Oh, NY Times, how I love you!

You all know how much I love reading.  And thus how much I love writers. Combine the two and you get great writers talking about what they read this year!  Could my heart be happier?  (Well, yes, that fiasco of an election could not have taken place, the genocide that is/was Aleppo could not have taken place, Alan Rickman's death could not have taken place, the SF Giants winning the World Serious COULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE, I could have won the lottery after playing almost every friggin Saturday night, Trump could have died, and on and on...... so yes, my heart could be happier.)

But we take what small joys we find, right?  So in the NY Times book section is a really nice assortment of really good writers talking about what they read in 2016 and why. Or why not.  And a couple actually admitted they started a book and did not finish it!  Wow!  They are human!

So, if you are a reader who likes writers, check it out. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/books/review/25year-in-reading.html?_r=0

Oh, and yes, I could continue on some of the things that would make my heart happy, like ...... well, there is so much. As the year comes to its close, we all need to define those things for ourselves and the things that make our hearts, and thus ourselves, unhappy, we need to try and fix.

When there is a call for protest, for demonstration, for activism, I hope you are all with me. If it takes hitchhiking to Washington DC for a rally, if it means spending money on plane tickets, if it means buying a sleeping bag and a canteen for camping out for justice and equality and simple moral values, please be prepared to do so.  I will give you a shout out when I am ready to take to the road to help ourselves be safe and whole, and I want some of you to come along. And I want you to give me that same shout out. Either here or on my email, which you probably have but if not, just ask.  We owe it to the graced life we are now living and we owe it to everyone's kids who will get the dregs of what this administration leaves behind. 

But on a happier note, YAY for fresh crab and champagne (thanks to all my kids for an awesome Christmas eve/morning) and YAY for this lovely weather and YAY for good friends and the love and care they share like those bubbles in that champagne, YAY for the start of a new year and maybe the start of some goodness.

Again, peace to everyone. Love. Long Time, Big Time.

Will write again on Saturday.

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A quick primer on the whole Jesus being born thing

We all  know how atheistic I am. Jesus, the whole ball of holiness, I simply don't care.  But if you haven't seen this, check it out.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suowe2czxcA

I hope it comes through. If not, google "Southland Christian Church Christmas Video."  (I cannot believe that I typed that.)  It's the one with the kids.

Why do I like it when I don't like all the Jesus stuff?  Because it takes the story back to the basics.  I still don't like all the Jesus stuff but the video reminds us of the simplicity of the story and that they were poor and not in the right 'hood at the time and that they were dissed and told to go somewhere else.  The basic immigrant story, as it still plays out today.  And told from the kids' point of view, it works. Any story told by kids has some credence, even if it's just the cute factor. Thus this one succeeds in that realm.

Happy Holidays, and peace out. To Everyone. Believers or not.  And seriously, this is from a Not.

Eating, Drinking, Spending, Working and one book I just read

And right now, cooking crabs for the Christmas Eve festiva!

Every year I try not to spend a lot of  money for the "Day in December to Give Gifts" and I usually succeed in being cheap. This year, in the spirit of my new founded feeling of generosity and giving, I said "fuck it" to the frugal part of my soul and shouted out a huge "welcome" to the spendy part of me, a part that is not in evidence very often. This year I actually bought some things for the kids, nothing major, not a lot of money spent but it felt good and it was fun.

At work, there has been a plethora of candy and cookies and wine and more candy and it is all really good and I eaten more than my share. I lie to myself and try and justify it with the lack of big meals in the evening, but really, come on, two pieces of chocolate fudge probably equal the calories of a steak dinner, so we all know I am just kidding myself.  But again, I don't care. Come January 2, the candy will be gone, salad will reappear like Baby Jesus in the manger and all will be healthy.  Maybe.

Yesterday I stopped at the library to pick up a couple of books I had on hold.  When I got home, after walking little Cooper, I sat on the couch and began reading "Another Brooklyn" by Jacqueline Woodson.  Two hours later I had finished it. One could call it a novella, if it was in regular book size it might be 100 pages.  It's quite good, the story of a young black girl growing up in the 1970's, in Brooklyn, her friends, her family, the lack of continuity in her life, the lack of love and the search for that love. The play of memory and its illusionary air when brought up against the reality of life.  I would recommend it if you see it at the library.

And my last crab is about ready to come out of the pot. I have this thing about getting crabs live and cooking them myself. It's the only way you know how fresh they are, and it takes only a large pot, some salt, and a little bit of time, like 15 minutes a crab.  Tomorrow is my favorite day of the year, the kids come, we have snacks, we take the dogs for a walk, we might play Scrabble, we open copious bottles of good Champagne, eventually we eat crab with bread and salad and later we open gifts. Everyone is sleeping over. In the morning we have coffee and scrambled eggs and by noon they are all off to other Christmas celebrations, I get to take a short nap and then work the afternoon shift at the hotel.

I hope you all have a happy and loving holiday. Let's hope for the best this coming year while at the same time preparing to be unsurprised by how terrible it might be.

Much love to  you all.  And to all a good night.

XO

Cream biscuits, 5 ingredients, wear your pearls as you make them

It's baking season, and I for one like to turn on the oven just to heat up my small living space.  My place is cold. The space heater can only throw out so much heat from its small self. Gas is cheap, so having the oven on is good, and pulling out of that oven delicate, light, tasty biscuits is an added bonus.

Here's what I did last night:  one cup of flour into which I stirred a half teaspoon of salt and about 3/4 tablespoon of baking powder.  I had about a half cup of cream, so I stirred that into the flour, but had to add another splash of 2% milk.  Stirred it all together into a softish dough. I melted about a quarter cup butter in a small pan.

Turned oven to 425. Brushed a little pie pan with some of the melted butter. Then I took a quarter of the dough and sort of patted it into a biscuit shape (by hand, no need to roll this out) and dipped into the melted butter and put it into the small pie pan.  Did that a total of 4 times for 4 nice size biscuits.  Brushed the rest of the melted butter over the lumps of dough.  Baked for about 14 minutes until brown enough.

These are the kind of biscuits you want to serve with butter and honey, like for breakfast.  They are light and delicate. They are not sturdy biscuits, but I crumbled one into a sort of chili/stew I made because why not?  They are like evening biscuits, rather sophisticated, like wearing pearls.  Try them, or find a recipe for them online, just google "cream biscuits" and you will see lots of them. You could add some sugar, just a bit, and then they would be good for dessert, especially split and used for strawberry shortcake.  Without the sugar you can still split them and spoon chicken pot pie filling over them, sort of an upside-down chicken pot pie.

Try them. My recipe made 4, which is perfect for a trial run, but trust me when I say you will make them over and over, in quantities of 4 or 8 or 12 and your guests or your family will love you for a long time over these biscuits.  I am planning on making them Christmas morning, maybe with a little sugar, cinnamon, currents stirred into the batter.  How could that not be a fine Christmas morning gift?

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New York, New York, it's a helluva town.......

The Bronx is up and the Battery is actually down and people do really ride in a hole in the ground.  What a helluva town!

New York is amazing: crowded, fast, always awake, goofy, friendly, never a dull moment. We stayed in the East Village and I would stay there again in a heartbeat.  Great bars, restaurants, bookstores, shops, close to the metro but close walking distance to lots of areas as well. We ate well, drank amazing cocktails, saw some plays, went to museums, listened to music on a grand piano in Washington Square Park on a Sunday afternoon, got pushed around by the crowds in Time Square, ate the best cheesecake in NYC, visited some dive bars, were the oldest by 30 years in several bars and restaurants, subwayed and walked and Ubered all over the place and  we laughed a lot. 

That's what vacation is all about, eating, drinking, getting some culture, some walking and laughing and enjoying oneself.  NYC took care of all of the above. The experience reinforced my longing to be retired, to be able to have adventures and sojourns and breaks in the routine. Alas, that notion of being retired will come ..... sometime in the next ten years if I am lucky.  But in the meantime, I intend to cram as many trips to as many places as I can.  When the money runs out, well, then, the money ran out.

If you haven't been, just go. The beginning of December is nice because the store windows are decorated for Christmas and they go all out for those decorations.  But I think the weeks earlier in November, without the decorations, might be a little less crowded and that could be a little easier. I would definitely not go from Dec. 15 - Jan 5.  That's prime NY time.

The theater, the museums, the monuments, the memorials, the skyscrapers, the buskers on the street, there is so much happening all the time, it's impossible to be bored or to not be smiling a lot. I am so happy we went.

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NYC again

Life in the big city continues to be eventful.  We saw one play and have a couple others lined up. Found a great  dive bar with great burgers and cubano sandwiches and another upscale bar with delicious drinks. Good restaurants abound, of course.  Weather is cold but dry. Have visited some museums, the 911 Memorial and we are getting pretty good at the subway. 

It is so very nice to be on vacation and not at work. I could get use to this lifestyle!  Well, my bank account might disagree. But most things are no more expensive than S F actually.

Ok, over and out for now. Love to everyone.

NYC

In NYC but writing a blog on a tiny phone keyboard is difficult. Suffice it to say, I am having a great time.  It's a crazy city but with tons of entertaining stuff to do and we are doing a lot. Good food, great bars, excellent touristy things to keep us busy.  More later.

OK, just read this book even if you have never heard about it.

Trust me, have I ever steered you wrong? No.  I don't know why I got this book out of the library, but it must have been from reading a review. It's good. It is really good. It starts out slowly but you get into it and you like the very few characters that populate the book and  you are a tiny bit sad that it ends.

The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price.  An ostensibly simple story about a guy who wrote a book and is on a book tour to promote that book. But it takes detours and wrong roads and paths that lead nowhere and yet it ends up where it should. It got me in the first two pages with this description of getting off a plane: He frankensteined it through the cabin and up the long jet bridge and emerged into the fluorescence of the shabbiest boarding gate he'd ever seen.  Several ceiling panels were half rotten with brown water stains and one was missing entirely, providing a nice view of the filth-caked girders above.  A darkened McDonald's brooded to itself across the empty room.

Who hasn't experienced that sort of dismal greeting in a small, crappy airport?  I know I have. 

The book just gets better as it goes on, as Richard tries really hard to respect the book tour but he usually just gets drunk and is sad about that but he does the tour anyway, with his strange driver, Vance.  More good sentences: The nice part about being young wasn't really being young; it was not being old. So true.

Maybe the trick was to just allow yourself to want things. To accept the wanting without attempting to gratify it. Fighting the want did no good, because it was impossible to make yourself not want things. Furthermore, fighting the want somehow promoted it, legitimized it, made the desire for booze or women or whatever else terribly  strong and potent.

I could go on  and quote page and page and page. This is a really good book. It has pain and hope and very, very small atoms of joy and so much is unresolved at the end.  And I want to tell you the last sentence but I won't.  Suffice it to say that you should get this book out of the library or if you find a copy on the discount table or at the used book store, buy it.  Or buy it at full price and tell me you did, and will share that price with you.  If you don't like it, I will buy it from you.

It isn't a Great Novel but, for me, it is a Really Good Novel. The test of that for me is this: do I want to read this book instead of watching TV?  Yes, Yes, Yes was my answer for three nights.

"...and just for the moment he tried to forget himself and become part of the over-whelming life that surrounded him."

If you read it, let me know what you think.
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Being thankful and cranky at the same time

It is a lovely time to drive through Sonoma Valley, all the vines are turning colors, the air smells grapey and rich, the sun is low, the light in the sky is soft and at the same time almost metallic in its crispness. Now if we could just get rid of all the tourists, it would be even better. 

This time of year is for counting one's blessings and thanking loved ones for that great pumpkin pie they made or that really nice bottle of whiskey they shared with you or for the fact that one has heat and a roof and a dog and food and a car and enough money in the bank to take off for ten days and go to New York.  These things are gifts, just look at the front page of the New York Times or any good newspaper (or even any bad one) and see how the rest of the world is doing, and no matter how  you are doing, you are doing better than most. Say "thank you."  To everyone and to no one.

And yet, those holiday guests at the hotel, really, come on, give it up.  Go to your room and watch TV.  DO NOT STAND IN THE LOBBY AND TELL ME YOUR POLITICAL BELIEFS.  DO NOT INSINUATE THAT TEA HAS GLUTEN.   DO NOT ASK ME TO MAKE YOU A LATTE.  The list is almost endless, actually, I could go on and on but I won't.  But holidays are the worst for this sort of idiotic potato-brained discourse and the sense of entitlement that comes with people who have potatoes where their frontal lobes should be. "I have a potato instead of a brain, therefore you should agree with everything I say and anticipate my dissatisfaction with the bottles of soap in my shower."  I want to smash that potato and fry it in hot lard.

And yet, in three days I will be on a large flying object jetting my way to NYC, city of art, music, bars, food, shopping, drinking, walking, watching, imbibing, snacking, listening, sipping and sleeping. In our neighborhood are dozens of places to eat, drink, read, walk, shop and simply have a good time.  A couple of miles from our 'hood are more of the same.  By this time of the year I am really tired, not just of the job but of the lack of diversity in my life, the lack of anything but the repetitious process of getting up, getting out, working, coming home, going to bed. Over and over, rinse and repeat. Being in a Major US City will be fun and entertaining, adventurous and exciting.  Bring it on!

Can't wait.  Will report in. I don't know how much I can write on my tiny little Smart phone, but I might be able to send photos.  Tune in.

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Leonard Cohen, gone.

As a teenager, music was everything. We danced to it, we made out to it, we listened to it all alone, via a turntable, in our rooms at night, we sometimes had sex to it and we loved it. The music of that time was ours. It pissed our parents off, it united us as a generation.  As a teenager, some of the music of that time defined us: Jefferson Airplane, the Stones, Joni Mitchell, Cream, and of course, the Beatles. (yay) And so many more groups and individuals, too many to mention: Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, the Doors, even Neil Diamond.

But the songwriters of those times were few. Paul Simon, of course, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, many more, but Leonard Cohen, although he was never a "star," was such a poet and an amazing songwriter. "Suzanne", sung by Judy Collins, was a standard in 1968. "...and the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor and she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers, there are heroes in the seaweed..."

We all know "Hallelujah" but google Leonard Cohen singing it, to watch his face while he sings takes the song to a different level.  And "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" which has been covered by dozens of artists.  And "Famous Blue Raincoat" (I see you there with a rose in your teeth, one more thin gypsy to feed.....  What can I tell you, what can I possibly say?  I guess that I miss you, I guess that I forgive you, I'm glad that you stood in my way.)  or "Bird on a Wire" and "First We Take Manhattan" and I could go on and on. A poet. A gentleman, it seems, and, to me, an icon of his times. And of my times.

Leonard Cohen was interviewed in October and you can read it here:    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/leonard-cohen-makes-it-darker

OK, if you must buy chicken broth, read this.

OK, I know I preach the Gospel of Homemade Chicken Broth too often, and it no doubt makes readers seek other religions opinions.  So here's an article I read just yesterday in an old Cooks Illustrated I got from my friend Margaret who was giving away books and magazines.  If you must buy the broth, get the Swansons.  Regular, not organic.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/taste_tests/590-chicken-broth

The article also touts the benefits of that concentrated stuff, which I haven't tried.  But the Swansons might be the answer to your lame prayers if you don't have the guts to make your own broth.  (Shaming never works, I know, but I had to try.)

Still, if you call me, I will come to your house and make the chicken broth for you.  Seriously. Just tell me when.  It might be my new cottage industry, going from home to home, doing show-and-tell with chickens and veggies and water.  It could work.  Or not. 

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Soup, delicious soup

First you have to make homemade chicken stock.  That's a given, don't even bother with that stuff in the boxes or in cans.  It won't turn out the same, I guarantee.  Chicken stock is so easy and thus you should always have some in your freezer.  Don't argue.  Just do it. When those really good chickens are on sale for about two bucks a pound, buy two.  One whole one goes in the stock pot, take the wings and backbone off the other one and put those in the pot, too.  Add the water, and the other stuff you need for stock, let it cook for 4 hours. Throw everything away (unless you have a dog, the dog will like some of the chicken but it really has no nutritional value after cooking for 4 hours.)  Then you have the rest of the second chicken to cook and the stock will go into quart deli containers, into your freezer.  Voila!  C'est simple.

  Then you can make this:
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017981-golden-leek-and-potato-soup

It is delicious.  As it says, it is more leeks than potatoes, which is fine with me.  But a couple things to note:  it takes at least 30 minutes to caramelize the leeks, so factor that in, and you should use half olive oil and half butter to saute them because it gives it a lot more richness.  I didn't have all the fresh herbs so I chopped up some fresh parsley and sauteed that with the leeks and I scrunched up some dried thyme when I added the potatoes and broth and it was fine.  I used Yukon Gold potatoes and I did roughly peel them because I hate it when you make soup or stew and the peelings separate from the potato and float around like flat air mattresses in the soup and they have no point.  But that's just me.  I did stir in some cream (half and half would work as well) because it seemed to need it. (Well, because I needed it, actually.)  Not a lot but some. 

It was so good.  And it reheats so well, so make accordingly.  Leeks are one of the overlooked onions, in my opinion, and this shows them well.

You could, of course, crumble a little crisp bacon on the top of each serving if you had it, but it needs nothing except a nice piece of toast and some crisp white wine.  But then, what doesn't?  Enjoy. 

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Comfort food from the freezer from 2 years ago, and still good!

When I moved three months ago, I brought with me, from the freezer, a deli container labeled "Turkey Gravy Nov. 22" and no other details.  On Wednesday afternoon I took it out of the freezer and put it in a pan of cold water to thaw.  I had no recollection of what it was, when it was or why it was.  Once it was partly thawed, I realized it wasn't turkey gravy but a pork sausage gravy. In 2014 I made biscuits and gravy for Christmas morning (I remember that clearly) and I am pretty sure this was the gravy I made for those biscuits. I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain I didn't make it last year. (My kids could tell me differently.)  Two years in the freezer and it survived. 

Heated up, it tasted great!  I thinned it out with a bit of hot water and a bit of cream.  I added some salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and tasted it again. Disco! It was delicious.  I had no biscuits (too bad) but I toasted some sourdough bread and poured that pork sausage gravy over that toast and it was the best comforting food ever!   To counterbalance the carbs I sauteed a lot of spinach with garlic and lemon and the combination of that with the sausage gravy over toast was delicious.  

There is something about cooking one's favorite stuff that makes the world seem, momentarily, less obnoxious. Less mean and less frightening.  And I am in that mode.  More to follow, with a great soup and etc, etc.

peace. strength. love. 

Comfort food you can buy for less than $5, but only now

I am happy to say that I don't buy a lot of crap food but I am also happy to say that I LOVE ice cream and sometimes buy it.  Right now, in this season of .... autumn?  Winter?  whatever, you can find Haagen Dazs Peppermint Bark Ice Cream and you should go out right now and find it.  Now. Stop reading this, go out and get some. 

You open the lid and it looks like plain vanilla ice cream with bits of stuff.  Fine, a lot of ice cream looks like that. But let it set out for about 5 minutes.  Then scoop some out with a small spoon and eat it. The white part that looks like plain vanilla ice cream is rich and creamy (the label says it's white chocolate ice cream, could be, but whatever it is, it's really good) and then there are the bits. Tiny, crunchy bits of peppermint candy and some chunks of chocolate peppermint bark.  It sounds ordinary.  It is not ordinary.

This is not the kind of ice cream you put in a bowl.  (Hmm, other than plain vanilla ice cream, and only so you can pour homemade butterscotch sauce on it, which is here, and I have told you this before, please pay attention: https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/12/ridiculously-easy-butterscotch-sauce/) there is no need to put any ice cream in a bowl.) This is the kind of ice cream you either sit on the couch with a mate and share (well, one person will be more piggy than the other, that's a given) and you will both make those little piglet noises as you eat the entire pint, or you eat it alone, standing in the kitchen, a trashy novel on the kitchen counter, lights down low, just eating slowly and reading your novel until you look at the pint of ice cream and realize you have consumed more than half of it and you are not even one tiny bit guilty.

That's the kind of ice cream it is. Trust me. Find it, buy it. It will be gone by Christmas.  A lot of things could be gone by Christmas, so we need to take pleasure in what we can, as soon as we can. 

Tomorrow the tale of the Thanksgiving Gravy from last year, found in my freezer and it's amazing restorative qualities.  Plus an excellent recipe for soup.  Tune in. Don't be late.

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French class, a lesson for you all in swearing.

It was suggested by a friend that I share this lesson with my blog readers and therefore, here it is. (C'est ici.)  It could be appropriate right now, we all need new and better ways to swear. I still adhere to the "fuck, fuck, fuck" lexicon but there is also some joy in "cocksucking mother fucker" but perhaps I have gone too far for some. If that insults any reader, then you simply don't know me that well.

OK, our lesson for the evening:  the word "putain" (french) is used in many different ways, as a swear word or as a word of crappiness, or a word of frustration or even as a word of exclamation. It is pronounced like "poo tah" with a nasal, guttural sound at the end, like an "n" got caught in the back of your throat.  In Spanish "puta" means whore, and in French it is pronounced sort of like that but more in the nose. From French it translates into something like "fuck" or "crappy whore" but the French use it like we use "holy shit."  Example:  "Holy shit, that's an amazing outfit." Or "Holy shit, I so totally have to pee."  Or "Holy shit, who are those assbags who voted for Trump?"  So the French would use "putain" (accent on the second syllable) instead of "holy shit."  

Plus, it's a great swear word all on its own, like Fuck.  When you take your car in for some repair work and you get the estimate of what it is going to cost you, or when you go to the grocery store looking for a pint of Hagen Dazs Peppermint Bark ice cream (highly recommended, by the way) and there is none, or you get in the shower and there is no hot water, that's when you can use "putain."   You can say out loudly or you can say it under your breath or you can say it in a sad voice, instead of saying "fuck this stupid auto repair shop" or "I hate this stupid market and their lame-ass selection of ice cream" or any other times when fuck would work but you don't want to say that F-word. (Why anyone would not want to say fuck is beyond me, unless, of course, you have small children around, and that's when "putain" is so, so valuable.) 


It will eventually make you happy to say it because not many people know what it means.  You can be in the line at DMV and instead of saying "fuck fuck, fuck" over and over in a soft voice, you can say "merde, putain, merde, putain" several times (merde means "shit" BTW) and feel OK that you got to swear but offended fewer people.  (I, of course, never care if the word "fuck" offends people but I am a crappy person, we all know that.  Merde.)

OK, I think that's the end of the French lesson for this evening.  Next we will learn about the Passe Compose verbs and how in foreign languages every noun has a gender and the article, the adjective, the verb, the adverb all have to agree with that gender.  In French, cars are feminine (la voiture) while the tires (les pneus) on that car are masculine.  Your head is feminine (even if you are a man) but ears on that head are masculine (even if you are a female.)  And on and on. 

Have a lovely day.  Soon, I might take this French lesson into the next realm, explaining about rats and president-elects and how they are virtually the same thing.

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The next day isn't any better

I drove home last night from Inverness because I couldn't listen to the returns for one more minute.  I needed the comfort of my own small place, the solace of my bed and the numbness a glass of good bourbon brings.  This morning seemed too quiet here in liberal Santa Rosa. I talked to a neighbor or two while walking the dog, no one was happy, all were dismayed and depressed.  I talked to my brother Steve a couple of times, we were of the same mind and of the same temperament, which meant pretty shitty.  I talked to no one today who was happy except a very cute and very happy three month old.  He listened and smiled. That helped.

The protests that are taking place also help. We need to be aware of what is happening out there and we need to be involved.  We need to make sure this reign of terror does not last more than the requisite four years. We need to take a stand and make it count.

That sounds idealistic but just watching growing crowds in various cities tonight makes it clear that the unhappiness starts now. Let's use that unhappiness and the energy it can create to stop this madman in his first term.  There is a lot on the line here, a lot of rights that can be mitigated or even taken away. We all need to make sure this newly elected asshole president gets as little time in the White House as possible.

More to follow, you can bet on that.

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Tomorrow: scary times, election results, champagne and resolution

Every election for the last three or four I have spent with my Gemini friends in Inverness. (There are four of us women who all have birthdays within a few days of each other, all Geminis, so there are always virtually 8 people in the room when there are only four in reality.)  When I lived out there, we had dinners every month or so. Now we meet in Petaluma every couple of months, but elections are special so I am on my way out there after work tomorrow. 

In the meantime, I cannot watch any more of this stupid election bullshit.  Stop the madness, I say!  Rip that orange rug off the head of that neo-Nazi misogynist and feed his face to the wolves!  (They will eat anything.)  Tomorrow, waiting for election results will no doubt mean many trips to the bathroom, upset stomach will prevail. Until they call this thing, there will be no peace.  And even after the pundits/newspeople/commentators call it, Orange Hair person will protest it and it might not be over for another month or so.  ACK!!! 

But tomorrow at this time I will be with three other women, we will be drinking champagne and eating trailer trash snacks (like Beer Nuts, artichoke and jalapeno dip, bad potato chips) and hanging on every newscast.  We hope by 9:00 we will have an election consensus and can go to bed slightly tipsy and less afraid.  But if not, we will be awake until the powers that be grant one of the candidates the sword of Damocles. If it is our pick, we will smile and go to sleep.  If it is the Orange Haired Monster, we will make plans to move to Mexico, just so we can breach the new wall with all the other misfits and refugees from the real American republic. If the Orange Hair Monster wins, this country will no longer be ours and any allegiance we have to it will be gone. 

If you haven't, please vote tomorrow. But if you are reading this, you already have or you will tomorrow.  Thank you.

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900 miles later...... a good road trip

Last Thursday I drove to Ashland, Oregon for a three night rendezvous with John and Diane and a much needed break in my normal life. It had been a while since I was out of town for more than a night or two, and a longer while since I was out of town farther than 20 miles from my home. 

The drive up was so, so nice. I took a different route, one that I had not driven previously, and that was good. (Although, as we all know, road trips are such a part of me that even driving down Hwy 5 is, at times, great fun for me. If it's at dawn. In the winter.) It takes less than 6 hours to go from Santa Rosa to Ashland, so there's none of that weariness that comes from an 8-9 hour road trip.  Just as your butt starts to get numb, the trip is ending. 

We rented a little "Romeo and Juliette" duo apartment, a nice size one bedroom apartment on the top with a lovely deck overlooking the valley and a tiny studio on street level, perfect for one person. Two blocks into town, three to the theaters, trees were changing colors, the rain was gentle all weekend, the temps were moderate, perfect Oregon weather.  We saw two plays, ate some nice meals, drank some lovely wine and simply relaxed and enjoyed each other's company. On Sunday I drove from Ashland to Sacramento, took Mom out to dinner, got her liquored up, convinced her to rob a bank with me and my sister Kate, it went well and we made a speedy getaway.  I had already secured a really nice hotel room for a really cheap price on Priceline and so the night was a total success.  Good dinner, good booze, good job eluding the police, good stay in a good hotel.  Win-win-win.

I work a lot, I will be working a lot for the next ten years or until I fall over. Getting out of town is becoming increasingly important to me. Yes, it costs money that I could save for my impending old age but without the out-of-town breaks I would go nuts. Unlike friends and siblings, I have no retirement account to take me to my grave. Since I will end up in that grave eventually, as we all will, it seems fitting that along the way I enjoy whatever money I make by doing what I like. When the money runs out, well, then I will stop taking trips and figure out the next move. Until then, every two or three months I am taking a week off and going somewhere. The work will continue but so will the fun. There are so many banks to rob and so little time. 

Because really, who doesn't like to watch their 96 year old mother drink a tasty Manhattan and enthusiastically agree to be the point man for a night of crime?  Makes life worth living.

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Sad, bad chicken. Good, happy dogs. Go figure.

In the mid 1980's I read an article in the Point Reyes Light about roasting chicken. It was a column that ran most weeks, and while I cannot remember the name of the column, I remember the first name of the woman who wrote it: Laura. (I think. I could be wrong.)  This particular week she wrote about how her Grandmother roasted a chicken: rubbed it with dijon mustard that had been mixed with herbs (particularly tarragon) and a little oil and some salt and pepper and then the chicken was roasted for 15 minutes on one side, flipped to the other for 15 minutes, then breast down and then up and by then it was done. 

I made this chicken over and over and over in the Big White House and it never failed me. I showed my kids how to make it and I taught my brother John how to make it and we all loved this chicken. In the years after the mid 1980's I continued to roast chicken, not always with mustard but always successfully.

Until now. The chicken I roasted tonight was crap.  Have I lost the ability to make a good roasted chicken?  Am I fussing too much with it? I don't know. The oven in this place is like a furnace, so maybe it's too hot. The sides of the oven get too hot to touch, which is not safe and not good.  I will get a thermometer and figure it out, but suffice it to say that the roasted sweet potato was delicious, the chicken was stupid.

Dogs:  I am watching little Hannah, Gabe and Annie's dog, for a while.  Hannah is very soft, very cute and rather neurotic. (Sorry Gabe and Annie, if you are reading this.) Hannah is like an OCD kid. Things must be the way they must be. There must be no deviation.  She can only pee in certain places. And let's not talk about poo.  Oh, no, we cannot poop unless the grass (or tan bark) is perfect and not unless we have inspected it for five minutes.  And even then, she often walks away, looking for another perfect patch.

I am gone for 8 -10 hours a day. The dogs were home yesterday and today, alone, for all that time. I sort of expected to come home to my mattress shredded and the fake floors ripped up, but they did nothing bad, nothing wrong. They were happy to see me, we went out for a nice walk, they were as good as could be. Yes, Hannah is neurotic but so is Cooper in his way, it's just that I don't see his oddities as clearly because I live with him. But the two of them together are as cute as a pair of sock monkeys. 

Now, if I could only get the roasted chicken to be that endearing..... I would settle for a sock monkey chicken, seriously.  Sad, bad chicken.  Happy, good dogs.  Can't have everything, I suppose.  

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And just where does the time go? A week goes by in the snap of two days, a month is gone in what feels like two weeks.

Is it a product of being too busy? Is it a by-product of getting older?  Would it be different if I was retired and didn't work five or six days every week?  It's a Monday and then a Tuesday and then it seems like it's Friday, without any slot for the Wednesday and Thursday, then the week is over and it goes again and again. What did I do two Fridays ago? I don't know, I have to make notes in my little pocket calendar to even keep track of simple things like having dinner out with friends, getting a pedicure, taking a hike. If I don't write these things down, they get lost in the blurry pace of the everyday. It's not that I forget (or it could be just that) but it's more that the days and the time speed by so quickly that the past is too past.

The perfect example is French class.  It takes place on Thursday afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30.  Every week I promise myself that I will be diligent and work at least 20 minutes every day on French language.  But class is on Thursday. Before I know it, Friday and Saturday have blown by and it is Sunday night, I have worked all weekend and I have done zero homework. Monday and Tuesday nights I usually work and I try and do a little work then, but lately it is so busy at work that I don't get to it. (Yes, I could do the work on Monday or Tuesday day time but one of those days is spent driving to Sacramento and back so that shoots a day and the other is spent running errands and doing laundry, so there goes the other day.) Before you know it, Wednesday rolls around and I have done NOTHING!  

And that's how it goes, week after week. The days zip by. My plans are written down on scraps of paper, plans to study French, plans to sweep the back patio, plans to mop the floors, to buy new walking shoes, to pick up books at the library, to make an appointment for a mammogram.  Plans, plans, plans and as serious as I am about all of them, it's as if I made those plans on rice paper with disappearing ink. Those plans fade away as quickly as clown tears. 

It is now half way through October. It is a month (more or less) until Thanksgiving. What happened to 2016?  Will I ever have the time to study French?  Will I buy new walking shoes, will I have the time to sweep the back patio or will spring arrive before that happens?  I honestly do not know.

But I do know it's time to walk Cooper for his final pee of the day and it's about time for bed for both of us. For that, the time is always right.

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Listening to but not watching baseball.

You can make the game look anyway you want.  You can conjure up Buster Posey's face as he strikes out or feel the breeze in Hunter Pence's huge, long, wide swing as he reaches for the ball. You can imagine those apartment houses around Wrigley Field, the ones with bleachers on the roof, full of fans, passing along beer and whiskey, watching the game so intently and then, not so intently as that beer and whiskey becomes more of a focus. And yet, then, back to the game. Back to the noise, the roar, the smack of the bat. 

Listening to the Giants vs Cubs game tonight is my evening's entertainment. Yes, I could walk over to Steele and Hops, where I went on Wednesday to watch the Giants win that wild card game. But it's Friday night and it will be even more packed than it was two days ago. So Cooper and I are on the red couch, having a glass of red wine, simply listening to the game on the radio. Eight innings so far, no score.  It's a reminder of the simplicity and the linear focus of a baseball game. 

Yes, to be honest, I wish I was watching it on TV, but that's partly because we are all intent on action gratification.  Listening to it makes you slow down, makes you sit and do nothing except listen. You can't switch channels to see what is on CNN or see who killed who on "Law and Order."  You just have to be patient and listen. And imagine, which is the coolest part. 

Go Giants, of course.  But those Cubs, come on!  Haven't won a World Series in more than 100 years! And as far as I can hear, they are playing great baseball tonight.  I look forward to hearing more games in the next couple of days. 

And at this moment, the Cubs get a home run!  One run! The crowd goes nuts, the sound is rocking!  It's great!  One to nothing, Cubs.  Wow.

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Setting your food on fire. A documentary. Streaming.

"Cooked" is narrated by Michael Pollan who can be a bit dogmatic at times. But the first episode (there are only four) is titled "Fire" and it is fascinating. It basically follows the trail that fire has led us in the evolutionary road on which we have wandered. Pollan makes a great statement, that without fire and the advent of cooking that fire presented to early man, we (humans) would not be who we are today. Think about eating only raw foods, chewing and chewing for hours. Think about cooking and how it breaks down those fibers and how our lives changed because of that. Smaller jaws. Less time spent chewing, more time spent hunting and gathering.  And on and on.

The episode is full of examples of how fire not only changed how we eat but changed cultures and our society and how fire still is enormous in our cooking and eating habits.  Pollan and a friend create a little cooker in their yard where they roast a very small pig.  While his pig roasts he visits an old Southern guy who is an accomplished grill master in his own right, in his own backyard. The entire episode is great, engaging and educational and fun. 

The second episode is called "Water" but it isn't focused on water as much as on the difference between manufactured food and home cooked food. Why do people rely on prepared food and not cook at home?  Pollan delves into the time vs cost vs convenience factors and most of it is clear and concise.  There is a bit more "preaching" in this episode but he does make a case for cooking at home instead of eating out, but then he has a rich white guy advantage. And he has a cook helping him do all this home cooking.  But it is still a good show.

The next two episodes are "Air" and "Earth" and in those he tackles bread making, gluten, fermentation and microbes in the air.  Hmm.... doesn't sound all that lively, at least not as lively as "Fire" but if he gets into making your own sourdough starter for bread, I am all in.

Check it out. I will report back after I watch the last two episodes.

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Monday night, quick scary psycho on the street

As I do normally, I took Cooper out around the block this evening. We got half way through our normal block walk. There was a guy in front of us, about 30 yards.  He was walking slower than us, (we do walk swiftly) so Cooper and I stopped for about 20 seconds to give him some lead time. 

It didn't matter. He stopped. He carefully put his small bag down on the ground and he carefully put his drink on the ground as well.  Then he stood up rather straight and started yelling very loudly and very aggressively.  Cooper and I were about 15 yards behind him at that point and so we simply made an abrupt U-turn and walked back the way we came. 

The number of people living on the street in Santa Rosa seems to increase ten-fold every week, and that's just the ones I see. The number of people who talk to themselves, who cry and moan, who ramble around and shuffle, who sleep in the parks where kids play during the day, their numbers are all increasing. I now see used needles in bank parking lots, something I didn't see a year ago. The amount of trash and toilet paper and tossed garbage is probably about 75% more than it was a year ago. 

But the biggest problem I see is that the number of truly psychotic people on the street has increased dramatically. Schizophrenia seems to be the norm, people seeing and experiencing alternative realities.  They scream out loud to their personal demons, they cry and curse their lives, their reality, all their many different realities.  It is frightening to encounter, frightening to hear and scary to know that there is no answer to their fucked up lives.

I have no answers, just the observation. 

Three Most Excellent Days!

This is why I want to be retired, to have three excellent days in row, more than once every two or three months.

1. Saturday:  woke up in Guerneville, at Jenn and Dar's house, under the redwoods, with the dogs.  Walked the dogs, made a cup of coffee, read for two hours, had yogurt and fruit.  Walked the dogs again. And Giants game is on!!!  Watched the game for three plus hours and Giant's won again! (They won on Friday night as well.)  Took a nap. Walked the dogs, got Chinese take out which was crappy. Read, went to bed. I talked to no one all day except the take-out guy. A good day. It's nice to be in tall trees and not speak to anyone except dogs who just look at you with either complete understanding or with blank face, and either one works. You be the judge.

2. Woke up early, walked and fed dogs, out of there before 8:00 am.  To Santa Rosa, changed clothes, off to SF and Daly City. No traffic, was at Gabe's in time for scrambled eggs. Off to AT&T park for noon start of last Giants game of the season, against the egomaniacal LA Dodgers, which of course we, the Giants, would win to sweep the series. Great day, sunny, not hot, our seats were in the very, very top of the stadium, one row short of the last row. Great view. Scary stairs. Amazing game. Giants won, of course.  Walked along Embarcadero, had a drink and some food and some wine.... BART back to DC and then home.  A beautiful day, great game, good times.

3. Monday: woke up to light rain. How can I explain how happy that makes me after a summer of heat, heat, heat? Skies were gray all day, drizzly all day, cool all day. Yes, it's one day out of 30, the heat will be back tomorrow and for the next ten days but it was a hint of autumn and winter.  It was lovely. 

Tomorrow, back to work for the next six days. 

To everyone who helped engineer those three days, I thank you. You know who you are.  love, love, love. 

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Walking the dog.....dog walking....dog knows.....

Every night Cooper and I walk around the block.  Where we lived before I could just let him out into the backyard and he would pee and poop and come back in.  Ain't happening here, so we walk. The story on the street changes nightly. At the end of our block we go left onto McConnell and then the next street is Mendocino, and that corner houses Little Caesars Pizza which is always busy. Great smells come from that place, Cooper loves it. Weekends are busy times twenty.  Sunday nights are busy times ten. Weeknights are busy times one or two, depending on the time. Tonight at 9:15 there were two peeps waiting, at least that I could see, but four more cars in the parking area waiting maybe for something other than pizza?  Don't know.

Cooper is a good buffer. Me: fat old gray haired woman alone.  Me with dog: who cares but hey, that's a cute dog, what kinda dog is that, hey little guy, he want's some pizza, nice dog there....  I just smile. 

We pass that Little Caesar guy and we round the corner, turning left and we pass the Video Droid place, which I have never entered, but I wonder how they stay in business renting DVDs. But it's pretty hopping on weekends, so there you are. They maintain. 

And then past Chick Fil A, on Mendo.  It's busy most of the time but I will never eat there. Their anti-gay policy is legend.  No one should ever eat there.  Cooper pees on their plants and I give him praise for that. We then go by the Coinless Laundromat, which is always occupied, from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm, with every walk of life.  The very early mornings see single homeless men sitting watching the TV. Later in the morning are the people like me, just doing laundry.  Later in the day are Moms with kids. At night it's a crap shoot, people like me, Moms, Dads, Grammas, more homeless people, more young people, a bit of everyone.  It's a fine place to do laundry.  I don't mind doing laundry there. It is a place that equalizes everyone and that happens too rarely in our world. We all have dirty clothes. 

Cooper and I round the next corner, past the Odd Fellows Hall. I will do some research to find out the meaning about such a stupid name.  Really, you couldn't have just been the Awkward Guys Hall?  Or just Fellows Hall?  The Odd part is so off-putting.

And then around that corner turning left onto our street and straight on to home. Four left turns.  Cooper has peed, sometimes pooped, smelled stuff and it is time for bed. 6:00 am comes early, and so we go to bed early. It's always a nice walk, often people say hello, just strangers in the 'hood. Tonight was the first night that the air felt chilly. Cold air is a good sign, at least to me. Autumn might be here on the calendar, but it has yet to show it's face on my street. Tonight was a portent of that autumn. I am looking forward to its arrival.

Bonne nuit.  Je t'aime.  

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Oh what beauty! "The Sting" 43 years later, and now.

Beauty:  I speak of the late Paul Newman and the not yet dead Robert Redford. One of their movies together is  "The Sting," available for free, streaming on Netflix. Yes, there are thousands of other things to watch on streaming TV but for now, this is my pick.  And yes, I have seen it many times before. Who cares? Sometimes you just want comfort food and sometimes you just want comfort movies.  This is one of those movies. 

Robert Redford is so young, and so sexy in his dirty suit and wearing his heart on his sleeve after his friend was killed. And no one can deny that there are few things better than seeing Paul Newman in his overalls at the carousel, wearing a fedora, after plunging his face into a sink of ice and water to erase a hangover.  And his grin?  Tell me that doesn't make your feet tap.

These two characters are worth the price of the entire show but it isn't gonna stop there.  It's an outstanding cast:  the evil Studs Lonnegan presented to us by the amazing Robert Shaw, the kindly whore shown to us by Eileen Brennan and a cast of character actors that makes us smile at every face. How they all unfold and how the con entraps Lonnegan and his cohorts is like a ballet being danced in front of us. 

If you haven't seen this in a while, watch it again. This movie came out the same year my daughter was born, 1973, so it's 43 years old. But so far, half into it, there is nothing dated about it.  But then, the Big Con always continues. The con is timeless.  Just look at our political scene and tell me otherwise.

Enjoy it.

"Miss Jane" by Brad Watson: an excellent book

This book, "Miss Jane" is deceptively brilliant.  It seems to be a simple story but it isn't.  You forget how good the writing is because it doesn't pretend to be poetic or overly generous. It is so honest and so true and remarkable that it's easy to think it's just a small novel about farmers in the Depression.  It is anything but that.

Jane Chisolm is born to a family of stubborn, hard-working farmers in Mississippi in the early twentieth century. She has a physical abnormality that shapes her life and defines her in many ways but she truly owns who she is. The story is as much about farm life as it is about the lives on that farm.  "There was the bustling of the noon dinner meal when her father came in, ate, then went back out to work, the clanking and scrubbing of cleaning up, the long hot still afternoon, her joy at Grace's arrival home from school, then preparation for supper, and finally the rustling descent of quiet voices and bodies slowing into the evening until everyone slept."

I loved Jane, with her necessary pragmatic vision of her world, her longing for something she can never have, her resignation that her life, as complicated as it was, was at the same time as simple as it could be.  Her father, her sister Grace, her mother, the town doctor, they are all drawn so clearly and so perfectly.  It's been a while since I liked a book as much as this one.  There is something about Watson's telling of the story that hooked me and didn't let me go.  I hated to see it end.

A grown-up movie, no special effects, with Jeff Bridges, in theaters now!

"Hell or High Water" with Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and others. Takes place in West Texas, which I have driven through at least five times, depressed, desiccated, a wasteland more or less.  Banks loaned money, charged egregious interest rates, people couldn't pay.  This movie trails two brothers who are robbing banks for small takes, and it becomes apparent pretty quickly that they aren't just robbing the banks for fun.  Well, for Tanner it is for fun.  For Toby, it's for real.

It's been a while since I have seen a movie with such clearly drawn characters, four men with different personalities and yet with two agendas: rob banks and catch the bank robbers. The acting is superb, each actor fleshes out his character perfectly. There is a lot of dialogue and a great deal of it is very amusing in the first half of the movie.  The audience laughs softly quite often. But the light-hearted tone goes black and things get serious.

The music is good, the scenery in West Texas is spare and the story is simple.  But the best thing is these four men. As diverse as they are, they are all likable for so many different reasons.  We all love Jeff Bridges, of course, and he is so good at being an old sheriff. But I haven't seen Chris Pine in anything other than on the cover of US magazine. He is Toby in this movie and Toby, for 95% of the movie, is like a hunted rabbit, head down, eyes small, face scared and immobile. It isn't until the very end of the movie that you see him with that gorgeous face.  The transformation is huge and the reasons are clear.

If you like movies, see this one.  No big explosions, a small car chase, nothing too violent.  But you will want to chat about it when it ends.  And the ending is perfect!

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And what's on your bedside table? False teeth don't count.

People know I read a lot and often I get the question "What do you read the most?"  I want to answer "Books" but I don't think that's what they want to hear. Or I could say "backs of cereal boxes" but I don't eat cereal and thus don't read the backs of cereal boxes.  What else could I read?  Well, newspapers, I suppose.

But what people mean is what sort of genre of books do I read.  That's a difficult question.  I read a lot of junk, like random best sellers like "Girl on the Train" or "Lost Lonely Girl on the Train" or "Girl on a Train Watching Something in the Window" or whatever that book was called.  It was rather junky but I understand there is a movie based on that book soon to be released.  Why did I bother to read the book when I could have simply waited for the movie? What a dummy.  Maybe that's the best idea, don't read anything and just sit around and wait for them (whoever they are) to make a movie of whatever book I choose not to read.  Saves so much time, since reading a book can take upwards of 8 to 10 hours and a movie takes about two hours, plus the travel time to get there, so let's say three hours.  A savings of at least 5 hours! OK, no more reading for me.

But then there are those books that probably won't be made into a movie. I just finished reading "White Sands" by Geoff Dyer. It's a collection of essays about places he has visited and the experiences those places engendered and how he felt about it all. I have read other books by Dyer, mostly non-fiction, and he's a good writer. These writings are rather varied, from the Arctic, to Watts, to New Mexico and on and on, Dyer shares the trials and tribulations  of these diverse destinations. It's rather funny at times because all does not go well and at the same time you learn about places you probably will never visit, like Tahiti or China. Check it out and check out his other books as well, like the well-named "Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It."

At the same time I am reading "Hammer Head" by Nina MacLaughlin.  A memoir of sorts, a 30 year old woman who quits her job at a Boston newspaper and takes a job as a carpenter's assistant, with absolutely no experience with tools or terminology of building or anything to do with construction. But she gets hired by an independent woman contractor and she learns the job of lugging stuff, cutting tile, sawing boards, construction and demolition, of all that being a carpenter entails.  It's a good read, she's a good writer. Again, check it out, from the library would be a fine idea.

So yes, I read a lot of non-fiction, memoirs, essays, biographies, all that.  Current events, like Rachel Maddow's "Drift" and books by Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger. And one of my favorites, "The Wild Trees" by R. Preston, about amazing redwood trees, an incredible book.  (Thank you, Tom, for that one.)

But I also read a lot of what purists would call "junk."  Literary fiction, crime fiction, historical fiction as opposed to hysterical fiction, detective fiction, normal fiction. I don't read romantic or sci-fi fiction but that's just because I never have and thus have no scale of what to read in those genres.  It's like listening to jazz or country music.  Some I like, some I don't but I have too small of a reference base to pick and choose so I don't.  But since I love to read, I read books that take two days to read and books that take two weeks to wade through. I like both of those experiences.

I also read poetry, surprisingly.  Billy Collins, W.H. Auden, Kay Ryan, W.S. Merwin, Robert Hass.  I don't always like poetry but I think that's because I don't always have the patience for it.  When I like it, I buy it. And keep it and read it a lot.  Donald Justice. ("There's not enough Justice in the world.")  John Ashbery, although he confounds me most of the time, but not always.

I want to read Shakespeare's plays.  Someday I will. 

That's all for now. Time to read something. 

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The pesky dead souls, their spirits are like velcro

Four years and three months ago one of my best friends was killed in a horrific automobile accident.  Martha was one of maybe three people that I could describe as "one of my best" friends. I had known her for more than twenty years. She was 56 when she was killed. I think about her almost every day.

And the strange and good thing is that I think of her, often, as still here!  Example:  I am reading a book right now called "Hammer Head" about a young 30 year old woman who quits a promising yet dull job as a journalist at a Boston newspaper because it is dull and she feels like she is sinking in the tar pit of that job. (My words there, not hers.)  She has a few months without a job and then answers an ad for a carpenter's assistant and even with no experience, she gets the job. The book chronicles her learning curve, her love and hate for the job of lugging heavy stuff, demolitioning rooms, building new ones, of cutting tile, of learning to love wood, and on and on.  It's a good read.

As I am reading this book, sitting in my funky back patio (without, YAY, the Roommate Factor) I think to myself "Martha will like this book."  Not "Martha would have liked this book."  But that she will.  I think that and I continue to read.  The statement in my mind does not make me pause or make me take it back and rephrase it into the past tense. She will like this book. 

Does that happen to other people?  Do you who have suddenly lost loved ones acknowledge their presence in that way? In real time, as if they are still here, they are just around the corner of that brick wall, hiding behind that very narrow tree, ready to spring out and surprise you?  I do it all the time.  I taste something and think "Martha likes this combo of sweet-and-salty" or I watch a TV show or a movie and think "Martha will hate this."  Yes, I also say "Martha would have grabbed that yard sale bookcase" and "thank god I don't have to listen to Steve and Martha argue about that political debacle" but most often it is in the present tense.

I was telling a friend of mine, someone who knows Steve slightly (through me) about Martha and her death and I realized that I didn't have the right words to explain anything. I couldn't explain away her awful death, the impact it had on Steve, on me, on her family and I wanted to end that conversation but at the same time I knew it was important, somehow, to put into words the answers to my friend's questions.  It made me sad to recount the barest of details about how she died and it made me sad to know that the person hearing it would also be sad.  So I wanted to stop talking.  And so I did, eventually.

But I think that powerful souls, people who have strong and good and important spirits, somehow live on.  Call me crazy, but I firmly believe that some baby born four years and three months ago captured the spirit of Martha, got born at the instant Martha's soul was ready to move on.  Thus there is another Martha out there, albeit only four years old. I wish that four year old well, he or she has a huge life ahead, in part because of that amazingly brilliant and strong spirit and I will continue to think about her or him and Martha every day. Martha will like that.

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