is Nick Ashford of the R & B husband and wife duo Ashford and Simpson, who wrote hit songs for the likes of Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye. Mr. Ashford recently passed away following a long battle with throat cancer. He was not only a marvelous musician, but he was a kind philanthropist who supported struggling inner city children. Tonight, I dedicate this story to him and all those who work to make the world a slightly better place.

I used to ride my pony from my home on Bayberry Lane to get to the Fairfield County Hunt Club. It was something I did from the time I was six until I was eighteen. The Hunt Club was where many of my friends rode and it offered me horse shows, a polo field to gallop around, an indoor ring to school over jumps during the winter time, and access to miles of trails.

I didn't ride the road every day. I could ride my neighbor's property -- approximately 100 acres of woods and open fields, but the Hunt Club was the hub of riding activity and like my mother before me, I rode the road to get there. The trip by horse didn't take long, probably 20 minutes to cover three-quarters of a mile and I had to negotiate a busy intersection, that of Long Lots Road, Bayberry Lane, and Maple Avenue. Of course, my pony had to deal sanely with the road at all times -- he had to be fearless of school buses, trucks, bicycles, dogs, and Westport's then-form of public transportation The Mini Bus, a Mercedes bus who's diesel engine trilled loudly and spewed an acrid cloud of exhaust the color of coal.

People used to consider Connecticut The Country back then -- New Yorkers would move to Westport or keep a weekend house there and they called it their Country house. I think this still goes on up there -- this describing the area of western Connecticut as some sort of rural respite from the City, but last time I looked, it had transformed to something beyond suburban, despite the beaches and the emerald throngs of maple trees. Its no longer that idyllic location for Mr. Blanding's Dream House or Christmas In Connecticut. The thought of riding a horse down one of Westport's roads today only fills me with visions of disaster involving an oversized SUV blindly guided by a GPS. But back then, in the days of my childhood, most people in Connecticut knew what to do when they saw a horse and rider on the road -- slow down and give the horse some room.

I was a familiar sight on Bayberry-- I kept to the pavement, but once, once I was in a hurry and I took advantage of Mr. Kent's long beautiful sloping lawn to canter part of the way...my grandparents got a call that night, Mr. Kent said only one kid in the neighborhood could put that many divots in his yard. I was sent to Mr. Kent's house on my bicycle the next morning to apologize and promise that I wouldn't gallop my pony on his grass anymore.

On horse show days, I would ride to the Hunt Club just after sun up. My pony was turned out for the show with his braided mane, and I carried my supplies needed for the day in a bucket in one hand and the reins in the other. Sometimes in addition to the bucket, which had a brush or two, towels, and a hoof pick, I’d have a bag containing my show jacket and other necessary appointments for my classes. This made for a small feat, to get my gleaming pony down the road carrying all this. And of course, I was hopeful that at the end of the day I would return triumphant with a ribbon or two added to my load.

There was one bright afternoon I was riding down the road to meet a few friends for a trail ride and a Westport police car passed me. He put on the brakes, and quickly reversed. He swung the cruiser onto the shoulder of the road blocking me and my pony's path. The officer got out of the car and like all cops about to inform you of your trespass on the law, he straightened his hat and pants and cleared his throat. He was young, much younger than most of the policemen I knew. My family was great friends with many of the longtime Westport cops and being so young myself, I saw them all as Old Men, men of great authority and stature. I stopped my pony and said hello to the officer. He squinted and squared his shoulders, "How old are you?" he asked me.

"I'm ten, ten years old. Sir."

"And what's your name?" He had his ticket pad in his hand and he began to write something down.

"Shannon."

"Shannon what?"

"Shannon Woolfe. Sir."

"Miss Woolfe, do you know that horses are not allowed on the streets?"

"No sir. I've been riding on the road for a long time now. And my grandfather rides his polo pony on this road too. And...and..." Never talk too much to cops, it only annoys them.

"But its against the law,” he said, “Horses don't belong on the road. Just not safe, you know."

"Oh..." I was confused and my face felt all hot...I wanted to cry, but at the same time, something told me he was wrong. He kept jotting things down on his ticket book. I thought, gosh, he's going to give me a ticket!

"Miss Woolfe, where do you live?"

I turned in the saddle and pointed back up the road, "51...51 Bayberry Lane. I live there with my grandparents, Tom and Mabel Glynn."

"Miss Woolfe, I want you to turn your pony back around and go home. And I don't want to see you out on this road again."

"Yessir." I was near tears, but I did as he told me. He followed us, my pony and me, up the road with his car. We must have looked like a very short parade. He chided me once again when I turned into our driveway, "Remember, I don't want to see you and your horse out on this road again." And then he drove off.

I trotted up to the house and called for Pop. Out he came and asked me why I was back so soon? Why wasn't I riding with my friends? I told him about the policeman sending me home and Pop got all red-in-the-face-mad, "Jesus Christ...what the hell is going on around here? Listen, go for your ride, I'll call Mac." Mr. MacLeanan was a Westport policeman from way back. He taught me how to swim and had even ridden horses with my mother when they were growing up.

Pop called Mac and Mac called the Chief, who then found out who was patrolling Bayberry Lane that afternoon. He was a rookie, a new hire, a City Boy. He had never seen someone riding a horse down a road and he just assumed it was against the law. The Chief apparently called him in and showed him a copy of the Connecticut Driver's Handbook that explicitly stated that a driver must yield to pedestrians of all kinds including horses and riders. I would see the young officer every once in a while after that. He would pass me on his patrol down Bayberry and oddly salute me, never looked at me, just held up this stiff white hand as he drove by.

I rarely had trouble riding on the road, sometimes people didn’t slow down enough or give me ample room, the same thing that bicyclists encounter. It was times like those that I was glad to have a road tough pony.

But there was one driver who was downright murderous.

I was riding home and hurrying to beat the sundown, it was a gray winter afternoon, the kind that makes Connecticut seem like the last place you want to be. The trees were black and bare and there were remnants of a snow storm on the edges of the road...gray snow, dirty snow, the way snow gets when its been beaten into submission by the salt trucks and that black exhaust that pours from the school bus and the Mini Bus and the weird neighbor's old Mercedes station wagon. I was riding my new pony named Snow Poppy, a bay mare I had received for Christmas just a month earlier. She was new to this road work, but she was getting the hang of it. She was extremely sensible and I was smitten with her.

We were only a couple of hundred yards from my driveway when I heard the roar of an engine behind us. I turned to see a white van lurch as though it was raising up on its hind legs while the driver stepped on the gas. It sped up the hill toward us, the headlights were ablaze and it was coming right for us. Poppy and I were in a bad place too...there was no shoulder, we were riding next to a high bank, with a wall of saplings covering its top and there was just no time to cross the road to take refuge in the Goldstein's driveway. So I did the only thing I could with so little time to save myself and Poppy. I made her stand as close to the bank as she could and she miraculously stood stock still for me and I threw my leg, the leg that was exposed to the road over her neck, so that I was now riding sidesaddle. The van catapulted by us at a terrible speed and its sides brushed Poppy's flanks and shoulders -- and the stirrup that I had left empty by taking my leg up and over Poppy’s withers, rang a terrible metallic song. I held my breath and Poppy held her breath and then as quickly as he came, like lightning striking, he was gone in a filthy white blur up the road. But I did get one thing off that truck as he squeezed Poppy and me into that bank on the side of the road, I got the big blue word SEARS tattooed into my brain.

Poppy could have panicked but she was as resolved as I was to get home after the SEARS man had tried to kill us. We trotted, clippity-clippity-clippity up the center line and in the gate for home, where I found my grandfather making hot mashes for our horses’ dinners. My story sent Pop running up the hill and into his car. He sped out the driveway and disappeared. I untacked Poppy and looked for some sign of injury on her -- nothing, not a hair out of place. The only evidence was a gash in the flap of my saddle, and it came over me like a terrible wave that my leg could have been ripped open the way my saddle had been.

Pop found the SEARS man at the liquor store up the road. He took him to task in the doorway and told the shopkeeper to call the police. The SEARS man was arrested and I suppose he lost his job. For years after that Pop fretted that the SEARS man would come back to the neighborhood for revenge, but he never did.

Sometime in the late seventies, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson of the legendary R&B team of Ashford & Simpson moved into a grand old house at the far end of Bayberry Lane. This caused a bit of a stir around town, of course, being that they were Black Celebrities. Westport was very accustomed to celebrities-- it’s proximity to New York City made it a quiet haven for CEOs, actors like Paul Newman, and internationally acclaimed writers and artists.
But they all tended to come in one color: white.
Old Westport wanted Westport to stay a certain way, a battle they would fortunately lose. There were fears the wonderful clapboard estate would be turned into some sort of a MoTown Den of Inequity.
But Ashford and his wife lovingly restored the home to it’s 1920s grandeur.
Ironically, when they sold the home 20 years later, the house was demolished by a young couple, who made millions on selling children’s educational puzzles, to make room for a glitzy forty thousand square foot mansion, now the largest home in Fairfield county.
Not long after he moved in, our new neighbor drove by me and my pony on the road. I always turned round when I heard a car coming from behind and on this day, my young heart skipped a beat when I saw this spectacular car rolling toward me.
It was a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, a fantastic looking car, like nothing I had ever seen before, and it slowed way way down as it went over to the other side of the road to go around me. The window rolled down and there he was at the wheel of his shining ship, this gorgeous black man smiling this starry smile at me and wearing a deep purple velvet suit. He waved his lovely dark hand at me and I knew who he was, he was Nick Ashford! It would be like that for a couple of years...he would drive by and smile that smile and sometimes She would be with him, Ms. Simpson, and she radiated this unbelievable warmth as they glided by me in that car. No wonder they could write songs like Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and You’re All I Need To Get By! They seemed to emanate waves of Love everywhere they went.

Finally one day, he stopped and I stopped my pony and leaned over to see Mr. Ashford beaming at me from the helm of his magical car. And then he spoke - "I just want to tell you how happy I feel when I see you riding that beautiful horse. It reminds me of my childhood in South Carolina and it makes my day every time I see you."

"Thank you Mr. Ashford!" I answered. I wanted to tell him how it made my day every time he drove by me in his Silver Cloud. But I couldn't get the words out.

And then he drove off, and I felt like some must feel after they have been blessed by the Pope or have knelt in front of the Dali Lama. And I hummed “Ain’t no mountain high enough...” all the way down the road.

Never Forget Where You Came From . . . A Song From Our Founder

2011-10-05T20:37:00.000-04:00

Kid Stewed With Potatoes

2011-09-30T17:43:00.003-04:00

No, I'm not recommending you eat your children - although I hear they can be tasty. An unexpected gift of goat meat today sent me to my cookbook collection to find recipes, and well, I couldn't resist sharing this one with you. With a name like this, it's just got to be fabulous.

Kid Stewed With Potatoes
from My Bombay Kitchen, Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking
by Niloufer Ichaporia King

Kid papeta ma gos is a dish for festive occasions like weddings; meat braised with fried potatoes is enriched and thickened with milk from a cow or a coconut. This is a dish to convert people who think Indian food is not for them. It proves that "spiciness" has little to do with how hot something turns out. It is truly meat and potatoes in excelsis. The method is essentially the same as for a simpler braised meat, kharu gos (see above). Accompany this with a bright green vegetable. Serves 6 to 8.

1 1/2 to 2 pounds well-trimmed cubed shoulder or leg of kid; or lamb, stewing veal, or boneless chicken thigh meat; or 4 to 6 lamb shanks, sawn in halves or thirds
2 teaspoons Ginger-Garlic Paste (see below)
6 tablespoons ghee
6 to 8 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered lengthwise
2 to 3 dried red chiles
2 (2-inch-long) sticks cinnamon or cassia
4 cardamom pods
4 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 large onion, finely chopped or sliced
4 to 5 cups rich milk, half-and-half, or coconut milk
1 teaspoon (or more) salt
Sprigs or whole leaves of fresh coriander (cilantro), for garnish

Rub the meat with the paste and let it sit for at least half an hour.
Heat half the ghee in a heavy skillet or pan or medium-high heat. Fry the potatoes until they get a golden skin. Remove them from the pan and set aside. In a Dutch oven, heat the remaining ghee. Sizzle the chiles, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and cumin seeds for a minute before quickly the adding the onion. Lower the heat and let the onion soften and begin to brown for a few minutes. Add the meat, tossing it constantly so that it colors without burning or sticking to the pan. Add splashes of water as necessary to keep things from sticking.
Pour. in enough milk to come up to the top of the meat without flooding it. Add about 1 teaspoon salt for a start. Bring the liquid to a boil; lower the heat, cover, and let the meat simmer gently until it's tender but not in shreds, which will take at least 45 minutes for kid or lamb, an hour for veal, and less than half an hour for chicken. Lamb shanks will take about 1 1/2 hours. Halfway through the cooking, add the fried potatoes. the milk will cook down into a thick, curdy gravy. If you want a smooth sauce, remove the whole cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves before giving the cooking liquid a few pulses in a blender or food processor, then return it to the pan.
Serve garnished with the fresh coriander.

Ginger-Garlic Paste
Every Parsi household must have its supply of this paste. In households where there is a grinding stone and a person to do the work, it is prepared every morning, along with the other pastes needed for the day's menus. the preparation of pastes is now more often done in an electric wet-dry grinder, which can almost duplicate the smooth texture produced on a stone. Fortunately, Ginger Garlic Paste can also be easily prepared in a food processor. It keeps well for up to two weeks refrigerated, and even longer in the freezer. Or if you're in a rush, you can combine equal quantities of very finely chopped or grated peeled fresh ginger and garlic, just as much as you need for the recipe. Makes about 1 cup.

About 1/2 cup roughly chopped peeled fresh ginger (about 4 ounces)
About 1/2 cup roughly chopped peeled cloves garlic
About 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
Vegetable Oil

In a wet-dry grinder or food processor, grind the ginger and garlic to a smooth paste, using as little water as possible. Add the salt if you plan on storing the paste. Pack it into a small, tightly covered jar with a nonreactive lining to the lid. Pour a thin film of oil on top of the paste. Store in the refrigerator.

Note: Ginger-garlic paste is now commercially available, both in India and in the United States. It's a good idea to look at the ingredients before you buy any. I like Poojiaji's for emergencies because it is preserved with small amounts of vinegar and salt rather than additives with a metallic aftertaste. Of course, nothing is as good as a paste ground at home.

Tiger Matches

2011-09-30T15:06:00.002-04:00

She left the box of matches by his bed. It was absent minded to leave such a thing behind. Because she liked the little box. She had purchased it in Bombay, and when she used up all the yellow headed matches, she refilled the box with red headed ones, the kind you get in the grocery store, 100 for fifty cents. The red headed smelled different from the Bombay matches, which smelled almost of burning metal. Perhaps the Bombay matches were made of lethal chemicals.
But as she walked home in the five a.m. rain, she cursed herself. The tiger had been a good talisman . . . he was a regal soul, who ever painted him was thrifty with stripes, and often, she wondered, why save the stripes? A tiger with such a Roman nose and extra long tail certainly deserves a few more stripes. What he lacked in stripes he made up for with a jeweled collar - rubies stolen from a prince in Kashmir she told herself. The prince foolishly rode his father's horse into the jungle one night - he was a brooding prince and why? Because he missed the elephant and why did he miss the elephant? Nobody would know, because the tiger met the prince and sat back on his haunches and held up his paw and made the most terrible face with all of his yellow teeth bared and this frightened the king's horse so terribly that he whirled and ran, but the foolish and brooding prince was unable to stay in the saddle and he came down like a stone in the path to face the tiger. The tiger was surprised by his good fortune to have such a cowardly horse present him with a prince wearing so many rubies. The rubies were sewn into the boy's saffron vest. The tiger quickly ate the boy and carried the vest back to his lair where he asked his good friend, spider monkey, to fashion him a collar of the burnished silk and the rubies.
She stopped in the diner before going home and ordered a pot of tea. "You want something with that honey? A bagel?"
"No thank you, just the tea please."
Her phone rang. She fished in her evening bag and found the phone glowing blue and singing at the bottom, next to the lipstick she decided was too wine colored for her complexion and a five dollar bill, "Hello?"
"You left a little box here, it has a tiger on it."
"Yes, I know."
"Do you want me to bring it over?"
"No, you keep it."
"Oh . . . I thought."
"I know what you thought. I simply forgot it. Nothing to it."
"So . . . "
"So give it to her, when she gets home."
"Her?"
"Your wife."
"But . . . "
She turned off the phone and put it back in the bag. The waitress came with the tea. "You want cream and sugar?"
"No thank you. Say . . . " She reached into her eveing bag again and produced the lipstick, "I think this color would look fabulous on you." The waitress took the silver tube and opened it.
"Ruby red? Are you sure? Looks expensive."
"It is. It's just right for you."
"Thanks honey. No charge for the tea. It's on me."

When You Wash The Rice . . .

2011-09-30T14:02:00.000-04:00

When you wash the rice, wash the rice; when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots; when you stir the soup, stir the soup.

Joseph Conrad says . . .

2011-09-30T13:13:00.001-04:00

I need not tell you what it is to be knocking about in an open boat. I remember nights and days of calm, when we pulled, we pulled, and the boat seemed to stand still, as if bewitched within the circle of the sea horizon. I remember the heat, the deluge of rain-squalls that kept us baling for dear life (but filled our water cask), and I remember sixteen hours on end with a mouth dry as cinder and a steering oar over the stern to keep my first command head on to a breaking sea. I did not know how good a man I was till then. I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back anymore--the feeling that will never come back anymore--the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon, too soon--before life itself.

And this is how I see the East. I have seen its secret places and have looked into its very soul; but now I see it always from a small boat, a high outline of mountains, blue and afar in the morning; like faint mist at noon; a jagged wall of purple at sunset. I have the feel of the oar in my hand, the vision of a scorching blue sea in my eyes. And I see a bay, a wide bay, smooth as glass and polished like ice, shimmering in the dark. A red light burns far off upon the gloom of the land, and the night is soft and warm. We drag at the oars with aching arms, and suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odors blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night--the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.

from Joseph Conrad's story YOUTH (1898)

From The Department of Living Vicariously

2011-09-29T13:21:00.002-04:00

Imagine you couldn’t eat. That the only way your body could get it’s daily nutrition was through a tube connected to your stomach through your belly. And you live your days in a wheel chair because of a head injury you received many years ago. But you’re vibrant despite the injury. You still make jokes and you’re still interested in the world around you. And you used to like to cook. But you live in a group home now, with other men who by the misfortune of gravity or summer’s heat or a stroke or a drug overdose have to depend on a staff of many to get through every day. You got through Vietnam, you had a family, but gravity caught up with you one day while working on the side of a highway, and now you make the best of a rotten deal.

So how do you still enjoy food if you can’t have it anymore? Easy - you ask other people what they are eating.

So every Thursday, after I assist with Mario’s hippotherapy class, R. arrives. And he’s a chatter box, we all have to resist his questions while helping him up on his horse and into the saddle. We have to be quiet to get the ride underway.
R. is allowed to ask us questions when we halt. But once we are walking, he has to be quiet. Ask R. how he feels on the horse today and he answers very honestly, “Like a wishbone!” R. is stiff from sitting in a wheel chair all the time and getting his legs around a western saddle on a 15.3 hand horse is a big undertaking. And there’s the fear that he fights - he's courageous to let us put him up on a horse, really. We get him to breathe, to loosen his legs, to meditate on the movement of the horse as we go around the ring. And then we halt and the questions start, R. asks the same questions every week, “Did you cook last night?” If the answer is yes, “Wad you cook?” Today I told him I grilled steaks and made a Waldorf salad with two kinds of apple to go with the meat.
R. didn’t care about the salad, but he wanted to know all about the steak, “Did you baste it? In butter?”

“No, I marinated it.”

“Wad you marinate it in?”

“Terriyaki”

“How long did you cook it?”

“Not long, my husband likes his steak bloody rare.”

Later in the session, R. stands in the stirrups while walking for a long period of time. This is a big success, a physical triumph. When he sits back down in the saddle, he asks, “Wad do I get?”

Mary Beth jokes, “Maybe we can push a cookie through that tube . . . ”

“Make it Oatmeal Raisin” says R.

But then Mary Beth thinks and changes her mind, “Hmmm, R. that might not be a good idea though, the cookie might clog up the tube.”

R. is not faised. The thought of cookies bring on more questions, he looks at Mary Beth, “Wads your favorite cookie?”

“Chocolate Chip.”

Then he looks at me, “Wads your favorite cookie?”

“Oh Chocolate Chip. Definitely.”

Then he looks at Alecia, his side walker, “Wad your favorite cookie?”

“Chocolate Chip!”

R. pets his horse and says, “Wad about Fig Newtons?”

Mary Beth doesn’t like Fig Newtons, and I admit I’ll eat Fig Newtons if they are around. There’s some flutter about Oreos - Mary Beth doesn’t like those either, and I say Hydrox are better than Oreos, cause they aren’t as sugary.

A couple of weeks ago R. asked me what I cooked for dinner the night before, I told him Salmon. He told me to put lots of butter on it.

Pigs & Halos

2011-09-27T20:01:00.000-04:00

So today, I'm sitting at the light on Highway 57 and instead of watching for the light to turn, I look up and I see a double halo of contrails round a traveling thunderhead and, well, that was the thing that cured me of my latest sadness . . .

and then, I was filling up the truck with gas and while I'm leaning on the truck watching the black men talk at the end of the day in their blue work shirts, I see the pig truck coming pretty fast up 86 and it hits that right-hand bending turn onto 70 going maybe a little too fast and I see all the pink sides of the pigs in the trailer suddenly press up against the round cutouts in the steel of the truck, they press so hard with the g-force of the turn that their skin bulges through the openings and I swear I could see their long white hairs and they all squealed - yes they squealed, loud, and so loud that everyone at the gas station turned and went quiet and we listened to the pigs holler round the corner and for that instant, I think we all swore off ham and bacon, but the pig truck straightened out and the pigs fell away from the sides of the truck and all that remained of them was that piggy smell, an invisible cloud of pig shit stench, and some diesel exhaust went from black to grey to a white mist that mixed with the faded contrail halo and everyone went back to what they were doing before the pigs made their brief presence known.

Sometimes . . .

2011-09-26T01:34:00.002-04:00

i feel like i'm just chasing my tail . . .

Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe

2011-09-25T20:12:00.000-04:00

If you live near Chapel Hill, or if you are planning to visit the area, don't miss this wonderful Indian restaurant. I took my husband out for his birthday dinner to Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe last night and we swooned over the samosas and ooooed and ahhhed over the tandoori chicken as we sat under the misty sky and little lights stitched into the crooked garden trees of the old abandoned courtyard hidden away from the confused airs of UNC's dilapidated Franklin Street. A boy played Spanish guitar and the rain waited for us to finish our lovely supper. Vimala's is the hope of Chapel Hill's food scene - she supports Food For All and her kitchen just oozes with calm confidence and breathtaking meals. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Red Lights and Old Ladies

2011-09-25T18:39:00.008-04:00

Most of the time, you're sitting at a red light and nothing happens, it turns green and you go on your way. But sometimes, things happen . . .

I was making my way home the other day and found myself sitting at the head of the line at the big, busy intersection of highway 70 and highway 86, just north of downtown Hillsborough. My mind was making a small grocery list, it was noontime, and there was a lot of things I had to do after lunch. But all that was swept from my mind when the light turned green.

I hesitated to take my foot off the break and hit the gas, because I noticed two big black guys jump out of the tow truck they were riding in - they were stopped behind a small silver sedan headed north on 70, I was headed south on 86. I watched the men as they chased the little car that was rolling through the intersection against the red light it had just been given. It wasn't being driven, it was rolling. And it's driver was slumped over the wheel. This realization filled me with all sorts of questions and horror. I watched as one of the men bravely stood in the intersection and put up his hands to stop any traffic from proceeding. His cohort ran after the car now gliding along at a good clip, maybe ten or fifteen miles an hour. I held my breath as he reached the driver side door and tried to open it, it was locked. He ran along side and pounded on the window. Was the driver dead? The car held a straight line. Cars were coming from all directions completely unaware of the little runaway car. What would happen next? It was terrifying to watch.

Horns began to blow. The people behind me were furious at me. Why wasn't I going? The third man in the tow truck, the one at the wheel now positioned the truck in the intersection to aid his friend who was trying to stop traffic. More horns blew. I turned just in time to see the little sedan jerk to one side and enter the parking lot on the right of 86 - the driver was conscious! The thumping fists of the man running along side raised her from her dreams.

I drove through the intersection and swerved into the parking lot. The three black men from the tow truck were running to the little car. I rolled down my window and called to them, "Is she okay? Shall I call 911?"
"We don't know, please come talk to her!" They needed a woman to help them now. I stopped my truck and jumped out. "She's confused, will you talk to her?" I went to the passenger window of the car which was rolled half way down. There at the wheel sat a portly elderly woman huffing and puffing. I would come to find out her name was Mary Alice and she was 80 years old.
"M'am, are you alright? Do you need us to call an ambulance?" I asked her, and then I looked at the men, they were all out of breath too. We were in shock. And the traffic out on the road behaved as though nothing had occurred.
"I'm wide awake now, wide awake. I haven't had anything to eat." She gripped the steering wheel hard with both hands.
"She's got Ohio plates, did she come all the way from Ohio all by herself?" asked the youngest of the three men, tall and built right, like a quarterback.
"M'am? Are you traveling? From Ohio?"
"No, no, I'm from Mebane. I was coming from the hospital."
"The hospital?"
"Yes," she took another deep breath, "I haven't had anything to eat. I had an MRI."
"Were you on the highway? On 40?"
"Yes, and I didn't feel well so I got off and heeeere I am. I must have fallen asleep. But I'm awake now, thank you, thanks to all of you. I will just drive home now." She started up the little car. I looked at the men and we all shook our heads in agreement.
"M'am, there's a hamburger place right here, we want to buy you some food, it's not safe for you to keep going with no food." We all leaned closer to the car, ready to stop it if she tried to drive away. "Please," I pleaded with her, "stay here with us and have some lunch. We want to make sure you're okay."
"Oh, that's alright, you all go on, I'll be okay." She continued to grip the steering wheel and the older man, the man who had been driving the tow truck insisted she park the car and let us buy her some food. She gave in and we pooled our money. The small man, the one who had chased her car and thought so quickly to bang on her windows would order her food. She swung the car around and parked it next to the Highway 70 Burger Grill. The red neon light buzzed over the sound of the sun and the panic that still rested in our guts. The older man asked her what she wanted to eat, "What can we get you?" She sat back in her car seat now, color was returning to her cheeks, she undid her seat belt, "Just a soda and some potato chips," she answered. He looked at me and I tried to get her to have more, "What about something hot? A hamburger?" And suddenly I felt like my grandmother, who's answer to any ailment was a hamburger - bad day at school? Have a hamburger. Fall off your pony? Have a hamburger. Sad because of a pimple? Have a hamburger. Mary Alice decided on French Fries and a Diet Coke. We wanted her to eat more, but we had gotten her this far, and at least I could ask her questions. I began firing questions at her, my phone still in my hand ready to call 911. "So you were in the hospital?"
"Yes, had an MRI this morning at 7:30. Been up since 5:30. I couldn't eat. They won't let you eat, you know. I had to drink that stuff, a big big cup of it . . . "
"Barium - they made you drink barium. I know about that. It's awful stuff. Makes yer insides glow."
"Is that what it does? Gracious. Haven't had anything to eat since last night."
"And they let you leave? Without eating?"
"I'll never do that again. Next time I'll have my neighbor drive me."
"So yer from Ohio?"
"Oh yes. My sons still live there." And then she confided in me, or at least lowered her voice in that confiding sorta way, "The car belongs to my sons. That's why it's got Ohio plates. They bought me the car. They told me, "Ma, we want you to have a nice car. But don't get into any trouble or we'll have to take it away. If they found out about this they'd ground me for sure. Oh boy, I learned my lesson."
"So you were on i40 coming from the hospital?" I repeated questions, I wanted to make sure she was telling me the truth. She was and she was clear as a bell. I put my phone in my pocket and began to relax. The tall young guy walked over, "So she's not from Ohio?" I explained she lived here, but she used to live in Ohio and she piped up, "I'm eighty years old. I used to live in Ohio, near the Pennsylvania boarder, near Erie, Pennsylvania. I came down here for a visit with a friend and I liked it so much I stayed."

"I was just up there M'am. Near Erie and round the woods in Ohio." The young man brightened up, "I was up there with my hounds. I hunt coon dogs. We went up there for a trial. Took 77, do you drive 77?"
"Oh my sons drive me now, when I go for long trips like that. They won't let me visit without coming to get me. One of my sons is a truck driver."

The young man looked at me, "Hey, don't you ride horses?" I was completely surprised. Although I was wearing my paddock boots, but, how did he know?

"Yes, yes I ride."
"Weren't you with that man who's horse fell out of the trailer?"
"Um, what? No, gosh, no. " I had visions of another disaster on the road.
"But I know I've seen you riding your horse. Up there on Schley?"
"Well, yeah. But how?"
"I helped bale some hay up there, maybe you rode by?"
"I guess I did. That must be it." The french fries and the soda came and I wanted to ask the young man about his coon dogs, but we all sat there and watched Mary Alice drink her soda and eat her fries - she belonged to us in that moment, she didn't know it, but she did, and we weren't putting her back on the road until she ate the food we got her. The old man took me aside, "Shouldn't we call her family?"
"She said they'll take her car away. I don't want to get her in trouble."
"Me neither, I think she's learned her lesson."
"M'am, will you give me your phone number so I can call you later? To make sure you got home alright?"
"Yes, that would okay."
She gave me her number and told me to let it ring several times. She started up the car and we watched her drive away. It was a risk perhaps, but who were we to keep her? Of course, questions ran through my head all afternoon - what was the MRI for? Was it related to her passing out at the wheel? Would she pass out again? I reassured myself that she passed out from hunger, not from something more serious. I thought about calling the hospital - how could they let her leave with no food? But again, I didn't want to get her in trouble. I didn't want to intrude into her life too much. Some might say it was my duty to intrude. I remember how hard it was to tell my grandfather not to drive on the highway anymore. He was 95 years old. The state of Connecticut renewed his driver's license when he was 93 - with an expiration date that carried him till he was 98, so they were no help in discouraging him from taking to the road. He promised me not to drive on the highway, only the secondary roads, which was risky enough. A week later I got a call from a friend who knew we had told Pop to stay off the highway, "Saw Tommy on I95 near Stamford today. He was going 35 in the right hand lane!" I called Pop that night, "Pop, I've got spies and you're busted! Stay off the highway." He cursed me, but he stayed off the highways. I didn't worry so much about him. I worried about him wiping out a family. And so I regretted not getting another number from Mary Alice, her sons' numbers, but she's only 80, I want to believe that she's too young to lose her right to drive, to lose her freedom. In this world of rules and laws, I didn't want to be the one to narc on her, I want to believe that she learned her lesson. Aren't old ladies entitled to a second chance? Isn't a woman who gave birth to three sons entitled to a secret? And yet there's a part of me that worries, I'm a worrier, it's my core really.
I called her number an hour later. She answered the phone, "If I sound funny young lady, it's because my mouth is full. I've been eating ever since I got home."
"I'm glad yer home Mary Alice."
"Me too. I am going to thank God for all of you in my prayers when I go to sleep tonight."
Many years ago I decided that when I reach the age that Mary Alice has reached, I will live somewhere that requires no car - Mexico perhaps, Argentina better yet - I will drive a pony and cart to town, or a motorcycle maybe, and last resort, a large tricycle with a basket for my groceries. I don't want to be old in America, especially old and alone, it's my greatest fear, because this country is so terribly mean to old people, terribly terribly mean.

Mixin' It Up

2011-09-21T09:18:00.001-04:00

Pit Bulls rule the genetic make-up of most dogs in our shelters now - potential adopters are told “This is a Lab mix, and this is a Beagle mix, and this is a Poodle mix.” The shelters never say, “This is a Pit Bull mix.” My Pansy with the magic foot, that’s the Basset in her, has pit in her, and it comes out every once in a while in a funny way; she loves to play rough and Boogie obliges, he's twice her size, but if he messes with her bad foot, she squeaks and then goes into a mini rage - but she always catches herself, right at the precipice, she never goes full nuclear, the Basset genes prevail. And she never goes there with Luna because Luna tried to kill her the first week she arrived - Luna went nuclear over a carrot! That's the Fox Hound raised with 80 other Fox Hounds part of Luna, it's not a pretty sight - but she keeps Pansy in check. Poor Boogie, he doesn't have a mean bone in him, he's the gentle giant.

Boogie and I were walking on Sunday afternoon, we have this great 4 mile route we do from our driveway onto a loop road that's mostly rural. Never had any encounters with loose dogs on the road until this walk - there was though, the winter’s day when the albino Pit Bull, that usually lives in a pen at the edge of a soybean plot and mournfully calls to us sometimes, dragged her little boy at the other end of her chain all the way to the street to greet us, it was a frightening sight, but tails were wagging as soon as she reached us, and the boy was unhurt, only embarrassed.

But on this road we pass a family compound that sits on the hill in a grove of mimosa and catalpa trees, right before you get to the 7 Mile Creek bridge - four neatly kept homes, two on each side of the street, all one black family. One of the homes has a Boxer, big beautiful fellow that usually barks at us from the living room window of one of the houses. Well, on Sunday, the driveway was full of cars, they were obviously having a supper gathering after church, and so the Boxer was out in the yard, loose and looking for trouble, and he came barreling out of the yard, hackles up, barking, and thank goodness I had a strong harness on Boogie, all 95 pounds of him, I put myself between Boog and the Boxer, and stomped my foot and hollered "GO HOME!" which means nothing to dogs these days, didn’t everyone used to teach their dogs GO HOME in the old days? But it sounded good at this moment, and you know what? It stopped the Boxer, but then he stood there weighing his options, and Boogie was like, "Mom, let me at 'im" and my good dog turned into guard dog.

So Boogie's barking, using his squirrel-treeing voice, it’s not a bark, it’s a singing, cause he’s really mostly Red Bone you know, no Pit Bull in him, and the Boxer starts trying to get around me to get to Boogie and I'm dancing between them yelling GO HOME over and over and over, while Boogie is singing “Wo Wo Wo” and all I'm thinking is don't let them touch each other, if they touch, the sparks will fly, and then the fight will begin. So Nobody comes out of the house, and I'm yelling at the Boxer and finally I stomp my foot at him so close to his front paws that he turns tail and retreats to the edge of his lawn. Now the old black folks across the street come out on their porch and then the grand kids come out, and you know they're thinking What's Wrong With That White Lady? Cause the Boxer is standing safely in his yard now, just wagging that stump of a tail of his. Finally the owner of the Boxer comes out on her porch and calls it inside, Get In Here and Don’t Mind That Crazy White Lady and good dog that the Boxer is, it runs straight in the house, which makes me say, “Thank You” very loud and nothing else, cause everyone is looking at me like I'm nuts - oh well. I don't think Boogie and I will walk by there on Sunday afternoons any more - Sunday morning when they're in are church will be just fine.

It's The Night Before The Blondie Concert Curry

2011-09-20T18:51:00.002-04:00

Yes, Wolfy will be fulfilling her lifelong musical dream tomorrow night - she's going to see Blondie in concert! But tonight she has to eat something delicious and have leftovers, so her husband has something to eat while Wolfy runs off to the big city to see Deborah Harry.

Okay, here it is, it's cooking now, I made it up, so don't give me a hard time if it doesn't work for you . . .

4 Chicken thighs, with skin, with bone, c'mon! This is Blondie Curry!
1 Medium Cauliflower, broken up into small florets
1 Onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
4 generous tablespoons olive oil or canola oil
a 1 inch piece of ginger minced
two garlic cloves minced
generous teaspoon onion seeds
generous teaspoon cumin seeds
generous teaspoon tumeric
generous teaspoon coriander
half teaspoon cayenne pepper
one minced green chili
sea salt to taste
one can coconut milk, full fat, you know, this is Punk Music!

Brown the chicken thighs in two tablespoons of the oil in a heavy-bottomed, high-sided skillet.
Remove the chicken and set aside. Pour off the excess fat or not, it's up to you.
Add two more generous tablespoons of oil (if you kept the fat, don't).
On a medium burner, add onion seeds and cumin seeds to the oil.
When the onion seeds start to pop (about a minute), add the onions.
Stir fry the onions til they soften, now add the chili, garlic and the ginger.
Stir fry another minute.
Add the tomatoes and the cauliflower.
Put the chicken thighs back in.
Stir fry two minutes.
Add the tumeric, coriander, cayenne, and salt.
Stir it up.
Shake up the can of coconut milk, open it and add to the curry mixture, bring it all to a simmer, turn down the heat, put a cover on it, leave a gap for steam, and keep simmering for 45 minutes, maybe an hour.

Serve with rice or warm pita bread or buttery couscous (see recipe in What's a Girl to Eat in Vermont Post of a few days ago).

Dreaming is free!

The Still, Small Voice, a Guest Post from T.S. Dogfish

2011-09-19T18:03:00.002-04:00

Today I feel lucky, because my dear friend, the well-traveled and somewhat MIA, T.S. Dogfish from Mad-Dog Manifesto,agreed to write a guest post for me - enjoy!

The Small, Still Voice

All my life I’ve been a failure at church. No doubt this is a personal failure: my mother did everything she could to instill the proper awe and piety in me. But somehow it never took. I was immune to The Awful Medieval Pageantry and Eternal Bubonic Lugubriousness of the Catholic Church. Though I’m now within a stone’s throw of fifty I can still vividly remember my first Mass. I was a wiggly toddler who would not settle down and behave in the pew. My Italian mother, not willing to risk damnation, reached over and took a hunk of thigh between the knuckle of her finger and her thumb and twisted it. Suddenly, in one of those confluence of events that often makes believers out of sinners, the voice of the priest boomed out of the ceiling speakers and I was horrified, convinced that since the voice was loud and coming from above, that it was God Himself and the shit was about to hit the fan. My eyes filled with tears and the throbbing mark on my thigh was like the Mark of Cain.

But it did not make me a believer.

I learned two things growing up Catholic: the most important lesson was the exact length of the Mass from beginning to Communion. This knowledge allowed me to gracefully attend church with my blameless mother without really attending church at all. I would split with her at the heavy wooden doors and tell her I was going to sit in the back with my friends. Mom would move up front, closer to the priest and – by prescription – closer to Gawd. Then I was free to go back out again, fool around in the woods with my friends, walk to the Greens Farm Bookstore or, when I was older, drive to the beach in order to smoke pot – then still be back in time to walk up the aisle for Communion.

The second thing I learned was less useful. Somewhere along the line I developed a dread fear of nuns. I still don’t know why: was it the fact that they were draped in those musty black horror show Medieval chadors? The fact that they seemed to glide along with no evidence of feet beneath their Suffer-For-Christ-hairshirt-dresses? The fact that they gave up all those things that make a woman womanly: romance, raising children, femininity? Flirtatiousness? Once upon a time I ran afoul of a spare, New England nun named Sister Pat – a more vicious bitch you will never meet, despite her devotion to the Baby Jeebus.

Years later I was loose and wandering beneath the colonnades of Bologna when I heard that strange, mournful and entirely nostalgic organ music coming from a corner church. In Italy there’s one at nearly every corner, sometimes across the street from each other, like dungeons or fortresses built in a time of dread and ecstasy. I don’t know what drew me to cross the street and approach the iron-bound oak doors – perhaps an inchoate desire to make amends with my long since deceased Mama. I pulled the door open, amazed at how smoothly this massive door glided on its hand-forged hinges the size of bucklers. The nave of the church was filled to capacity with every subspecies of nun known to man – every color and variety - like a congress of my worst nightmares. I let the door swing shut and worked hard at recovering my breath.

Europe is full of churches that fail to spark in me the proper feelings of Closeness to Deity, from the open and incense-haunted vaults of St. Peter’s to the bone-strewn crypts of the Church of the Capuchins, where the remains of one-time monks are disassembled and then reassembled into decorative rosettes and sun motifs in an attempt to impress on visitors the knowledge that mortality awaits us all. If you’ve got the wind and legs to climb to the cupola of the Duomo d’Santa Maria Fiore in Florence you can study the comic strip scenes of Final Judgement that include devils shoving poles up the assholes of sinners.

I’ve visited them all and felt nothing.

This is not simply a systemic and theological failure of the Catholics to reach me. When I turned eighteen I left home to attend college in the Deep South where, in contrast to the religiously taciturn New Englanders, everyone seemed to want to wear their religion on their sleeves. I was assailed by any number of enthusiastic evangelists who wanted to Save me before I burned. If I would just accept Jaysus as my Own Personal Savior, etc. But their theology left me cold and I felt no sense of the divine in their histrionic neo-pagan revivals . . .

I found the Devil everywhere I turned but the Essence of God was nowhere to be found.

At the end part of this past summer I found myself in Rome’s Fiumicino airport at a ghastly early morning hour. The airport was mostly empty but that did nothing for moving my tour group efficiently through the gates. There was the usual insouciance from the elegantly dressed Italian ladies behind the ticket counter. They weren’t prepared to begin work until five in the morning, but by five thirty they were shunting us off to the automated boarding pass dispensers over there. Charming and continental smiles; wafting away gestures.

But what of our luggage?

Yes, yes – no problem! Leave it here. The machine doesn’t work? Alora! Never mind. Boarding pass? Don’t worry. Why worry?

Well, because we’re flying into Munich, that’s why. The Germans are a fun-loving race who still become excited at the idea of airport security. You’ll never predict where the next all-of-a-sudden passport check will be. You’ll be patted down and questioned minutely. Later on that day the Frau at the Munich airport who checked out passports said, “Italians!” as an epithet. Her smile took us in as non-Mediterranean co-conspirators, "I don’t know if they’re stupid or just lazy!”

I had no actual worries until I crossed the thick and humid air of the runway tarmac to board the toy plane that would take us to Germany on the first leg of our journey home. From my approaching angle the plane looked ridiculously fragile. There’s such a leap of faith that these narrow aluminum tubes can hurtle through space and time and then put you down gently at your destination. But if we want to travel – and I do, desperately – we make these leaps of faith: bound up the gangway to greet the stewardess who looks cool and Nordically efficient. Give her a nod as you surreptitiously pat the outer shell of the plane in your pre-boarding fetish ritual. There! That’ll keep it from crashing.

Originally they had me seated next to a Hindoo gentleman and I braced myself for whatever alarmingly pungent meal he would be given. Curry would charge the air. But no, there was a mistake, Mein Herr. Would you please to move down this way. A seat in the back where I could overhear the chatter of the stewards and stewardesses .

There was the sudden increase in the whine of engines and various hydraulic mechanical moans. The plane lurches forward in a stutter step and then accelerates down the runway at a speed man was never meant to travel. Another series of lurches and the plane leaps up while your stomach stays down on the ground momentarily - before being snapped back up as if it were on the end of a long elastic band.

And within moments we are cruising along, the cabin filled with white noise. It is early in the morning and travelers begin to drop off. I look forward and back, scanning for my travelers – they’re already asleep. I settle in and await my in-flight meal, a peculiarly Central European curiosity: several diced up cubes of what appears to be liver-loaf atop a bed of some form of congealed potato mash. There is one small cherry tomato and the ubiquitous wedge of boiled egg.

This is the time on the flight that I call No-Time. Time and speed are curiously tangled together. At certain speeds, time loses its authoritarian hold on us. We exist in-between time and your mind alternates between surging thoughts and catatonia. Cloud tatters whip past your window; the steward drink trolley rolls up and down the aisle at an unhurried pace . . .

Der Kapitan informed us via speakerphone that we were over the Alps and soon to be passing over The Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak. He was speaking to deaf and sleeping ears but he had no way to know that. “Der Zugspitze is 2692 metres above sea-level and I will take us around it on the right side.” And the plane dipped accordingly as I rolled the shade back up to take a look.

For the first time in my life I felt myself open up to the divine. The air outside was what overly excited outdoor writers describe as “crystal clear”: the mountain peak that seemed just beneath our wing was so sharply focused that it seemed to pulse. Everything I’d ever read about glaciers was written on that singular mountain, right up to and including the vast saucer shaped cirque at the very peak where a chalet and four-wheel drive vehicles were clearly visible despite the fact that the valleys below were lost in the astigmatism of altitude. The delicate tracery of the car tracks were as visible as the veins in the wings of butterfly wings. Who had driven that vehicle to the summit, where snow still piled up along the jagged edges? Who was blessed enough to breath in that hard, cold, sharp air? Hanging valleys carved the sides of the peak and silver braided rivers curved and recurved down the sides until they fed into valley lakes that were sea foam green. Turning my head I could see the Alps roll away back south to the sea like a vast herd of gigantic, primitive fauna . . .

I turned again, looking up and down the aisles, hoping to share this moment with someone who was as moved as I was. Only one person in our travel group was still awake – he and I locked eyes and, from a distance, his eyebrows going up and down spoke volumes. This was The Mountain peak which holy men for eons have sought out to get closer to the Divine. This is where Moses went to speak to God; this was the Mountain that Allah moved to Mohammed. This was The Mountain that the Priest wanted Frederick Henry to find in A Farewell to Arms.
This was the mountain where Elijah seeking the Divine was told, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
12And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?”
The plane banked again and The Mountain pulled away as if it was leaving us. Below the plane, undifferentiated green hinted at detail that we were too high to make out clearly – but if I turned all the way around I could count the rivers that lovingly braided The Mountain like silver chains on a priestess. The plane banked once more and The Mountain was gone. I sat back in my seat knowing that I had been given a gift.

Home Economics

2011-09-19T12:08:00.043-04:00

My washing machine has been broken for three weeks. It all started with a small leak, an annoying trickle from the door. The appliance man found a pucker in the door gasket and said he would need to order a new gasket. He returned in a week and replaced the gasket. It looked funny. The new gasket. But I trusted the appliance man and didn’t question this new gasket with the odd shape. That was four weeks ago. The machine worked for a few days, but it began to leak again. This time from the bottom. I called the appliance man. He said he would come back. I continued to use the machine, because well, it was only a trickle. But then it flooded the basement, there was water everywhere. The man came and found a huge tear in the new fangled gasket, “Well there’s yer problem.” But it wasn’t the real problem. He ordered another gasket and called us, “They sent us the wrong gasket.” Yes, yes they did. Well the new, proper gasket was delivered to the appliance man last week. But you know what? He put his back out. He’s on bed rest for the next 14 days. A substitute man was supposed to come this morning. He never came. I called. “Oh, Miss Wooooolfffff . . . we are so sorry. You have been more than patient. We will be there tomorrow, not today, so sorry.” And so the laundry pile grows and grows, despite my going to the laundromat on Saturday where I sat and listened to that lonely house wife talk about how overwhelmed she was with all the clutter in her house - My husband says it’s time to throw away Mary Lynn’s stuffed animals, but each one is very special to her, they each have a name, she keeps them on a special shelf in her bedroom. He says he don’t understand, they just sit on that shelf, don’t they? But Mary Lynn says she talks to them at night - late at night while we’re sleeping. So he’s at home right now putting the summer clothes away and bringing out the sweaters and he says he’s going to throw some stuff away and I can’t look at the bags when I get home. I’m not allowed to look at the bags, cause I’ll pull stuff out, you know? Cause Mary Lynn’s pants might fit Dakota now, you know? I just get so I’m running around trying to put everything in it’s place, that’s what I do all day long, put things in their place, in their place, and so how can I throw it away if it’s got a place? I kept folding towels and remembering a laundromat I used to go to in Greensboro, where the man with the lazy eye carried your laundry basket for you, he wouldn’t let women carry laundry, said it was too heavy for us to carry. It infuriated me when he carried my laundry, I was a young strong girl. If I could carry my laundry up and down three flights of stairs in my apartment building, why couldn’t I carry it from my car into the laundromat? And now, I wish that man worked in the laundromat down the street, cause I would gladly let him carry my laundry, I mean, what if my washing machine never gets fixed? It’s a possibility you know . . .

Back in Junior High School, I had a Home Economics teacher named Mrs. King. She despised me. Really, she did. I tried very hard to make her happy - I cooked in her cooking class, I sewed in her sewing class, and I carefully cut out pictures of furniture in glossy magazines for her Interior Decorating class, but I was a failure in her view. The cooking class in 9th grade was the final blow. If my crooked pillows in sewing class hadn’t been enough proof that I would never measure up as a wife, then the cooking class sealed my fate - I would be a spinster for life, a starving spinster. The cooking class room was really kind of marvelous, it was a lab filled with mini kitchens, maybe five or six in a row, little galleys, very tidy and practical and workman like. I can’t imagine any public school having such a wonderful resource these days - who has time to cook in school now anyway, what with the end of the world coming. Mrs. King divided us in to groups for the semester. I was teamed with Tom and Rich, who were best friends and well, always stoned. Always. I was not very popular, not very cool, and to me, these two were about as cool as you could get. I had terrible crushes on both of them, but I never said two words when we cooked together, I was petrified. They were the class clowns, and because they were boys, King let them slide -- boys didn’t need to cook, why should boys cook? She probably fought vehemently for boys to be excluded from her Home Ec. classes, it wasn’t right to have boys sitting at sewing machines, it just wasn’t right. But then again, the girls took wood shop and metal shop - we were an Equal Opportunity Extravaganza.

Anyway, Tom and Rich came to every cooking class stoned. And there I’d be, doing most of the cooking, because I couldn’t fail cooking class, I was already failing Algebra and Chemistry, I wanted to get to high school somehow, so I would cook and they would tell jokes. If you think about it, this was the life lesson of Home Economics wasn’t it? Mrs. King would pace up and down, never saying a word until the end, when your recipe results was evaluated. All went pretty smoothly until the day when Tom and Rich actually wanted to help me cook. They came into class more baked than usual, perhaps someone’s big brother had gotten a shipment of Maui Wowie, and they insisted on doing the recipe. I cannot remember what it was we had to cook that day, but there were eggs involved and a mixer, perhaps it was a chocolate cake? God only knows, but whatever it was, it did not come close to being the thing that Mrs. King expected it to be at the end of the class and so there we were with this disaster on a plate and she pulled me aside and said, “You know, this is all your fault.” And I stuttered and tried to defend myself by saying Tom and Rick were cooking too, but she bore down on me with her mean blue eyes and finished me off for good, “You have an effect on people that makes them do everything wrong.” Tom and Rick were exonerated because I apparently had this cosmic power to make anyone within a few feet of me screw up. It wasn’t their screw up, it was mine, all mine. If Tom and Rick had heard her, I think one of them, at least, in their purple haze might have stood up for me, but she made certain they weren’t privy to her words. I had to take it like a woman, and I did, I swallowed her words silently like some awful medicine.

I can't remember a single thing I cooked in Mrs. King's class. I can't even remember the color of the crooked pillow I made in her sewing class. It wasn't until I went to work in Allan's Clam House that I began my culinary education. I watched the line cooks, all men, get through the Saturday night rushes behind a curtain of steam as I made salads and plates of clams on the half shell. I shucked oysters and cleaned soft shell crabs and mixed House Dressing just the way Wayne, the owner and head chef told me to. I sliced pies with a string and made hot fudge sundaes. I spent afternoons breading frogs legs in the way back of the kitchen with the sun pouring through the old windows. And when the frog legs were done, we made a vat of chocolate mouse and decanted it into small crystal desert dishes to be wrapped in cellophane and stacked in the pantry fridge. I washed pots and pans. I mopped the floors. And at the end of the night I smelled like everyone else in that kitchen - like a two day old fish wrapped in seaweed on a sandbar.

Can You Find This For Me?

2011-09-19T10:37:00.000-04:00

Anybody? This was my most favorite book in the world when I was little - I read it over and over and over and wished to be Lilibet. I no longer have the book and damn the internet, it can't seem to come up with a copy for me . . . I would steal this book if I could find one, because it's that much a part of my psyche.

I'm Lilibet, and I have lots of horses.
"They're not your horses," says Leo. "They belong to the circus."
"That doesn't matter," I say. They're mine anyway."
Sometimes I get awfully angry with Leo. But I play with him everyday.

La Piscine

2011-09-18T21:04:00.006-04:00

Sun On The Pool by David Hockney

Summer is gone, and I swam exactly eight times - there were three afternoons spent in the quarry (two with a full cast on my left arm, so I spent most of the time in my big blue inner tube), one time in a pool, again with the cast, , twice in a pond in Vermont sans cast, sans everything, and once more, the last dip of the season, in an absolutely freezing cold river in Vermont, so I don’t think that one really counts, because I dove in, and exited so quickly that buoyancy was never achieved. I began the summer with a goal to swim often and to swim in places other than Connecticut, my usual swimming hole, and I achieved the second part of the goal, but the frequency was limited severely by the fact that I broke my hand in mid-June - plaster-a-paris and pond water don’t mix very well.

The busted fifth metacarpal drove me to swimming substitutes and one of those was watching films with swimming themes. I want to tell you about three.

The first film is The Swimmer, made in 1968, starring Burt Lancaster. I was so excited about seeing this film because it’s based on my favorite author John Cheever’s story of the same name. What a terrible disappointment. Burt Lancaster isn’t the problem, if anything, he is the only saving grace of a perfectly terrible adaptation of a perfect short story. Don’t see it. Read Cheever’s story instead.

That was brief, wasn’t it?

Next up, I want to compare two fabulous watery films: La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) made in 1969, starring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, and the young, and unbelievably vapid Jane Birkin, and 2004’s Swimming Pool with Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.

Before you read on, this is your SPOILER WARNING.

Both films take place in France, and the pools at the center of their stories are near Marseilles and St. Tropez.

A young, beautiful girl shows up unexpectedly in both stories and causes irreversible trouble.

Each film produces a murdered man, one is drowned in the pool, one is bludgeoned to death by a rock at the edge of the pool.

Both murders go unsolved and unpunished.

There is an older woman in each tale who is perturbed and nearly destroyed by the young and beautiful, albeit calamitous female character - Romy Schneider’s seemingly perfect life and sexual power are no match for Jane Birkin’s effortless and innocent intrusion. And Charlotte Rampling’s self-loathing spinster mystery writer is driven deeper into despair by Sagnier’s trampy taunts. But both Schneider and Rampling prevail in the end, as older, wiser women should.

Both films are full of sex.

But they do diverge. La Piscine is a tangled web of intrigue amongst a group of friends, with few things in common, except wealth and a jet-setting life that bores them to tears. Their self-indulgent life-style breeds contempt and they turn on one another. But Swimming Pool is actually the story of one woman's inner mind. Rampling's travails are a complete fantasy, and Sagnier simply a figment of the her imagination, indeed, a character in the mystery novel she writes while on holiday.

Ultimately, both films are rich and must-sees, much like David Hockney’s swimming pool paintings - these works can extend summer far past Labor Day, canning it, like tomatoes, for a cold January day.

For Gregory

2011-09-17T21:45:00.004-04:00

I made a hand-made book today for my dear friend Gregory Blaine.

The book contains all the poems I read in my short, but exciting, capacity as The Resident Poet of The Blue Bayou Club, a now defunct blues bar in Hillsborough. It was thanks to Gregory that I got up on that stage and read my poems between music sets back in 2009. Twenty-three poems in all, some written just for the Bayou, some written way back in time. I was timid, but Gregory cheered me on. I was completely inexperienced, but Gregory was my mentor. Gregory had the power to quiet the somewhat rowdy bar crowd, and you know, because they respected Gregory, they listened to my poems quietly - it was very different from the usual raucous din that accompanied the great music that played there most nights. It was a lot to expect of the audience, to be silent, and listen to me stand up there and read my poems. But they did. And it was surprising to me and very thrilling really. I met some very interesting people in the Bayou, people who didn't seem like they might go for my poetry, but they connected with it. Gregory made that possible for me, and I'll never forget him for that.

Today was a special occasion - an all day, all night gathering of Gregory's friends to support him in his fight against cancer. The bands started playing at 1 pm and they will continue to play through the evening, til 1 am, including Gregory's own band, Rootzie. I was able to get some precious time with him tonight before he and his girl Dolie started their music set at 8 pm, and was so happy when he smiled at the hand-sewn book I made for him. I had never given him copies of the poems I read, so now, he has all of them.

Gratitude, and courage, and peace, and light Gregory, you are a treasure to so many.

Here is the first poem I read at the Blue Bayou - I read it so quickly and so quietly that Gregory came up on stage and asked me to read it again, more carefully, "It's beautiful, let the people really hear it." and so I read it again, and the little crowd hung on to my every word, and I felt so lucky.

Wing

with a lover in my mind
i ride a red horse
on the power line
and find the perfect wing of a hawk
lying torn at the shoulder
in the yellow grass
a flawless apparatus
without its owner
lost perhaps at midnight
in the clorox light of the moon
in a battle
with what?
i wish i knew
the great steel tension towers
whir in the wind
over me and my horse
and i unwittingly search the sky
for the glide of a one winged bird

With A Breeze

2011-09-15T21:41:00.000-04:00

It's funny, you expect it to fade gradually, but it ends quite suddenly, with a strong steady breeze that comes at dusk, within the time the evening train passes, blowing it's horn, and summer is gone. Tonight a soft steady rain falls at the sides of my house, taking down the first of the leaves, and my wood shed needs tidying, needs the first cord, to carry us through till the bright days of November . . .

Aloof in Freckles

2011-09-14T16:43:00.005-04:00

Helena spent her 14th birthday sitting by the pool. Her father's driver dropped her off at 11 am and she told him to return for her at 4, "That way we can pick up Daddy together." It wasn't the biggest pool she had ever swum in, she was quite sure it was the smallest. And it was in the shade half the day, which made the water cold, and there was algea in the deep end. Sometimes she found water bugs swimming on the surface, but she enjoyed watching their mechanical movements, she attempted to tell her father about them, that they might be a divine idea for a movie - giant water bugs and he, naturally, would save the world from them. But he ignored her, as he often did when he was preoccupied with making a movie, even though she used his favorite word, "Divine," Liz used that word so often, and he hung onto all her stories, so Helena thought it might work for her, but she was coming to the conclusion that it wasn't a word that kept her father enamored of Liz, it was something else entirely.
Liz's pool was perhaps the grandest pool Helena had ever put her toes in, and she paddled in the Playboy mansion pool when she was 8, or was that 9? Her mother's indoor pool had Chinese lions at each end, the lions were slightly larger than their standard poodles Cassandra and Pharaoh, and sometimes the poodles drank the water that exited the lions' mouths, but even funnier, sometimes the poodles sat next to the lions, and when the sun was low, it was hard to tell who was a poodle and who was lion.
But this pool, the Farmington Club pool, had no fountains in the guise of lions, no Playboy Bunnies, and no starlets asking the help for another "one of those divine drinks . . . weren't those just divine? So divine we need another, and another, and another . . . " This pool sat too close to the stables and the hound kennels and the road. There were no palm trees, only pines and some rather old oak trees inhabited by crows, and a particularly chatty squirrel. There wasn't even a snack bar, only a country store across the road, the road her father asked her not to cross, but she went once, and bought herself a can of Tab and some grape flavored bubble gum.
She always brought the same book with her, and People magazine, and they usually lay under her lounge chair, because she would rather die than read The Great Gatsby or the gossip about her father and mother's divorce again. She found a book in the dusty den of the house her father had rented for the summer, and thought she might trade it for The Great Gatsby, something about a place called Peyton, but it wasn't on her summer reading list.
The other swimmers arrived at the same time every day, 12:45, dropped off by a large woman in a wooden-sided station wagon, a Country Squire, but some of the letters had fallen off, so now it was a "C unt y S ir", something Liz would have told everyone about, "Why she doesn't fix it, I have no earthly idea, can you imagine what the grocery boys think?" The kids would pour out of the wagon, still wearing blue jeans and riding boots, and the large woman, always in a moomoo, she had a different colored moomoo for each day of the week, would holler, "Don't swim for another half hour or y'all will drown with cramps! I'll be back at 4:30, be ready! I don't want to be late for Cocktail Hour!" And then she would speed off in a cloud of gravel and dust and turn toward town.
The kids always filed past her as if she were a Greek statue, and she could smell the horses on them as they stripped down to their bathing suits, socks and t-shirts and little paddock boots flying everywhere, "Are you going to wait a half hour?"
"Hell no!" and they would all jump in and the never-ending game of Marco Polo would ensue.
"Marco"
"Polo!"
"Marco!"
"Polo!"
The girls were not much younger than Helena, maybe a year. And they were all formally introduced on the first day at the pool, "Girls, this is Helena Howe, her father is Bud Howe, you know, the movie star? Isn't that right Helena?" and Helena nodded, embarrassed, and she could see the girls didn't know who her father was, and the woman in the moomoo could see that fact too, so she tried to shake some recollection loose, "Oh you know Mr. Howe, he was in those biblical movies they show on Easter, and wasn't he in that movie about monkeys? The scary monkeys?" Still blank wide looks from the girls, so they made the best of the moment and asked Helena for some really important information, "Do you ride horses?" They all cocked their hips and pointed their little paddock boot toes at her, and it was then that she noticed they were all flat-chested, not a training bra among them, "No, I don't ride horses, but my brother surfs." And this was true, her brother was in Hawaii for the summer, "bumming around" as her father liked to call it, and she couldn't wait to see him again in the fall, because Bud Jr. was her most favorite person on earth, he was like no one else, and he didn't care what anyone thought of him, especially not his father.
So it was like this everyday, somewhere way into the incessant game of Marco Polo, the girls would stop, and suddenly realize that they hadn't said hello to Helena, and they would huddle in the middle of the pool, treading water, breathy and quietly, and then they would send one scout to the edge of the pool to ask Helena if she would like to play Marco Polo with them? And she always declined with the same phrase, "Maybe tomorrow," and the scout would always reply with the same, "Suit yerself," and would swim back to the others, where they would shrug their shoulders. Helena always felt their relief. They didn't really want to play with her and she didn't want to play with them.
"Helena, are you enjoying the country sweetie?" Her mother had called to say Happy Birthday early that morning, "Because, you can always fly home to Malibu if you're not enjoying yourself."
"I'm fine mother, really I am. Daddy said I could take riding lessons if I like."
"Horses are dangerous Helena . . ." her mother hated horses.
"Daddy rides them in all his movies. He told me I should learn how to ride if I want to be a movie actress. Mother, isn't it terribly early there?"
"Yes dear, it's 4 am, but we just came in from a party, I haven't even been to bed yet."
"Oh, well, thank you for calling Mother."
"Sweetie, when will you be taking these riding lessons?"
Helena didn't answer, she pretended not to hear her mother and hung up.
Today was the same as all the other days at the club pool, except it was her birthday. Her father promised to take her to a very lovely restaurant for dinner, and he had a new dress ordered for Helena from the ladies' shoppe in town, a dress he was assured was just right for a young woman as beautiful as Helena. The sun had moved to her end of the pool. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the game of Marco Polo. But the game stopped and she opened one eye, waiting for the usual invitation, but she saw instead a group of boys step through the pool gate. The girls in the pool herded together and giggled. Helena thought of a movie she'd seen last year, a movie about a herd of mustangs, the girls were behaving like frightened mares. The boys were older, maybe 15, one looked like he might be 16, and they headed for the chairs next to Helena. They threw down their towels and peeled off their polo shirts, "Is anyone sitting here?" One of the boys asked Helena about the chair next to her, he had a nice smile, he looked like he went to a prep school in Massachusetts, they all looked like that really, in their cutoffs, and docksiders, not like the boys in California, "No, the girls in the pool are the only ones here besides me, and they like to sit over there by the wall." She pointed. The boy lowered himself in the chair next to her, and stuck out his hand to shake, "I'm Percy, and you are?"
"Helena, nice to meet you Percy."
"Never seen you here before Helena." Percy swept his long brown bangs across his forehead and leaned back in his chair. "My brother's the tall one, his name is Frank, and that goofy looking red head is Danny. So do you ride horses?"
"No. Do you?"
"Yeah, yeah Frank and I play polo - see that arena over there? We play on our school team. My father plays polo too. He taught us. So you don't ride?"
"No, but those girls do, they ride with Mrs. Zinnia."
"Oh, yeah, we've seen those girls. We met them at a wedding the other night, Mrs. Zinnia's son got married. Good Party! You shoulda been there, but you don't ride, so . . ."
"No, I guess only the people who ride went to that party."
"So if you don't ride horses, what do you do?"
"I'm here for the summer . . . "
"You don't live here?"
"No, I'm from California. I play tennis in California."
"We play tennis . . . hey, wait! You're Bud Howe's daughter, aren't you his daughter?"
"Well, yes, yes I am."
"We heard he was here, making a movie, and he had a daughter. My mother was asking Mrs. Zinnia all about you the other night at the party, but all Mrs. Zinnia said was that you were aloof, and that you had more freckles than any child she'd ever seen, but you don't seem to have too many freckles."
"Why thanks, I think."
"Oh, I meant to say you don't seem aloof either, I mean . . . "
Percy's brother cannonballed into the pool and suddenly a wave of water fell over Helena and the boy. "Aw shit, I wish he wouldn't do that!" The girls got out of the pool as the boys dove in, they wrapped themselves in their towels and stood talking, strategizing, and shivering. Helena wished she were invisible, she wished her driver would come early so she could leave. Percy touched her arm, "You want to swim with us? We don't bite."
She thought for a moment. She wanted to swim with Percy, and the other boys for that matter, they looked like fun. But the girls had asked her to play Marco Polo for weeks now and she had never said yes. No wonder Mrs. Zinnia called her aloof, and Helena knew she wasn't like these girls, she had hips and breasts under all those freckles. She had smoked cigarettes and drunk champagne with boys much older than Percy and Frank, "No thanks Percy, I think I'll pass this time. You guys swim, it's too cold for me."
"Too cold?"
"Yes, too cold."
"Suit yerself." Percy took a running leap and dove straight as a Roman arrow into the green waters of the deep end. Helena saw one of the girls drop her towel and jump feet first into the shallow end, "You guys want to play Marco Polo?"
"Marco!"
"Polo!"
"Marco!"
"Polo!"

What's A Girl To Eat In Vermont?

2011-09-12T19:26:00.002-04:00

Well for starters, she can eat crepes . . .
J.'s Crepes in Her Own Words:
Crepes are 1 cup flour, 2 beaten eggs, 3/4 c milk, 3/4 c beer, pinch of salt. Mix. Preferable to let it rest for a half hour or so. Fry in buttered pan. Flip once. Easy peasy. Oh, I like to put freshly toasted coconut and walnuts, slivers of banana and a dash of cinnamon inside, then roll them up and pour some maple syrup on top, but you can do absolutely anything. Good savory or sweet.

And on the night when welding class is over, she can eat big thick steaks fro Yuskak's Supermarket in Shushan, NY. - put J.'s mother's potatoes and squash and onions on the side - share a bottle of red with J.'s mom, talk too much and forget all yer troubles . . .
Squash & Onions
Slice three or four small yellow squash from the garden. Slice up one large sweet onion. Melt a big gob of butter in a fry pan, add the onions, cook them til their soft, add the squash, add a teaspoon of sugar, plenty of salt and pepper, cook til the squash are soft.

She can eat pizza made in a fiery oven on a NY State hilltop among the Utopians . . .

She can make J. a meal of black bean ful which will not only suffice for dinner with lots of crusty bread, but will travel well to welding class the next day for lunch with chocolate zucchini bread . . .
Moosewood Restaurant's Black Bean Ful slightly abridged:
2 cans black beans
1/2 cup olive oil
5 or 6 smashed garlic cloves
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
1 cup chopped parsley
several boiled eggs in wedges
one lemon in wedges
Drain and rinse the beans, put in a sauce pan with enough water to cover and heat them gently over medium heat - don't bring the water to a boil, you just want the beans warm enough so that when you add them to a large bowl containing the garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper that the heat of the beans bring all those flavors together. Let them sit for ten minutes, then add the tomatoes and parsley and mix carefully. Arrange the boiled egg wedges around the edge of the bowl and serve with lemon wedges. Great warm, even better cold the next day!
If she remembered to pack her tagine, which she did, and if J. happens to have some spring lamb in the freezer, which she did, and if J.'s mother genersously provides an exquisite eggplant from her garden, which actually happened, well then, a tagine of lamb with apricots served with buttery couscous and a side of roasted sliced eggplant can be made pretty easily . . .
Mishmishiya - Tagine of Lamb with Apricots
from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
Serves 6 -8 The dish derives its name from the Arabic word for apricot -- mishmish. Only a tart natural -- not sweetened -- dried or semi-dried variety will do. Fresh apricots may also be used, in which case they should be added at the end and cooked for few minutes only, so that they don't fall apart. The reason why there is fresh gingeroot rather than the ground spice which is usual in Morocco is that the recipe come from Paris. Serve with bread. [J. and Wolfy served it with buttery couscous, recipe to follow]
2 large onions, chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable or extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Good pinch of ground chili pepper, to taste
2 pounds leg or shoulder of lamb, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and plenty of pepper
1 1/2 inches fresh gingerroot, cut into slices
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 pound dried apricots
A 14-ounce can chickpease, drained (optional)
Fry the onions gently in oil until soft.
Stir in the cinnamon, cumin, and chili powder, and put in the meat. Turn the pieces over, add salt and pepper, ginger, and garlic, and cover with about 2 1/2 cups water. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours [this is where using a genuine tagine really makes all the difference!], turning the meat over occasionally, and adding water if necessary.
Add the apricots and cook for 1/2 hour or more, adding water if necessary.
Add the drained chickpeas, if using, 10 minutes before the end.
Roasted Eggplant:
Slice eggplant in half inch thick slices. Salt and let sit for 30 to 40 minutes. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Rinse and pat eggplant dry, rub with generous amount of olive oil, arrange on a metal baking pan, roast until golden brown and soft.
Plain Buttery Couscous
from Gillie Basan's Tagine, Spicy Stews from Morocco
1 2/3 cups traditional couscous, rinsed and drained
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 3/4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons safflower or olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, in small pieces
Preheat the oven to 350 degress F.
Tip the couscous into an ovenproof dish. Stir the salt into the water and pour it over the couscous. Leave the couscous to absorb the water for about 10 minutes.
Using your fingers, rub the ol into the grains to break up the lumps and air them. Dot the butter over the surface and cover with a piece of foil or wet, greaseproof paper. Put the dish in the oven for about 15 minutes to heat through.
Fluff up the grains with a fork and serve the couscous from the dish, or tip it onto a plate piled high in a pyramid.
Note from Wolfy: This couscous is extremely addictive - once you have eaten it, you will figure out that just about any meal you make goes with couscous - you will find yourself making every excuse to make couscous . . . you have been warned.

And finally when she goes to the races in Saratoga for the day, she can eat fried chicken with cranberry coleslaw at Hattie's Chicken Shack.

yes, one of those customers is Wolfy,

photo by J.

Sometimes, The Best Thing About Art Museums Ain't the Art

2011-09-10T17:54:00.005-04:00

My Vermont excursion was really a tri-state adventure - J. is lucky to live in the southwestern region of Vermont close to the New York and Massachusetts borders - she crosses state lines the way I cross county lines in North Carolina. And each state has gifts to give her and fortunate guests like me. The day before we went to the races in Saratoga disguised as railbirds of the classiest sort, we journeyed to a small town in the Berkshires by the name of North Adams to visit the extraordinary Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art - MASSMoCa.

MASS stands for massive in my opinion, as this 120,000 square foot museum is housed in a former factory complex that dates back to the 1700s. In more recent times it was the headquarters for Sprague Electric Company, the manufacturer of a wide array of products ranging from components for weapons, including the atomic bomb, in World War II, to launch systems for Gemini Moon Missions. The galleries are vast, maze-like, and filled with natural light that pours into windows you could drive a truck through. The industrial setting is practically all you need, but then you fill it with amazing art and well, you've got yourself a party.

J. and I covered the whole place in one afternoon and while that might sound overwhelming, as though we didn't take our time to take in everything put before us, the opposite is true. We spent the majority of our time with the Sol LeWitt collection - his life's work found a permanent home with MASSMoCA because Yale just didn't have 30,000 square feet just lying around in New Haven to offer him. His geometrical masterpieces delight you in their numerousness and scale. I believe there's a Sol LeWitt at the NC Museum of Art, and it never really did anything for me - I think you have to be immersed in his drawings and really, MASSMoCa's LeWitt galleries kidnap you and beat you into submission to his genius. It really got me to thinking about how wonderful it would be if other major artists had their life's work housed in such a way . . . I pictured 30,000 square feet of Jackson Pollock or Picasso, can you imagine how much it would teach you? You can't walk away from something like that without being effected by it.

And then I stood at the mouth of Nari Ward's Nu Collosus - a huge sculpture made of split wood resembling a cornucopia filled with flotsam and jetsam. Ward hales from the Caribbean and his work spoke to me because of my expat years in Bermuda. Nu Collosus reminded me of living in the middle of the ocean for so many reasons, just the size of it alone overwhelmed me like the feeling of being on a tiny island surrounded by miles and miles of water. But it also seemed as though it had washed ashore, a tangle of sea garbage, held together by sailing line and seaweed. I swear I could hear the waves crashing in my ears when I stood a certain distance from the great entrance to Nu Collosus and for that reason alone I was hesitant to walk away from it.

There was nothing delicate about the works in MASSMoCA and such was the case of a series of photographs by Italian photographer Santiago Sierra. Burial of Ten Workers, Calambrone, Italy drove home the message of The Workers, an long term exhibit lasting through March of 2012. So powerful was this exhibit that I considered joining a union upon exit, if not the Communist Party. I spent a considerable amount of time with Sierra's time lapsed series - in which the the seascape changes little, a freighter changes position in the distance, a fishing boat appears and disappears, and the ten laborers go from standing firmly on the shore to being buried alive in the sand. It messes with your head and your ideas of labor, class, and human rights.

But I haven't told you the best thing I saw at MASSMoCa - the thing that wasn't installed in a gallery, the thing that wasn't hanging on a wall. It ran through the gigantic second floor open gallery home to Katharina Grosse's installation One Floor Up More Highly - it did not walk slowly to gaze upon Grosse's outrageous styrofoam glaciers half immersed in gaudy mounds of spray-painted dirt. The best thing came in the form of a messy little blond girl, perhaps eight or nine, wearing the most stupendous LED sneakers ever manufactured. These sneakers didn't coyly blink at the back of the heel like a weak turn signal, no, these sneakers were a one-girl Studio 54 on Saturday night with every star in attendance, including Andy Warhol, Halston, Mick Jagger and Bianca Jagger too. I watched her approach from the far end of the gallery from a third floor balcony overlooking the great hall - she was simply catching up to her mother who stood below me, small pink backpack in hand, and a disgruntled brother in tow. The LEDs flashed pink and green and blue and really they stole Grosse's thunder - if that gallery only featured Miss LED Sneaker Queen running to and fro every day, that alone would be worth the price of admission.

Thurber's Josephine

2011-09-09T16:31:00.003-04:00

I tend to avoid dog stories, and horse stories for that matter -- most end tragically. Lately there's been a scourge of horse stories that end well - Seabiscuit, although it was touch and go there for a while in his case, triumphant Secretariat, and now there's a book about a little known horse named Snowman, who apparently inspired the nation, but I'm not too sure about that.

I had several collections of stories as a kid, dog stories, horse stories, animal stories - big dusty volumes - hand-me-downs from my mother's childhood library - and all of them left you devastated. With the exception of The Black Stallion, I was hard pressed to find hope in any animal story I read. My grandmother took The Red Pony away from me one afternoon when she saw me delving into the first pages of it, "Don't read that, it's awful." I don't think she liked Steinbeck for a lot of reasons, but I think she genuinely hated him for writing that book. I never read it, but I watched the movie late one night, almost by mistake, I was terribly curious. Well, it was awful, my grandmother was right.

There was of course Lassie, the book and the completely unrelated TV show - I thought Timmie was pretty undeserving of such a fabulous dog, that kid made me feel brilliant in comparison. I remember a picture book I had in first or second grade about a boy who finds a kitten in Harlem, that turned out very badly, and scarred me for quite some time - cat stories I never read because of that little book.

In our bizarre collection of records, my grandparents had a set of 45s called So Dear To My Heart - the audio story set for the famous Walt Disney movie. I listened to the scratchy records several times despite the storm scene which plunged you into deep terrifying darkness -- but I was obsessed with Dan Patch, the champion harness racer, and his brief appearance took my breath away every time I listened. But I had to steel myself for the storm and terrible middle of the story. It ends well, doesn’t it? I barely remember, but it was a hell of a way to get to a happy ending. I read all of C.W. Anderson’s Billy and Blaze stories, but they left me filled with anxiety - I was certain gypsies would steal my pony and sell him to all sorts of horrible characters. To this day, I can’t really watch any movie with a dog or a horse in it, I’m fairly sure something terrible is going to happen to them - remember The Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw? What do I obsess over when I watch that movie? The fate of all the animals left behind when the evil Rudy takes Sally Struthers and her pathetic veterinarian husband Harold as hostages - who cares if the people come out alive, it’s the animals I get all stressed over. Silly? I know . . .

And yet I’ve written a tragic dog story, and it’s here on the blog, but you know what you’re getting yourself into because of the title, Death of a Hound - I don’t want anyone to start reading it with the idea that he’s going to get out of the story alive. Why did I write a tragic dog story when I hate reading them so much? I don’t know, really, except, I had an idea, and was compelled to write it. Maybe it was some sort of strange catharsis? You tell me. But if you want the dog to live, don’t read it.

So it was with trepidation I purchased Everyman’s Pocket Classics Dog Stories on the day Irene blew through North Carolina. I was bored, the wind was howling, there was barely any rain, and so I drove myself to The Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street in Durham. There were a few other brave souls out that day, it was a good day to be in a bookstore. I came home with a comforting stack of books: The Vision of Modern Dance - In the Words of Its Creators, Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, Little Red Riding Hood (a gorgeous graphic novel by artist Daniel Egneus), and Dog Stories.

Well, here I am in the middle of my life, finally getting a clue, although, ten years from now that will be up for review again, I’m sure, and my faith in animal stories has been restored with James Thurber’s Josephine Has Her Day. Thurber has always had a hold on me, but I believe this might be one of his best stories. And while there is a bit of a scare somewhere in the middle, it’s a mild scare, and Thurber doesn’t manipulate your anxiety to a high level, he let’s you know that things are going to turn out right with a psychic pat on the shoulder as your reading about Josephine and her people, the Dickinsons.

“Did you see her?” She smiled wistfully.
“No,” said Dick, with a great effort at lightness. “But she’s doing fine, Timmons said.”
“I’m sure she is, ” said Mrs. Dickinson. “I’ve told Mrs. Timmons all about her idiosyncrasies. Well . . . I guess we must be getting back home. It looks a lot like rain.”
And it did rain, a slow, depressing drizzle, as they returned, Dick hard put to it to affect an easy cheerfulness while his mind turned over and over the quandry into which Josephine - and he - had fallen. Perhaps it might be an easy matter to buy her back for Timmons. But how was he to arrange a meeting without his wife’s knowing? Through his speculations ran alternately an undercurrent of exasperation at all this bother about an undesirable pup, a thin-lipped anger at the unknown brute’s action, and a faint feeling of dread.

Thurber’s story takes such a marvelous turn that you find yourself cheering in bed late at night while reading it, much to the consternation of your sleeping spouse and all the dogs under the blankets - Would you please? If only they knew what I was making such a fuss over they wouldn’t be so ill-tempered, shifting their weight and kicking me with their warm little feet.

I was so buoyed by Thurber’s story, that I have dared to read another story in the little book, O. Henry’s Memoir of a Yellow Dog - and without spoiling it, in fact it’s no spoil at all to say you can read it with full confidence that the dog will live happily ever after.

Next? I shall brave P.G. Wodehouse’s The Mixer - who said a girl can’t change?

Here's Soap In Yer Eye . . .

2011-09-09T14:54:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had one of those years?

Well, i'm having one this year . . .

and then today, just when i think things might be going my way, when the tide might be turning, i get soap in my eye - i'm washing my face with a new face wash that agrees with my ruddy excitable Irish skin and damn if don't manage to let a good glob of it run straight into my right eye and i've gotten stuff in my eyes before - shampoo, mustard (don't ask), chili pepper, horse liniment, nail polish (i was nine when that happened, my grandmother questioned my fitness to live over that one), but this soap was a unique experience in pain and i wondered as i flushed and flushed and flushed if this might be it - the end of my right eye, the one that is just as green with the gold ring around the pupil as the left, the one that has the astigmatism that is getting progressively worse now that i'm over forty-oof, over forty-five!

but, the pain is only slight now, and the tearing has subsided . . . just another mishap in a long year of mishaps.

"Do not try," says the sage, "Do not try . . . "

don't let your heart get heavy . . .

2011-09-07T18:13:00.000-04:00

Eye of Newt -- An Interpretive Dance to Vermont

2011-09-07T16:07:00.005-04:00

There’s a mountain between J.’s house and her parents’ farm. And apparently J. has hiked it a few times to get to the farm, but never successfully - she ends up in all sorts of places, and never the farm. It’s a mountain dense with forest, and while the trail is obvious when you start out, it gets vaguer and vaguer. And the ferns are humungous and there’s been some timber men up there disturbing things, so there are great swathes of mud. We set out for the farm late on a rainy afternoon, with welding class behind us, and grand ideas that THIS TIME J. would triumph and we’d come out on the ridge over looking farm. And I had my iPhone with it's nifty GPS to keep our bearings. And Pip was going to be a good dog and give us hints that we were on the right track. Right? Wrong. We slogged around on that dark medieval hill chest high in blackberries and nettles . . . but wait, what child has strewn little orange rubber toys on the trail? Look, the moss, the dark wet soil is positively alive with burnt ochre bodies . . . I stop, “J., what are these?”

“Newts!”

“They’re everywhere!”

“Yes, yes they are . . . Pip wants to go that way? Do you think we should follow her?”

I watched the newt at my feet, his dark eyes, his black speckles, his wet wrinkled skin, his little fingers feeling the earth beneath him - oh! what a feast for a hungry bird - so tropical, really, which set my head to wondering, how do they survive the horrible winters?

The GPS was useless, the blue dot barely moved, we seemed to be headed in the right direction, but J. didn’t recognize a thing, apparently her hikes are never the same up here, it’s as though this mountain transforms each time she hikes it.

“Have you ever hiked from the other direction?” I ask her.

“What?”

“Started out from your parents and worked your way back . . . maybe you could tie it altogether that way.”

“Maybe, I dunno.” She started down a steep bank, “Oof, we aren’t supposed to be here, I don’t think. If we get to the creek . . . ”

J. apologizes for leading me astray as the rain comes down harder, and I joke, “So this is the part of the trip where you actually murder me . . . the past few days were just a ruse, you fattened me up, made me slow, and now you’ll cut my throat and leave me in this godforsaken wood never to be seen again, my corpse nibbled by newts . . . ”

J. tells me about the bears. How certain times of year you don’t come up here cause of bears. What times? Breeding season? When they have cubs? Pip suddenly yips and dives onto a mound, digging and insistent - she stops, whips her tail and pleads with us to join her, “Leave it Pip! Leave it!” we walk on without her, she is steadfast in her find, You people don’t know ANYthing! This is IT. This is why I came out here with you! Never mind getting somewhere. We’re THERE!

“LEAVE IT PIP!” and finally she does, because a Meunsterlander eventually listens, and she bounces to J.’s side and J. asks her? “Is it this way Pip?” and Pip runs ahead excitedly having completely forgotten the golden mound and J. says, “We should be there by now, where are we?” J. is visibly annoyed in her orange rain coat and her rubber boots and for some reason I’m not bothered by being Lost. Lost was the key word on this trip - even when I knew where I was on the trip, I was lightheaded and lost, displaced, and out there in the rain, with the stupid GPS which is meant for city streets, I didn’t flinch - I was a blinking blue beacon not far from a road according to the little screen, and that was comfort enough.

Pip took a hard left and we decided to follow her into a clearing. There was a livestock trailer overgrown with vines and then the roof of a house. We were in someone’s backyard, but no backyard that J. knew of. We skittered out onto their driveway and J. guessed we were on the road one over from her parents road, and the GPS confirmed this . . . which was annoying as hell, now it decided to be of assistance. We began walking the road and came to the base of her parents’ road, we hiked up the windy road, and now that we were out in the open, the rain really started to come down and there was just enough wind to make us cold.

We are greeted by a terrific crowd of bird dogs, J.’s father’s setters all feathered and full of news - “Oh you’re here! Your mother will be so relieved she’s out on the porch in a panic!” J.’s father leads us to the kitchen and offers us something to drink, “So you came up the road? You got lost again?”

“I’m still shaking! You won’t believe it!” J.’s mother comes in from the porch, wine glass in hand, all a twitter, “We were watching for you two up on the hill and we see two dark figures up by the grove of small birches, and I say to your father, there they are! They’re in dark rain coats, they must be soaking wet, but they made it! We look through the binoculars and the dogs are all excited and it’s bears! Two bears, small, probably brothers, a year or so old! And I thought oh no! They’re going to run into the bears! And your father says, don’t worry, they’ll run. Oh but thank goodness you got lost and didn’t run into the bears!”

J. and her mother headed back into the house and J.’s father stands with me on the porch looking out over the rain on their garden and the pond and I stare up on the ridge hoping the bears might circle back so I can see what we missed up close and personal, but all I see is the wind. And J.’s father begins to tell me bear stories; cubs in trees, dogs finding a bear and leading the bear back to him as though he were supposed to save the dogs from the bear, and everyone having to run, bears tearing down the bird feeders, but leaving the garden alone, and then he tells me black bears tend more toward eating people than grizzlies, and I’m getting colder and wishing I had a glass of wine in my hand instead of the cold can of seltzer, but most of all I’m trying to decide if I’m disappointed or glad that we barely missed the bears.

When Things Ain't Goin' Your Way

2011-09-06T21:39:00.002-04:00

How To Find An Owl

2011-09-05T18:51:00.001-04:00

Tack up your horse
Ride out on a green-grey morning
With a chance of rain
Into the woods
Mind the deer
Gallop up a hill
Trot a long trail
Cross the road
Trot half the field
Canter the other
on the left lead
Go slow by the men building
the big house in the clearing
Tell Joe to never mind that noise
Its only a drill . . .
Laugh, at your joke
the joke that only your horse heard
Admit your tired
Walk for a while
But jump the log and trot all the way
to the dry river
Cross the thirsty rocks
imagining a current of green water
not a stagnant puddle
not dust
Jog up the bank
Mind the deer
Hear the crows
They are loud
Caw, caw, caw, caw!
Trot toward the crows
Hear the Blue Jay
Jay, jay, jay, jay!
Wonder
Are the crows mobbing the jay?
Is the jay mobbing the crows?
Pull up going down hill
Look up
See the crows dispersing
Count the crows
Five, six, seven?
Oh, eight!
Hear the jay again
Find the jay
See him dive bomb
Ask yourself
The crows are gone?
What’s that crazy jay doing?
See the jay fly back to the river
Notice the quiet
Silence after crows is a jewel
Cross the little dry tributary
Decide
Left?
Or
Right?
oh, go right . . .
Pat your horse
Trot again
Look up
Hear a whoomp
a whoomp whoomp whoomp
of wings against a big body
And see the owl
in his grey flannel suit
disappear up the ridge
Where the poplars are giving way
to September,
to gold . . .

Leaving? So Soon?

2011-09-05T18:17:00.000-04:00

It’s the end of the summer, and something is about to happen - summer tomatoes are about to pack up and leave. Where do they go? Florida? Like the Snow Birds in their Cadallacs down I95?

No, I think they go to Sicily. In fact, I’m sure of it, because if I was a Summer Tomato, that’s where I would go spend the winter. But some people, those people who garden, they are imprisoning the slow tomatoes, the ones that can’t get to the airport, in mason jars, to be let out sometime in January, on a snowy day, which, if you like that sort of thing, a Summer Tomato in a dusty mason jar on some spaghetti, well, then okay, and well, perhaps, I’m jealous of those who can grow their own tomatoes and then take the time to jail them for release on the darkest winter nights.

But since I don’t grow my own tomatoes, I used to, and was quite successful at it until the Cut Worms found my address, I like to be more zen about the whole impending migration of the Summer Tomatoes to a foreign land, you know? I want to party with them now in the most excellent way I can, bid them farewell until next year, and ask them to send me a postcard from Sicily, if they can find time in their busy social calendar over there, cause you know they are way busier in Sicily than they are here, and with much more interesting people, people who make their own wine and work on caper farms, those kinds of people.

So, want to party with the Summer Tomatoes before they set sail? Here’s one of the most sublime ways to wish them Arrivederci!

SAUCES TOMATE

from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

This is good basic tomato sauce is served just as it is, or may be flavored with herbs or combined with other sauces whenever you wish a tomato flavoring. It is at its best with fresh tomatoes, but canned tomatoes or canned tomato puree will also produce a good sauce. You will notice, during it’s simmering, that it really should cook for about an hour and a half to develop its full flavor.

For about 2 1/2 cups

A heavy-bottomed , 2 1/2-quart saucepan

1/4 cup each: finely diced carrots, onions, and celery

2 Tb minced boiled ham; OR 2 Tb minced lean bacon,
simmered for about 10 minutes in water, rinsed, and
drained

3 Tb butter
1 Tb oil
__________

Cook the vegetables and the ham or bacon slowly in the butter and oil for 10 minutes without letting them brown

__________

1 1/2 Tb flour

__________

Blend the flour into the ham (or bacon) and vegetables, and cook slowly for 3 minutes, stirring.

__________

1 1/2 cups boiling stock

__________

Off heat, beat in the stock.

____________

2 lbs. (4 cups) chopped, ripe, red tomatoes which
need not be peeled; OR 3 cups canned tomatoes; OR
1 1/2 cups canned tomato puree and 1 1/2 cups water

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp sugar

2 unpeeled cloves garlic

4 parsley sprigs

1/2 bay leaf

1/4 tsp thyme

____________

Stir in the tomatoes, salt, and sugar. Add the garlic and herbs. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, skimming occasionally, and adding water if sauce reduces and thickens too much. You should end up with about
2 1/2 cups of rich, fairly thick sauce.

_____________

1 to 2 Tb tomato paste if necessary

______________

Strain, pressing juice out of ingredients. Correct seasoning. Stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of tomato paste if you feel the sauce lacks color, and simmer again for 5 minutes.
If not used immediately, film surface with stock or a few drops of oil. May be refrigerated or frozen.

Here Now

2011-09-03T20:18:00.003-04:00

I wonder where the praying mantis I gently carried outside in a coffee can last night is spending her day - she came in through the open porch door during the Braves game, just when the Braves were beginning to lose to the Dodgers and she flitted across the back of the sofa and slapped me in the face before she disappeared somewhere in our music collection. I didn’t get a good look at her, I thought she was a moth and so I shut the door thinking that was the end of any more insect encounters. Some time later I was blogging and still watching the game, which was hopeless for the Braves, and Praying Mantis came up the arm of the sofa like a mountain climber and she scared me out of my wits. I almost threw my laptop to the floor. I shrieked, I actually shrieked and fled. But I returned though, with my sleepy husband for back-up and a coffee can, just the right size to capture her. We found her ascending the table lamp next to the sofa, stopping, rocking to and fro, and then moving up toward the light of the bulb. I asked her most politely to get in the can - she cocked her head and bound right on to the side of the can, good enough for me and we hurried for the door. She stared up at me with those agate eyes, and today I wish I had kept her around a bit longer, she was terribly smart, and one always needs to surround themselves with smart souls.

When my goats arrive in the spring, I have decided to name them after Civil War horses -- I plan to start with two goats, they will be named Cincinnati and Traveller. The herd will grow from there perhaps with Highfly and Firefly . . . we’ll see.

I rode Joe across a different part of the river today, and still we found no water, just a lot of thirsty rocks.

It was cool enough today that I saw the old black lady who lives near the intersection of highways 86 and 57 sitting on her porch - a place that she sits almost all the time when the weather allows. I did not see her blue tick hound. But I did catch sight of a new dog on her porch, something the shade of cadet blue, long in back, short in legs, chihuahua in countenance, and white on the belly. Something is always right with the world when I see that magnificent thin old woman presiding over her front yard.

I bought a green tea pot this afternoon and ingredients for black bean ful, which made an excellent supper. Tomorrow night we’ll have corn and potato curry with lots of cumin seed.

I began taking tumeric capsules for my mysterious case of The Vapors today, they cannot hurt, and they might just possibly help. The bottle makes many promises, and I can only hope that it is being somewhat honest with me.

There is a little crescent moon in a hole in the oak tree tonight.

And there was a cuckoo in the front yard this morning - geez, I hope he didn’t eat my praying mantis . . .

An Interpretive Dance to Vermont - Part D - The Circus

2011-09-02T22:08:00.000-04:00

I will never look at metal in the same way. Two days in a welding shop changed me - a pile of discarded metal in the back of a pick-up truck at the dump has an allure to me. While sitting at a red light the other day, I glanced over at a building under construction, and there, on the roof, was a man in a welding mask applying a bead to a beam - I got so excited watching him work I missed the light change and the driver behind me layed on the horn. My hostess J. took me to MASSMoCa two days after our class, and we both went a little gaga over the giant steel girder that acts as their front desk - it's enormous, and the beads of weld on it were fatter thatn our fingers, we appreciated how difficult it was to make that thing. I think back to Dock Yards in Bermuda, and now I want to go back there and examine the weld work. In other words, I'm hooked.
Gary, our welding instructor at SAW, turned us loose on the afternoon of our welding class, to scavenge the scrap metal pile. My classmates and I dove into the pile of discarded pieces - one man's junk is another man's gold. There were old signs, rods, cogs, wheels, saw blades, car parts, coils, and what I wanted most, some plain flat sheets to cut figures out with the plasma cutter. We climbed all over that pile turning it over and wrestling out material for our projects, helping each other find the right pieces of magic.

"What are you going to make?" I looked up from my hoard of scrap metal to see Sam, the tall bright intern girl standing over me in her heavy duty Carhart's, a cigarette in her hand, a modern hip version of Rosie the Riveter. Gary was helping J. with her bookshelf concept, and everyone was a flutter with their ideas. I had come all the way from North Carolina with a very clear idea of what I wanted to make, but I wasn't so sure now, I wasn't sure if I was tough enough to see it through. Sam changed all that for me. "I want to make a wall hanging - I make collages of paper, and I want to make a collage of metal."
"Cool. You have some good materials there - what will it be?"
"Well, I want to make a circus scene, with horses and riders, kind of like Toulouse Lautrec's circus drawings? Do you know them? Of course I'm not Toulouse, but he's my inspiration."
"Oh! This will be great, you can make it like a Pop Up Book." and when Sam said this, I was filled with hope, and childlike glee really, I mean, I was giddy.
I spent that afternoon drawing my horses and silly circus ladies with tutus on my sheet metal. I had found this wonderful coil that I planned to cut into sections to make the horses tails and the ladies' head dresses with. I'd found an old burnished sign for my base and even a diorama like stage. I practiced cutting with the plasma cutter all morning. The day ended and J. and I were ready to go home and have a cocktail. I was still slightly unsure that I could put the whole thing together in the time we had, but Sam was my cheerleader. And I was so impressed with the story she told me of her goal for the summer - she was interning at SAW and building a glass furnace. What a girl! J. and I made a great dinner that night and I retired for the evening with rusty circus ponies dancing in my head.
...
"What have you got going on here?" It was Gary. I had spent the morning cutting my horses and tutu clad ladies, my rods to set them on were ground and measured, my coil was now in happy pieces ready to become horse tails and head ornaments. I had everything laid out on the concrete floor of the workshop and was planning my welding strategy with Sam. I was embarrassed by Gary's question, I was sure he would think my plan was silly, "Um, it's going to be a circus, a wall hanging - in Sam's words, like a pop-up book." I bit my lip and looked up at him and waited for his advice.
"Oh! This is marvelous! Have you ever seen Alexander Calder's wire circus?"
"I know Calder, yes, but I don't think I know about his circus."
"He made it late in his life. Wait, we have a book, let me go get it for you!" Gary dashed off and returned with a wonderful book of photographs of Calder at his home and studion. We poured over the book and found the wire circus photos at the end. They are wonderful bent wire figure, like a children's circus toyset. Animals and acrobats on a high wire, a man swings on a trapeze. Gary was really excited about my project and instructed Sam that this would take very delicate torch work, with brass flox - I would use the MIG for the stage and the background piece, but the rest was light welding, and I was so pleased, because this was what I was made for, I had found my niche in the welding shop. The rest of the place was humming with grinders and the ZWIP crackle of the MIG. SAW visitors strolled by the shop and looked in as all of us worked and J. and I joked that the tourists must have thought we were real artists, we were so cool, so impressive looking in our heavy jeans and boots and welding shields. By midday, I was feeling almost competent, but Sam was with me every step of the way, I couldn't have done it without her.
By 4:30 the workshop was filled with everyone's fabulous projects. We were all quite pleased with ourselves and I think Gary was surprised that such a bunch of ragtag beginners could get so much done in a couple of days. There was the husband-wife team who made a 7 foot garden bird - a stork of incredible stature with a set of skate blades welded back to back for his handsome head, the Prodigy made a heavy abstract that was a miniature Henry Moore for sure, the grandfather-grandson team from New Hampshire made a fantastic wheel with their street address and name and the grandson had narrowly escaped a frightening tussle with a grinder earlier in the day while polishing his apocolyptic abstract, J. got the prize for most prolific with two bookshelves completed, and several garden ornaments, including The Hook - a sublime piece really, a 4 foot arched rod welded to a heavy cog as it's base, and then playfully, a small found hook, something from her father's barn, a utilitarian and sturdy thing, welded to the head of the rod - only small things would be able to hang from it, and this was the genius of The Hook - all that metal, for such an absurd purpose made it the best piece created that day, I think. There was the crazy mobile made by the Lady Who Lived Just Down the Street who shared cucumber salad with us at lunch. And then there was my Circus - it's just what I hoped to make, only much much better. It elicited joy from my classmates - it was a surprise, a silly surprise. Best of all when I brought it home, my husband liked it - and my good friend Lee who is an artist, a big man, and a carpenter, and the one whose approval of my metal work I most sought, exclaimed when seeing The Circus, "Oh Honey! It's Wonderful! It's Whimsical! I'm Jealous!" Lee and I are planning the purchase of torches now. I must weld again, there is just too much metal out there, waiting for me.

An Interpretive Dance to Vermont - Part C - The Plasma Cutter

2011-09-01T19:47:00.003-04:00

Do you remember Harold and the Purple Crayon? It was one of my favorite books as a kid. Harold uses his crayon to create the world he wants to be in. And so began a slight obsession with purple crayons for me, much to my grandmother's dismay. I had a bus driver in kindergarden who taught us all how to make the Peace Sign - with our fingers, the V sign, and then he showed us how to draw it too. The Vietnam War was raging on, it was 1970, and he used us as his War Protest. He drove us from stop to stop with all the windows down, we stuck out our little arms and flipped the Peace Sign over and over as we chanted, "Peace! Peace! Peace! Peace!" We were a massive disturbance of the peace in affluent Westport, Connecticut. We were innocent tools for him. We liked yelling. We liked dancing. We liked thrusting our arms out the windows. We were the Peace Bus. And we had no idea what we were yelling about, but, damn, it was fun. I wonder where he is today? But his protest went further. When he taught me to draw the Peace Sign with my crayon, I got a brilliant idea. I went home, and with Harold in mind, I drew the sign over and over and over again on the clapboard walls of our screened-in porch with a purple crayon. Harold drew the moon and it came to be, I drew Peace in hopes that it would come to be too, even though I had no idea what that would mean for the world.
To me, it was a grand accomplishment. I must have drawn 200 Peace Signs. It was like a glorious cursive exercise . . . you know, back when they taught us penmanship? Cursive letters written, looping and looping, on that special lined paper that guided you, made certain your letters were the correct height, aaaaaaa, bbbbbb, cccccc, peacepeacepeacepeace - they were perfectly formed, perfectly spaced, but my grandmother didn't think so. She had the porch repainted immediately and I was told to keep my drawings on paper! But much to her dismay, and my delight, the wax of the crayon acted as a Resister to the paint, and while the tone of purple was gone, there remained hundreds of ghosts of my efforts, faint peace signs rising through the Barn Red Mom had chosen to obliterate my masterpiece - a stubborn batik. Peace would prevail no matter how many coats were applied and it remained to my amusement til the days I left for college.

So what does Harold and his purple crayon have to do with Vermont? Enter the Plasma Cutter! If Harold had a Plasma Cutter he might have ruled the world. The Plasma Cutter felt like a giant electric purple crayon to me. Plasma? Yes, Plasma, Ions, cool atomic blue shit comes out of this gun thing and it cuts through metal with the dancing flourishes! There I was, the little blond girl in the welding class, the timid one, the one who couldn't lay a good bead with the MIG, and I was dominating sheets of metal with Plasma. The ZIP, the Blue Burn, the slightly Dr. Frankenstein Zap of mysterious electricity. If they had handed me a Plasma Cutter in Jr. High School my entire life would have taken a completely different tract. There I am, 13 years old, lost in Algebra, unable to breathe in Science class, overwhelmed by the girls who were taller, bigger, prettier, and well, already kissing boys, and all I had was my ponies, which was fine, but I couldn't bring them to school! If Mr. Adams, the Metal Shop teacher, the one with Shell Shock, yes, we were all told he had Shell Shock, and of course, they didn't tell us what that was, they just told us he got it in the war, the Vietnam War, well, if, Mr. Adams, who told us gory stories about losing your fingers in the sheet cutter (Plink, Plink, Plink) had just handed over the real thing, the Plasma Cutter, I would have been reborn! I would have been wielding that thing all over some metal and making a name for myself long before Wolfy ever started up her little blog.

. . . tomorrow, my Welding triumph and the barely missed bears . . .

Ich Bin Ein Vermonter

2011-08-29T18:51:00.006-04:00

We interupt this summer's vacation remembrance to admit we were a little more than astonished by the news of Hurricane Irene and her needless thrashing of a state that is most unassuming and as far as we can tell has never gone out of it's way to make trouble. All we knew of Vermont previous to our recent trip was that people like to go skiing there and well, there's Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. And before Irene ran up there and threw a hissyfit we were thinking about writing some kind of god-awful ode to Robert Frost, something having to do with the number of ways to say Green, but now we just want to find out where to send a donation to help pay for the rebuilding of a covered bridge or two.
Before Irene, we were going to shame all those skiers into visiting Vermont in the summer. Because we don't know what the place looks like covered in snow, but we were enchanted by it's emerald hills in the last month of summer. We probably won't ever see it under the blankets of snow, the snow Robert Frost contemplated on a snowy evening - he knew those woods, his horse knew those woods, frankly, we were lost the entire time we were in Vermont. Our sense of direction has never been so obliterated, our gyrascope never so unattuned, so, dare we say, Wonky? We barely could believe the sun was rising in the east and setting in the west. It was altogether nerve-wracking and marvelous to feel so vulnerable to the wilds.
Wilds? Yes, Wilds . . . we thought we lived in the wilds, but we were terribly wrong about that. The South is no longer wild, on any front. Vermont, upstate New York, these are wild places. Uninhabited roads, unihabited hillsides . . . as though the Mohicans were still in charge. Oh Uncas, we heard you one night in the voice of an owl, and it terrified us and thrilled us all at the same time.
If you are a Vermonter reading this, then you are laughing at us. How could a New England girl know so little. Well, we are not a New Englander apparently, we are a Connecticutter, and now, of all things, a North Carolinian, and bless you Vermont for showing us your greens, of which we have no business describing or painting with golden frosting, your greens which must be witchcraft because how could a place that becomes so cold in the winter be so verdant? Verdant? That is a word we promised we wouldn't use - Ver being green, Mont being mountain - no? Vermont where they say Green Witch, not Gren-Itch. Vermont where the roads are not paved. Vermont where there are moose and porcupines, of all things! And bears, bears who live on the blueberries and lurk in the waist high ferns - ferns that we stumbled through on a hike in the rain, with a friend and her Meunsterlander who became very keen and was she telling us of the bears? She was, but we forged on and the GPS was a fool on the hill.
Oh Vermont, you have been washed of your sins by Irene, but if only Irene knew you had no sins. You see, Vermont brings out some sort of awful Walt Whitman in me - Whitman having lunch with Frost having dinner with Ginsberg . . .can you see it? "Bob, I have seen the best of our covered bridges destroyed by the hurricanes . . . " Frost would look at Ginsberg, blink his eyes and ask for the check, because what could a New York Jew Gay boy tell him about the snowy woods? Who? Who was more zen? Ginsberg or Frost or Whitman? The answer: a dairy cow on a hill in Vermont.
And now? Back to our regular programming . . .

Fainting in the Gallery

2011-08-29T10:23:00.002-04:00

Surrender of Breda (1634), Diego Velazquez

. . . she dressed very carefully before going to see Toulouse Lautrec, more so than when she went to see Caravaggio. She chose a navy suit with a nehru collar and a pencil skirt. She wanted the light of Lautrec to be undisturbed by her presence. She had worn her hair down for Caravaggio, and wondered if that hadn't been unseemly and presumptuous? She pulled her hair back tight this morning and secured it with a pair of French knitting needles, black lacquer with pink roses - the only bit of color that would she would add to the gallery. There was no hesitation regarding the shoes - the high navy suede pumps made her feel somewhat acrobatic, on toe, like a Lautrec dancer.

she walked in the rain to the museum . . . and the street smelled of tangerines, it was almost September, a late summer flower? she wondered

it was so early that the gallery guards were still drinking coffee and this made them more human than usual. Afternoons brought out the sentry in them, as though she might steal a painting right off the wall, right in front of them.

she was quite fine until she came to the sketch In the Circus, Work with the Saddle - the lines of the dapple grey so round, so immensely plump beneath the girl encased in a black leotard, her toe pointed toward the trainer with the whip. What was he saying to her? It was all so innocent in appearance, but when she leaned closer to the sketch something took her breath and made her heart begin to beat rapidly, the walls of the gallery began to fall, the man was whispering terrible things to the woman on the horse, and she couldn't stop him. Her cheek tingled, her hands made of tissue paper. she remembered feeling this way only once before, at the foot of Valasquez' Surrender of Breda, but she recovered - this, this was too much for her to bear, the man with the whip wouldn't cease, and his words took her into the black . . .

An Interpretive Dance to Vermont - Part B

2011-08-26T16:35:00.002-04:00

But where was I headed?
oh yes, Vermont.
I was on my way to Vermont, but it was becoming hard to believe I was ever going to get there. NY Route 7 just refused to yield a sign that told me I was no longer in New York State and entering the great state of Vermont. I was losing sunlight fast, I called my hostess, "Maybe I've taken a wrong turn, where is Vermont?" Her voice was calm, she said she would pour me a glass of wine and run me a hot bath. Vermont was close, so close.
Did I ever tell you that when I was growing up in Connecticut, Vermont was this place that everyone packed up their Volvos with skis and god-knows-what-else to disappear to on winter weekends? Vermont was represented in lift tickets still attached to school chums' down jacket zippers. Vermont was not a place I went to. It was a place pictured in our yearbook - it was a place for ski teams, not for a kid like me, I could barely balance on a pair of ice skates on the local frozen ponds.
So here I am, half way through life, living far below the Mason Dixon Line and I meet a new friend on Facebook, and she lives in Vermont and says, "Hey, you wanna take a welding class with me this summer?" I've never welded or skied or been to Vermont, so of course I replied, "Yes!"
She told me her village had no stoplights - we judge the size of towns in North Carolina by the number of stoplights. A no-stoplight town is practically unheard of, and with the sun practically gone, I thought I am going to blow right by this place. But she also told me if I got to the big cemetery, I would know I had gone too far. Well, I went too far. I swung into the cemetery, and paused, because you know, I had been on the road for 13 and a half hours and the disorientation of travel had completely settled in my mind. I barely knew who I was anymore.
I dialed my husband on the cell phone - "Are you there?" he asked, I had called him so many times that day.
"No, I'm at the bottom of this mountain road, it's her road, but you know what?"
"What?"
"It's damn dark and uninhabited here. I want you to stay on the phone with me til I get to her house. I mean, what if this is some kind of crazy Facebook plot? I've been lured here by upstate bikers who are going to sell me on the black market and keep the car for parts?"
"This is just occurring to you now?"
"Yeah, well, I'm slow."
But I made the turn and I climbed and climbed, up past meadows and clapboard houses and my husband breathed quietly on the other end of the phone, and when I made the last turn, there she was, my hostess JR and her dog Pip - the Meunsterlander - yes, isn't that something? Of all things to have faithfully walk by your side, a silky chocolate and white bird dog, practically in feathers herself, a Meunsterlander!
"It's okay, I'm here!"
"Do you see her?"
"Yes! And she looks exactly like she does on Facebook!And so does her dog! I would know that dog anywhere!"

. . .

I came-to late the next day and found myself playing with puppies in the cool green grass of JR's parents' farm -- they live just a mountain away from her and they are living the life that more Americans should be living these days. They have a fully restored farm house that runs almost 75% on solar panels. There's a brilliant garden - the kind of garden some people only dream of. There's an apple orchard, a pond to swim in, two young sheep fattening up for slaughter, and a woodpile readying for winter. We played in the shade of a neatly kept barn that acts as the kennels for JR's father's bird dogs. The puppies ran and rolled and gallumped and the sky was brilliant with late northern summer light. A breeze blew and I thought to myself, "I haven't sat bare-legged in the grass since last summer in Connecticut." Nobody sits bare-legged in the grass in North Carolina, even in the winter - it's too full of danger.
We swam in the pond , while the Setters and Pip the Meunsterlander hunted frogs in the cattails - all I could see while I treaded water was furious feathered tails and above me, blue mountains. Was I dreaming? I'm still not quite sure.
That evening we drove the unpaved roads of western Vermont and crossed back into New York State with no fanfare to attend a party on a hill.
This is where the dance begins . . .
time was sliding
a stone pizza oven blazed like a Utopian Furnace
offerings were made
bottles of wine kept appearing from nowhere
a woman with an auburn face sat next to me holding an equally auburn baby, "I have horses!" she proclaimed, and I replied, "I have a horse"
"I know"
and then she told me of her two Morgans and her baby quietly squeezed a beer bottle and I looked out over the blue hills and someone was lighting the stars and the pizza oven roared.
We were pulled down the hill into a barn where a ping pong table called.
But the music got louder and louder and the stars rang on and there were no lights in the distance.
A man whispered to me, "Don't tell anyone about us, don't tell them we are here. We are the Utopians!" And yes, they were and then I imagined this place in Winter, and I didn't think that to be Utopia at all, but the Auburn girl with the Auburn baby who was drinking wine now told me she was just looking at her wool sweaters with sadness the other day, she missed them, all packed away in a trunk for the summer, she couldn't wait to put them back on, and her snow shoes, and to make STEW.
A musician quoted Jackson Pollock and I knew I wasn't on solid ground any more, or was I? I rallied with a comment about Patti Smith's book Just Kids. He'd just finished reading it too, and we confessed to eachother that we cried when the book ended. This led to a long conversation about Jesse Helms . . . or did the conversation about Helms lead to the revelation that we both loved Smith's book about Mapplethorpe? I can't remember, but the point is that I was able to mind meld with a Utopian.
The music got louder.
And a muse came in like a moth and the funky dance turned to a very organized interpretation of five or so dancers, they undulated and froze, and then undulated and froze . . . a chair was carried, and then they froze, a man stood on the chair and the women bent down to him and froze, the music stopped and then it started again, and I heard the ping pong ball back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and points were called out and the dance froze and undulated and froze finally and the dancers layed on the floor for just a moment and then they began shooting hoops! We were playing H-O-R-S-E and the ping pong ball went ba da bump ba da bump ba da bump ba da bump . . . this is the sound of the Utopians.
. . .
The next morning I was standing in the welding yard of Salem Art Works in Salem, NY. Our teacher Gary was trying to find a way to begin - it was as though he had only found out minutes before that he would be teaching a group of fifteen people who had never welded before how to weld. He had no idea what we were doing there, and frankly, I think most of us had no idea either. His safety speech lasted all of five minutes and he admitted at the end of it that it wasn't much of a safety speech at all, and that he would try to reconcile that as the day progressed.
I drifted in and out. I was barely there. The night before had only ended minutes before and while I had watched the Utopians drink all the wine, I was the one who ended up with a migraine headache at 4 a.m. Which seemed incredibly unfair, but there it was. So Gary's safety speech could have been more comprehensive, but I don't know how much I would have benefitted, no matter the content.
When it comes to being an artist, I'm a dabbler. My mother is a painter. My father a photographer. I can draw, sort of. I can paint, sort of. I can take a good picture, now and then. Oh and I can make collages - but I don't make a habit of it. My collages are one thing, that I suppose if I applied myself, could really be significant. But I don't apply myself.
So I had in mind all summer that I would make a collage of metal in this welding class. But Gary had no idea. In fact, he had no idea what any of us wanted to do. And he didn't ask us. His stream of consciousness curriculum took us from one welding machine to another for demonstration and for hands-on attempt. All the equipment looked like something out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil or an apocolyptic garage in Road Warrior. Big black boxes held together with duct tape, electrical tape, TAPE, and mysterious unmarked switches and dials, as though if you hit the wrong one you might be blown to Kingdom Come, or at least to another Time.
There was a vague explanation that many of these welding machines would emit a blue light, UV, that could sunburn your retinas in a matter of a second - and this would put you in the ER where they could do nothing for you, and your would be plagued with a headache (not something I wanted to hear after shaking the migraine) and at worst, you might be scuttled to a dark room for several weeks where you would wait in the black to recover your eyesight, MAYBE.
Being a hypochondriac, this idea of a blue light flashing across the workshop and attacking my retinas rendering me blind put me in a bit of a tizzy. I thought, What the hell am I doing here? We donned our welding shields, which made you unable to see a thing, and then you'd hear the torch go ZWIT . . . yes, ZWIT , and then all you could see was this sharp blue light, and you could hear Gary rambling on about Laying a Bead and something about flox or drawing with the heat. I was completely LOST.
But I knew what I wanted to make. I had been looking at Toulouse Lautrec's circus drawings, and old photos of circus horses and acrobats in preposterous tutus balanced on draft horses so immmense, so heavy, that they seemed to be made of concrete and steel, not flesh and blood.
Toward the end of the day, Gary asked me to draw a bead with the MIG - look it up - I was horrified. It was tantamount to taking a cobra by the neck and squeezing venom out of it as far as I was concerned. It wasn't just flame, it was electricity, blue electricity and you were forced to hold on to it while blinded by an ill-fitting welding shield. There you are in the black, feeling for a seam, pressing an antiquated button, ZWIT, ZWIT, and everyone, including the boy JR and I had declared The Prodigy, because he was going to obviously be the next welding sensation who would take MOMA by storm, watching! The old men, who it turned out, had welded, were watching me, the frail blond, gripping the MIG, and laying a really BAD bead. When I was finished, I flipped up my masked, and saw that I had not layed a bead, but a discordent series of molten droplets, an embarrassment really. Gary, said, "Well, since yer having the most trouble, I don't think you have to try again." What! Oh! I had told him I didn't even want to attempt to use the MIG and when I did, and did it badly, he points out I failed? Ugh.
What Gary didn't know was this - I had other plans and the MIG was not part of my plan. I was interested in far more delicate methodologies to create what I wanted to create. That's okay. He would figure it out.
We were turned loose upon the junk metal pile to rummage for material to build our projects on the next day. I knew exactly what I needed. I wasn't sure how I was going to meet my goal, but I somehow knew where to begin. I found large pieces of flat square sheet metal, rusted to perfection - these I would cut my horses and circus ladies from. I found a two foot long coil, this I would cut into shorter lengths to create crazy horse tails and head dresses. Bonus! I found a discarded base of a hanging sign. Bonus Number Two: a stage!
I also found this fabulous thing in the image of a pilot's wing emblem. Turns out it was a Bung Hole! Gary told me that. I thought he was being rude when he said, "Oh, you're using a bung hole!" But when I accused him of being rude, he told me I was ignorant of the original meaning of Bung Hole. Google it - really, it's not as dirty as you think.
So we had two interns assisting with the class, and I was adopted by a very knowledgeable girl, an artist, a master welder (in my opinion), and an angel named Sam. Sam asked me what I wanted to make and when I told her a "wall hanging with circus horses and acrobats" she took my hand and showed me the way to the Plasma Cutter!

An Interpretive Dance to Vermont - Part A of Part Two of Summer's Vacation Coming Before Part One . . .

2011-08-22T09:53:00.001-04:00

730 miles of back roads to Vermont from North Carolina in one day, solo, does something to one's mind, and I can't say if it's all good, you'll have to be the judge of that. But it does teach one about the physics of Stream of Consciousness, that I know for sure.
The girls behind the counter looked at me blankly when I asked if I had passed the turn for River Road, the one that would get me to Virginia 250 that would then get me to 64 and finally to 81N. While they negotiated who had been working there longer and was then more qualified to give directions, a man touched my arm, and said, "I'll tell you the best route to 81 . . . and he did, and he was so confident that there was no reason to doubt him. I went his way.
That's right, I don't use a GPS . . . although later in this episode, Wolfy will attempt to use a GPS and well, it's not pretty. Give me a paper map, preferably with topo lines, and I am happier than a horse in the shade.
I81 is way up, it traverses the mountain tops, and the light up there is electric, and you can see all the way to the Midwest I believe. The green valleys are immense and I saw at least two houses tucked way up on hilltops that I wished I could call home. A billboard asked me to pray for Recovery and it was not the last sign of the dire economic times we're in that day. I81 a truck route really, and heavily traveled by military. It's not I-95, it's got a very serious look on it's face, everybody seems to be working. Except for the little party I saw going on in a red Cube. I followed that tiny car for several miles, and it was filled with dancing heads, and for a moment I thought the car was filled with Afghan hounds, but when I passed, I found it to be jammed with Asians - I know, I know - but it's true, and they were having a fabulous time, so fabulous, that I wanted to follow them further, but I had miles to go, so many miles to go.
I passed at least two army convoys, and was straifed by a boy in full camo on the meanest looking black dirt bike I've ever seen -- he peeled by me and crouched down as he weaved through the traffic, good gosh he was free.
I passed War College . . . which made me think of Peace College, and then this led to thoughts of them meeting for debates and goodwill football matches.
It was sometime after lunch that I made the climb between the coal mines to the bleakest highway stretch I have ever seen - I81 N through western Pennsylvania, with a brief impasse into West Virginia, north of Harrisburg, somewhere near Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Though it was a sunny day, I felt the grey skies of Andrew Wyeth sitting heavily on my mind. Perhaps I had been on the road too long, but the road seemed uninhabited and deathly lonely, despite being surrounded by trucks - it was as though they weren't being driven by people. There were coal mines in the distance, blackness fell over me . . . I felt like Amelia Earhart just before she disappeared over the Pacific, my radio was silent.
But, I made it to Binghamton for a ham sandwich and a Coke and was rewarded with the late golden hours on 88 East toward Albany. The traffic was almost nil, only me, a station wagon from South Carolina, and a heavy duty pickup truck with a winch and a gun rack. But the loneliness of this highway was a wonderful solitude among the foothills of upstate New York. Here was the light and the scenes of the Hudson River School - more pastoral than one could stand. Great red barns, lush green fields, cows waiting for evening.
And yet I was hit by the lack of traffic and the emphatically CLOSED rest stops. Nobody comes this way anymore . . .

Let Them Eat Vichyssoise . . .

2011-07-20T16:57:00.003-04:00

I'm back. Well, sort of. I'm out of the cast and in a very strange looking splint. The cast with it's camo design was a conversation piece, the splint on the other hand, looks far too medical for strangers to comment, instead they cross the street when they see me and The Hand approaching.

But while I was still decorated with the camo cast, the cast to end all casts, I ventured to the mountains, to Asheville to be precise, and you will be hearing much about the time I had there in the next few days, as the place filled my head and my heart. Oh, and my stomach! I had many wonderful meals in Asheville, but the best was a cold bowl of Vichysoisse on the street veranda of our hotel. I don't know if it was the best vichyssoise or if it was just the fact that my husband and I had survived a harrowing hike of 9 point something miles through Craggy Gardens Natural Area to stand at the foot of Douglas Falls. It was close to 90 degrees in the shade, the trail was a primitive fest of brutal switchbacks constructed of rocks and rhododendron roots and well, the Mountain said, "Ha!" that day. But our broken spirits, not to mention our broken bodies were restored by the simplest of things that evening - a cold creamy soup made of leeks and potatoes.

Well it's hot down here in the lowlands of North Carolina, and the heat index was just hollering for me to stay inside, crank the AC and start peeling potatoes. I chose Jacques Pepin's recipe for Basic Leek and Potato Soup from one of my favorite cookbooks, Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin; a charming account of their sweet culinary friendship in which you can read of their diplomatic disagreements over certain recipes - in the case of leek and potato soups, I chose Pepin's recipe over Julia's because it had fewer steps and used chicken broth instead of water. Please heed his strong advice to rinse the leeks well, as no one enjoys sand in their soup!

Jacque's Basic Leek and Potato Soup
(the basis for Vichyssoise, finishing instructions at the end here)

Yield: 2 Quarts
2 Tbs olive, canola, or corn oil
4 cups sliced leeks, trimmed and rinsed
1 1/2 cups sliced onion, 1-inch pieces
6 cups hot chicken stock, homemade, or low-sodium canned broth
4 cups peeled, diced potatoes, 2 inch chunks (about 1 1/2 pounds)
Salt to taste, depending on the saltiness of broth
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Special Equipment: A large, heavy bottomed 3- or 4-quart saucepan with cover

Heat the oil in the saucepan, stir in the leek and onion pieces, and saute for about 5 minutes over moderate heat, to soften.

Add the chicken stock and potato chunks, and season with salt to taste and pepper. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat, cover the pan, and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle boil. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are quite tender.

Mash, blend, or puree it to the desired consistency and adjust the seasonings. Serve the soup right away, or set aside until serving time . . . this is where you can turn to page 56 for variations, and in our case we are going for Chilled Vichyssoisse: finely puree the soup through a food mill or other appliance - Wolfy used her kickass Oster two-speed blender for the job and was very impressed with the silky results! Then chill the soup thoroughly. Before serving, stir in 1/2 to 1 cup heavy cream or a mixture of cream and milk, and a tablespoon or two of chopped chives, and adjust the seasonings. Sprinkle more chopped chives over each serving. (Another suggestion Pepin makes is to fry up some leeks and add them as a garnish - very pretty in the photo, so Wolfy is going for the idea.)

Now, get in the kitchen, pour some lovely wine and get to work my good people of San Jose.

Cheers!

The MerMan of Burying Hill Beach

2011-07-08T09:11:00.001-04:00

    There have been reports lately of a male swimmer appearing in the shallows of Burying Hill Beach during the early morning hours. He invites female passersby to swim with him. He shouts, “C’mon in! The water is lovely!” Many of the women are sullen and lonely wives who live in large, almost empty homes near the beach. Their husbands are too busy working to walk the beach with them. To some of the wives, the swimmer is dark, swarthy and strong shouldered. To others he is lithe and blonde, almost a boy of their youth. He appears in different forms and because of his changing description, the authorities have not been able to find him.
    When Theresa Ancona was arrested by the Greens Farms police for indecent exposure two years ago, she claimed that she undressed to go swimming and hung her clothes on a barnacle laden jetty nearby. She had every intention of dressing once again behind the shadows of the pilings before walking back home. But the tide went out and took her clothes with it. She further claimed she was drawn into the water by a middle-aged swimmer, an attractive man who called to her. The man that locals are now calling the MerMan of Burying Hill Beach. Theresa said the man disappeared before the authorities arrived, “He seemed to dissolve with the tide like a hermit crab burrowing into the wet sand.”
    Mrs. Ancona is not the first local housewife left stranded lately without clothing or logical explanation on the little stretch of beach that affords grand views of the Long Island Sound. The beach is much less frequented by out of town New Yorkers and much more frequented by those who live only a stroll or bicycle ride away. It sports no gourmet snack bar and some say it is haunted by the ghosts of town’s founding families; the Jennings and the Burrs. It is not a place to be seen, it is a place to commune with the salt waters. A place where one notices the inlet rushing out to the Sound and the trill of the red wing black birds back in the marshes. Grebes frequently fish in the inlet and their quick and spattering flight across the dark green waters is the only cacophony that disturbs the silence there. The distant ascending horn of the train pulling into the Greens Farms station is the only reminder that time is passing. But now the MerMan has changed everything.
    It was early June when India Shelby encountered the MerMan. There were no sightings of him for several months and many thought he moved on to different waters. The last report of him came from newly divorced Ruth Taylor. She was walking the beach on a cold February morning with her Irish Setter Helen when the swimmer appeared as only a head and neck in the water. The setter dove into the frigid waves and the swimmer began playing with the dog. Ruth called to Helen and then to the swimmer, “Aren’t you freezing?” He made no reply and instead somersaulted continuing the game with Helen the Setter, who was beside herself to have a playmate. Ruth found herself transfixed by the antics of her dog and the swimmer. She laughed out loud for the first time since her divorce had been finalized. But Ruth's delight was quickly interrupted when the swimmer dove and his strong torso was replaced on the water’s surface by an emerald flipper—it slapped the water and a salty rain cascaded and arched to drench Ruth. The great green fin was gone and Helen the Setter ran up on the beach to shake herself dry, further soaking Ruth and leaving her shivering in the winter wind. Ruth looked at Helen and Helen the Setter beamed. The swimmer was gone.

    Ruth returned home to a hot bath and put bourbon in her coffee. She debated with herself. Was she insane? Perhaps the stress of her divorce had driven her mad. But then she recalled reading something in the paper last summer about her neighbor Theresa Ancona. She poured more bourbon in her coffee and picked up the phone, “Theresa? Theresa Ancona? Is that you?”
    “Yes, who is this?”
    “Theresa, I’m Ruth Taylor. We met at the yacht club some time ago, must have been two years ago, before my divorce. We promised to play tennis and never did. I live on Beachside Avenue, well, not for long, the house is on the market, but who knows when it will sell. You, you live on Sasco Hill don’t you?”
    “Yes, uh. Wait, Ruth, yes I remember you. I’m sorry about your . . . ”
    “Oh the divorce? Its nothing really, nothing. He met a girl on the train.”
    “Well, I’d love to play tennis with you, but its winter.”
    “Theresa! Oh dear, that’s not what I’m calling about. I’m calling about the swimmer. The man in the water on Burying Hill.”
    “Oh! I am going to hang up now. You understand, I can’t . . .”
    “Please! Please don’t hang up! I think I saw him this morning.”
    “You’re making fun of me. You must be. No one admits to seeing him. The other girls who were arrested . . . you know there are three of them. Three of them! They’ve all changed their stories now. They all say there was no swimmer, no man at all. They just went skinny dipping and got caught and they are so sorry. But I was stupid. I continued to tell the police that a man, a middle-aged man, but not built like any of the men we know around here, you know, he was well, you know, quite fit, and he invited me to go swimming and I just didn’t think it would do any harm . . . no harm at all, but I was so wrong, so so wrong.”
    “Theresa! I saw him this morning. My setter swam with him. He had a tail! A flipper I suppose. It was the color of seaweed! In fact, I thought it was seaweed, but he slapped the water and it went everywhere. I was soaked through my sweater and blue jeans, I was shivering with the cold and excitement and then he was gone. But he played with my dog. They swam together!”
    “Did you see his eyes?”
    “Yes! They were silver.”
    “Oh Ruth. You have no idea what it means to me that you saw him. Will you tell the police? Will you?”
    “I don’t know Theresa.”
    “I beg of you Ruth. It won’t clear my name completely, but if people in town hear that someone else saw him, saw that he wasn’t a man at all, but a MerMan, then I might be able to go out in public again. My husband won’t speak to me anymore you know. He’s said five words to me since last September. And my sons just stare at me. They tell their friends I’m an alcoholic.”
    “Oh Theresa dear, but will they believe me?”
    “They just have to believe you.”
    Ruth reported her encounter with the swimmer to the Greens Farms police. But they just stared at her blankly when she asked them to make a record of her sighting. They told her no crime was committed. There was nothing wrong with a man swimming in February, except that he might catch cold, and if she and her dog were unharmed, then nothing really happened, “But he had a tail.” And to this they rolled their eyes and told her to go home before they asked her how much she’d been drinking that morning. Ruth turned on her heels and left the little police station. She felt she had let Theresa Ancona down. She thought about calling the newspaper, but then thought again. She decided to forget the whole thing.
    And yet Ruth’s report to the police took hold. The cops didn’t write it down, didn’t put her words in a file cabinet, and they didn’t discuss her story. They dismissed her story among themselves, but each one of them heard her and they furtively began to believe there was something to the stories about the MerMan. Were the women in town so lonely that they were hallucinating? The cops saw the husbands park their BMWs and their Porches and their Saabs in neat shiny rows at the train station every morning and off the men would ride into the city, where they sat in offices all day, trading stocks and buying futures, loosening their ties and glancing at their secretaries' lovely bottoms in skirts, but not for too long, only long enough so the sight of a pretty ass was like a brief cool breeze across one’s brow on a hot summer’s day, and as quickly as the breeze came, it dissipated and the heat of their work took over again. The men would return late from the city, sometimes on the 8:35 or the 9:42, drag themselves to their shiny cars and home to a dark house, where dinner was done, the children were out for a movie, and a wife who was wilted with wine. So the cops thought, why not? Why wouldn’t the women start conjuring up a MerMan? But none of them would admit their suspicions to their fellow officers, they just steeped quietly to themselves.
    India Shelby never read about Theresa Ancona in the newspaper and never heard the lightly scattered rumors crossing the lips of ladies who lunched. India was practically a tourist. This was her town years before. She was a little girl in this town. She became a woman in this town. She learned how to swim when she was tiny in the waters of the Sound. The bottoms of her feet had walked across the barnacled reach a thousand times to get to the soft coffee-colored sand where she played with seaweed and hermit crabs and swam to the distant buoys while the tide came in. She loved this water and the thought that it lead to Long Island, to the tip of Manhattan and out to the Atlantic. And even though she no longer lived with this water, she could summon it up in her head anytime she wanted . . . sleepless in bed in her southern home miles and miles from the sea she dove deep into the water of night and cast a spell upon her own memory. The green waters chilled the small of her back, the salt air filled her lungs, and in the moment before she drifted off to sleep again, her mind’s eye met the midday sun flashing off the beach stones making them glow in the shallows.
    India’s family was all gone from this town. Her great-grandfather once owned part of Burying Hill, but all that was gone, even the house he raised her grandmother in was gone. “The money went out with the tide,” her grandmother used to say. But India returned every year to touch the water again, to sit on the jetty and look out towards the smoke stacks on Long Island. To conjure up her past.
    India walked to Burying Hill on her last morning in town. She saved it for last like a sweet piece of cake. She was staying with a childhood friend who slept late every day. India woke at 5:30 am to the song of the one bird in the neighborhood. She was astonished by the quiet that had overtaken her town since she was little. All the perfect gardens and lawns maintained by neatly dressed crews of Mexicans were devoid of life. The chemicals that made every yard verdant had silenced the hissing of summer. There were practically no more birds—only a stray blue jay, a small gang of starlings perhaps, and then night would fall and India would wait for the crickets and the buzz of cicadas so deafening to her as a child, but nothing, nothing would come, just two or three singular flashes of fireflies and then the far off train’s low horn mourning the loss of its men at the station.
    Yet when she reached Burying Hill after walking strong for three miles from the front porch of her friend’s home, she found the nature she had been missing. Red wing blackbirds trilled and stood guard on the cat tails in the marsh and doves' voices like soft church bells rang. Dragon flies zipped low over the inlet catching light and then hovered militarily. The water was rushing in. The tide was coming in! It was early enough that the guard house was closed and only one or two cars parked at the head of the beach. People sat at the wheel with their cups of coffee staring out at the morning on the water. India took off her shoes and stepped onto the sand, she headed straight for the jetty and sat down. She closed her eyes and listened to the tide moving. She thought briefly about her husband, she wondered what he was doing, maybe he was still asleep. She wanted to miss him, but she didn’t at the moment. Twenty years gone and what came of it was a sort of numbness. India opened her eyes and saw the jetty steadily succumbing to the tide, so she decided to walk the shoreline with the morning sun, white as lightening in her eyes.
    There was no one on the beach and she noticed the cars were gone now. She was thrilled with her solitariness. She looked down at the shallows. The salty water moved across the worn stones and India was pleased by the clearness of the Sound. It hadn’t always been that clear. She bent to pick up a yellow beach stone, the kind that are gold when wet, but dull and without any life at all when dry. As soon as she put her hand on the stone she heard a man’s voice. She looked up and out to the water and there, only a few feet away, where no one existed just a moment before, were the head and shoulders of a man. The sun beat from behind him, so his face was dark except for his eyes, which were silver like minnows. He rose an arm out of the water and called to her, “C’mon in! The water is lovely!”
    She stood up straight and ran her thumb over the wet stone she just picked up. She was embarrassed, because she was startled by the man’s request. How odd to have a stranger ask her to swim with him. It was so odd that it seemed as though she must be some sort of prude to think that it was out of the ordinary. She turned her head, as though there might be someone else standing on the beach behind her, a person that the swimmer knew. There must be someone else here that he is calling to, she thought. But there was no one. Only India stood on the beach. She gulped and ventured a word to him, “Oh it is lovely. And clear! I wish I had thought to wear my swimsuit! So . . . so oh well, what a shame. But thank you just the same!” She felt as though she had said too much, and then he called to her again. “I won’t look. Undress behind the jetty and sneak into the water. Really, I won’t look. You must come in. The water is so perfect. You don’t want to miss it. Seldom is it this lovely.”
    And India believed him. She believed the water was prettier than she had ever seen it, and it was silly of her to have left her swimsuit back at the house. But she wouldn’t dare swim naked with a stranger. No, regrets of missing the water were nothing compared to the regret she might feel about treading water with this man. But then, as though he heard her thoughts, he called to her again, “He won’t mind. He’d understand you know. We’re all getting old, the things you wouldn’t do years ago seem to make more sense, because the tide is going out.”

    “But the tide just came in.” She replied to the swimmer, knowing what he really meant. Her intention was to be dignified, not coy. Dignified women didn’t just crouch behind a jetty to strip and swim with a man they’d never met before. Or did they?
    India stopped thinking and just stared at the swimmer. He was treading water slightly closer to the jetty now. He called something else out to her. She couldn’t understand his words and she wanted to ask him what he said, but she didn’t. She walked to the jetty and looked at him once again, “You won’t look?”
    “I won’t look. I am a man of my word.”
    India stepped over the jetty, crouched down onto the broken muscle and oyster shells and peeled off her clothes. She arranged them in a pile and momentarily hoped the gulls wouldn’t carry them off. Then she peered over the jetty at the swimmer, “Okay, I’m coming in. Turn around, close your eyes now. You know—don’t look.” The swimmer dutifully turned his back to her as India took four steps across the barnacled slippery rocks. She felt the seaweed about her ankles as she lowered herself in the water. Two more steps and she was in that place where the sand is soft and if you dig your toes in just slightly you can feel the hermit crabs protest and pinch at you. She was in up to her neck now and the sun was glinting off the surface of the quiet water. The swimmer turned to face her and all she could see of him were his silver eyes and his terrifically strong neck that grew out of straight muscled shoulders. His collar bones protruded and were so square that he seemed to be like the mast of a sail boat. And then she looked at his face and he smiled and the sunlight went everywhere.
    “What’s your name?” he asked her and she thought it was funny to be telling him her name at this point.
    “India . . . and your name?”
    “Smith.”
    “That’s your first name?” she looked away from him and out to the Sound where two people were paddling a red canoe toward the inlet.
    “Yes, is that odder than India?”
    “No, I guess not.”
    “Let’s go further out, you like to swim don’t you?” He was swimming backwards now and smiling at her. It was a terribly nice smile, it was slightly crooked and his jaw seemed to grind slightly to the right.
    “Yes, I love to swim. Let’s go to the buoys.”
    And so they began to swim. He was slightly ahead of her and she noticed that he swam quietly, his effort was economical, whereas she was having to work harder than him. She felt awkward and almost weak, the tide’s still coming in, she thought.
    When they reached the buoys, they hung on to one and now they were very close to each other and India felt completely happy to be with Smith. She didn’t mind when he brushed his hand against her arm. It was a feeling that she had not felt for years. He was taking her somewhere, she didn’t know where, but she liked the feeling of being taken. “Do you want to dive?” he asked her.
    “I don’t know. What is there to see out here without a snorkel and mask?”
    “Oh! there’s so much! C’mon. Dive with me.”
    “But . . .”
    “I already looked.”
    “You didn’t!”
    “I did and so did you. I saw you. So its okay. We can dive together. It will be fun!”
    “But I didn’t look. I didn’t . . . ” At least she hadn’t thought she had . . . all she had see was his back and then the greenness of the water, the flashing emerald green.
    “Dive India, c’mon just dive.” and with those words Smith dove and India felt his hand tug on her ankle and she dove too and opened her eyes to find that she could see below the Sound perfectly well and there were fishes and a sunken wooden boat and rocks and Smith doing somersaults. She dove deeper and couldn’t take her eyes off of Smith. He was half man, half fish! He swam toward her and she found that she was no longer breathing and that it didn’t matter, she didn’t need to breathe. Smith hovered in front of her. She reached out and ran her hand down his chest, down his belly and then stopped just where his skin became scale—bright bluish green scale, like he was encased in jewels. She wanted to breathe, but Smith shook his head. He was reading her mind again. Smith took her hand and she went with him, they swam among the fishes for miles. At one point they surfaced and were surrounded by sailboats in a race . India could hear the spinnakers whipping in the wind and the voices of the sailors shouting orders to one another. “Can they see us Smith?”
    “I don’t think so. I watch them all the time. They never seem to notice me.”
    “I should probably go back now Smith, its getting late.”
    “But we haven’t . . . ”
    “Haven’t what?”
    “Oh nothing, you would think I was ridiculous for asking.”
    “How could I think you were ridiculous? I’ve spent all morning swimming with a MerMan, nothing is going to shock me now, or ever again for that matter.”
    “Of all the women who swam with me, you are the only one who ever came this far. All the others got to the buoys and said, that’s it Buster, I gotta split. But you, you dove with me. So I wanted to take you somewhere special to thank you.”
    “Where?”
    “The island.”
    “What island?”
    “Cockenoe Island, of course.”
    “I’ve never been!” India had always wanted to take a boat to Cockenoe, the island off Saugatuck, the island some people swam to, the island that seemed unreachable, but she never got the chance.
    “I know. So I can take you there today and we can have a picnic.”
    “A picnic? Smith, can you really have a picnic with me? I mean, can you even get out of the water?”
    “I’m full of surprises India.”
    “Yes, you are just one surprise after another Smith.”
    India followed Smith to Cockenoe and the sun stood still for them. Smith walked out of the water as a man and disappeared into a grove of trees. He told her to wait for him. She treaded water and watched an oil tanker slip across the distant horizon. Smith returned to the shore and called her out. “Are you hungry?” And she was, she was starving and there was Smith, in a t-shirt and shorts and holding a dress for her. He had a picnic basket too.
    “Smith?”
    “You doubted me didn’t you?”
    “I doubt no man with a tail.”
    “But I’m the only man you’ve met with a tail, right?”
    “Oh yes, the only one.”
    “So what was your question?”
    “Can I stay here a while?”
    “On Cockenoe?”
    “No . . . can I . . . ”
    “have a tail?”
    “Yes!”
    “No, I can’t give you a tail. I’m afraid I have to toss you back on land right about at sunset.”
    “Well, crap, cause I was kinda getting used to all this.”
    “Sorry.” Smith poured more wine in India’s cup.
    “Pass the fried chicken.”
    The following winter was long and grey and inhabited by one snow storm after another. India read of the storms, which made her glad she lived in the South and she passed the days content to wait until the milder days of summer to travel north again. Some nights though, she lay awake with the moonlight sifting through the window to light up her pillow and she could feel the MerMan curled up next to her. She thought of returning to the beach and hoped he’d be waiting there for her. But she knew he wouldn’t be. He told her so when he tossed her back on land the previous summer.
    And meanwhile the MerMan had been strangely quiet. The Greens Farms police waited for another hysterical woman to show up on Burying Hill. Summer droned on without incident and fall came with the usual fanfare of color in the maple trees and it seemed as though the MerMan had never existed at all. But then Mrs. Pansy Chatham disappeared and the town was in an uproar again.
    Pansy Chatham was 89 years old. She grew up on Sasco Hill and her family spent summer days on Burying Hill Beach. Just like India, Pansy learned to swim in the Sound. Her husband was dead now and so was her sister Adelle. Pansy drove to Burying Hill every morning at 10 am. This was after she would go to the Greens Farms post office to pick up her mail from Box 82, the box she had held for sixty years, and before she would visit the Spic and Span market in nearby Southport, where she would buy one of their delicious frozen entrees for dinner, and then cross the street to say hello to Jerry at the pharmacy to buy a bottle of Johnny Walker Red if she were out of the stuff at home, which was often the case. While on the beach, she would sit in her car for some time to watch the sun on the water and then she always got out to walk to the end of the beach and back again, carefully, with her cane. She felt visited by the spirits of Adelle and her father when she walked on Burying Hill. She found herself talking out loud to them at times and she didn’t care what other passersby might think.
    But on the morning she disappeared she wasn’t talking to Adelle or her father and there was snow on the beach, which Pansy thought was quite beautiful, especially where the snow met the salt water, the way the snow dropped into the green water and became part of the Sound. She was stood close to the jetty and tapped her cane on an oyster shell that a gull left on top of the snow and mused about the gulls. She wondered if the cold was really bothering them. And that’s when the swimmer appeared. Pansy was startled to see his bare shoulders, his dark square head, and his handsome smile in the water, ”Where the hell did you come from? You must be freezing.”
    “C’mon in! The water is warmer than the air and just lovely!”
    “While I used to swim the Sound as early as March first and as late as November third when I was your age, I don’t think I’ll chance it today.”
    “I remember!”
    “Remember what?” Pansy pulled her cane back from the jetty and pushed it into the snow and sand.
    “I remember swimming with you.”
    “How could you? I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”
    “I’m older than you think.”
    “Listen, I’m not long for this world young man, but I haven’t completely lost my mind. You really should get out of that water and into a warm coat!”
    “I used to swim with you and Adelle.”
    This made Pansy stop and look at the swimmer. She took in a long cold breath and let it out again, and the steam seemed to freeze in front of her face. She heard the train pulling into the Greens Farms station, its the 10:25 she thought. “You knew Adelle?”
    “I swam with you both. Here and off Sasco Beach. You took me sailing with you too.”
    “I did no such thing. I only took one man sailing and that was my husband.”
    “Pansy.”
    “How do you know my name?”
    “Because you took me sailing with you.”
    “I told you I . . .”
    “Think Pansy, it was the twenty fifth of September, 1932 . . .”
    “Who are you?”
    “Smith!”
    “Smith? I don’t know any Smith . . . no, no I don’t.” Pansy shook her head and watched the swimmer somersault. She saw his tail emerge from the water and then disappear to be replaced by Smith’s head and shoulders once again. The sun began to move across the sky the way it does in the summer and the snow was retreating and retreating back to the sea wall. A gull was hovering over Pansy and Smith and then it dropped an oyster shell and by the time it hit the jetty and broke open, there were leaves on the trees along the coast and there was the faintest and sweetest smell of honeysuckle in the air. Pansy felt nauseous and deliriously happy all at the same time.
    “Pansy, c’mon in! The water is warmer and clearer than its been in the longest time.” Smith was swimming backward now and waving one tan arm to Pansy.
    Pansy looked down at herself and she was twenty-three once more. Her hands were taut, and her vision was such that she could see all the way to Long Island. She stepped in the shallows and the water was indeed warm, “Smith! Now I remember you! The one Adelle liked so much, the one with the tail!”

One Handed Stories

2011-07-03T18:36:00.004-04:00

Crow on the train tracks . . .

Dragonfly big a warbler follows a truck down the driveway, sits on the radio antenna, a timber truck roars by . . .

Lacey bought a bottle of Gallo Chardonnay, a pack of Camels, and a Fashion Scarf at the corner store after putting twenty dollars worth of unleaded in the tank. The fashion scarf was pink with white polka dots and Lacey tied the scarf around her neck when she got back in her truck. She pulled up her black tube top, lit a cigarette, started up her truck, and looked in the mirror before turning left onto highway 70. She decided she would make Keith mad, really mad.

Johnny quit the band. The Suicidal Squirrels were now a thing of his past. He would go solo -- under an assumed name. He opened an old cigar box and found a photo of his mother's lover Bobby. But he didn't like Bobby . . .

Theresa was about to have a nervous breakdown. Only she didn't know it. She was driving 82 on I40 in her red 2002 Mercedes with the top down. Her blond hair was pinned up and her big French sunglasses protected her from the stare of a trucker who bore down her, passed her, and left her with nothing but a question, "How's my driving?" She downshifted as she dialed Frank's number and when he picked up she said two words and hung up, "See ya!" The biggest real estate deal of her career had just closed. Her $775,000 commission was in the wire to the bank. Tonight she would be standing at the toe of the ocean, but her heart would be beating hard and she would be gasping for air. The money would mean nothing, not a damn thing.

I Need A New Story . . .

2011-06-28T15:52:00.003-04:00

It’s most annoying to have broken my left hand -- not only am I forced to type with only one hand, but the story of how I broke my fifth metacarpal is insanely boring, and I realized today, after telling the tale to yet another curious acquaintance, I should have been lying all this time. It would have been so much more interesting . . .

“Oh no! What happened?”

I was gored by a bull in Mexico City . . .

I was fouled in the finals of the World Kick Boxing Championship in Barcelona . . .

I was broadsided by barracuda while spearfishing in Tahiti . . .

My vessel capsized in a vicious storm on the Cape of Good Hope . . .

I was struck by a mallet in the 5th chukker of a rousing good game of elephant polo -- if it wasn't the Prince of Siam who delivered the blow, I would have made an international scene over it . . .

I stumbled on the steps of the Taj Majal . . .

I was mugged in Calcutta . . .

My Sherpa was attacked by a snow leopard--thank god I was able to save him from certain death . . .

I had just discovered a new galaxy at Machu Picchu, when there was a rock slide . . .

Bungee jumping off the Eiffel Tower at midnight . . .

Oh this? A brawl in a bar in Athens . . . no, not Georgia! (credit CDP)

Chuck Norris will watch his mouth the next time . . . (credit KW)

I flipped my dune buggy in the Mojave . . .

Camel racing in Tunisia . . .

Mistaken identity in an alley in Marrakech . . .

Becher’s Brook has never been lucky for me . . . perhaps next year’s Grand National will be the ticket

Fifth Metacarpal in D

2011-06-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

The man who made the cast for my broken hand was named Romeo. He was soft spoken, gentle, and an artist. The cast room was brightly lit with many cabinets and drawers filled with everything Romeo needs to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Romeo gave me many colors to choose from. I chose purple with no hesitation.

As Romeo began to mummify my hand with various gauzes, he asked me how i broke the bone: it was stupid really, a deer jumped out, my horse stopped short, i jammed my hand . . . i didn't even fall off.

Romeo rides a motorcycle to work. A Ducatti -- fast fast, i say. His job never let's him forget how dangerous motorcycles are, but he says I am drawn to speed. And sometimes when I ride in the country I can relax you know? Not like riding in the city, you gotta watch out for everybody.

Romeo wraps and wraps the damp casting -- everything is smooth and perfect, i feel like a paper maché project. Romeo had to bend my fingers, I'm sorry he says, It's okay i say. The broken bone clicks into place, it aches for a moment, but Romeo holds my hand still and presses as the casting hardens. I feel safe with Romeo.

When he's finished, he gives me a sheet of paper instructing me on the care of my cast. He goes to a cabinet filled with little drawers of band aids and hands me a pile of little round ones -- you can put these on your fingers or on the cast where ever it rubs -- sometimes that happens. Or you can make polka dots for your cast, he smiles.

i didn't want to leave, really, i wanted to stay with Romeo and open all the drawers and cabinets, but i had to leave the sculptor to his day -- bones, them bones.

Midnight in Hillsborough

2011-06-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

I stayed up til midnight in hopes that Zelda and F. Scott might pick me up somewhere down on King Street, but they never showed.

Have you seen Midnight in Paris? If you love Wolfy just a little bit, you'll do her a favor and go see it, and arm yourself with another reading of A Moveable Feast, because you won't get it - oh yeah, if you know your early 20th century writers, knockabouts, and artists, you'll keep your head above water, but if you have Hemingway's book in your back pocket, you'll delight in Gil's slipping through the curtain of time and marvel at his trip. Did I live vicariously through Gil as he handed his novel to Gertrude Stein and shared his angst with Dali and Man Ray? You betcha . . .

Thank you Woody Allen, thank you.

HA!

2011-06-16T19:21:00.000-04:00