2011

Dear Loyal Readers,

The New Year has given Aged Parent a new name: Dying Parent. Officially. She will not be with us much longer, having been put on palliative care this week after being diagnosed on Monday with an inconvenient and large "mass" in her right lung.
There's a book called something like Life, Death, & What I Wore. I think I'll read it.

Antigone, Come Here Now!

In San Francisco this could be referring to several things:

1. harried parent calling to 3-year-old in Alta Plaza playground
2. a radical new performance of the tragedy Antigone staged at ACT
3. Greek restaurateur calling to his niece to leave the kitchen and wait tables
4. dog walker calling to an errant canine client in the Presidio

The one that inspired this little multiple-choice questionnaire is ... #4. Now who could've resisted using that in a blog??


Good rainy Xmas Day here. For Xmas Eve we decided to have a picnic supper with deli sandwiches, cole slaw, prosecco, wine, and egg nog. And watch "Risky Business", which, surprisingly, has stood the test of time and is quite a fun flick. Even though Tom Cruise is the star. But he's good! And very likely not yet the crazy Scientologist, so maybe we're allowed to like him in this movie. 

P.S.

The eyrie is the two windows on the second floor on the left.

Maybe Partying Will Help

Not an original title, I'm sorry to say. M reported it to me as a bumper sticker glimpsed on the way home. Works for me, though.

Out on the block little noises and a basketball bomping out its distinctive call, now that the rain has abated temporarily. The occasional parent comes down the hill with the family dog to check on the players. All is well. The parents should just use me as the town crier — the basketball hoop is directly across the street from my eyrie and I could radio in any foul play. The sun is setting, but there is plenty of hoop time left...really.

Spaghetti and faux meatballs tonight for dinner. Now how's that for partying? Late Sunday afternoon/evening has always been a favorite time of mine. It may stem from the days when Masterpiece Theater loomed at 9 p.m., but I think it is also because that afternoon was a slow one, with some room for creativity and reflection, a pick-up supper (family-speak), maybe tea in the late afternoon, books, a fire. And it helped that I was a kid who loved school and didn't care that Monday was just a few hours away. School + Masterpiece Theater! Now that's real partying!

Winter Wondering Land

Yes, it's been a little while, with a minor distraction along the way. It's called Thanksgiving, and I am ever so thankful that it is gone for another year. Maybe it'll not happen next year?! Here's the menu I submitted for approval to Aged Parent, a good week before:

Brussels sprouts soup with garlic croutons
Salmon en croute
Mashed potatoes
Julienned green beans with slivered almonds
Cranberries
Corn Pudding
Biscuits
Pumpkin Pie
Apple pie
Indian pudding 

So the day before the holiday I start preparing some things for the next day. The croutons, for example, which I baked in the oven after tossing them with olive oil, grated garlic, chopped parsley. They were lovely. But they did trigger an alarm with Aged Parent over the heat in the oven. She decided there and then that nothing could be cooked in the oven over 400 degrees F. Nothing. Because it would "blow" the oven, apparently. Yes, blow it. AP suggested I just cook everything at 350. I said it doesn't work that way. No amount of rational discussion could sway her. She even extended it to not wanting the oven on "all day"  (good thing we hadn't planned on a turkey...).
So the menu became this:



Brussels sprouts soup with garlic croutons*
Salmon en croute
Mashed potatoes
Julienned green beans with slivered almonds
Cranberries
Corn Pudding
Biscuits

Pumpkin Pie
Apple pie
Indian pudding


* Yes, the croutons were served only because I had cooked them the day before.


So welcome to the Baby Food Thanksgiving. It was odd...and frustrating, to say the least, but the good humor of my fellow adults (and the one 8-year-old) saved my sanity. Another thing to be Thankful for.


And on to Xmas! Also, a new year. A purely societal contrivance (when starting in January as opposed to, say, springtime), I admit, but so very convenient when one really needs to think there's a new start. My plan is to burn (really) my datebook from the heinous 2010. Remove the mojo of the Year o' Hell (well, maybe Heck, since many people do have things far worse than I). So, bonfire on Ocean Beach anyone?

In Flanders Fields

Well, the obvious story here in the City is the Giants. So, not writing about that--although it is charming and happy and we're all stoked!

Ah, November, one of my favorite months. Warm & cool, gold & green. Holidays about food and history. Speaking of history, see the Flanders poppy? That's what November is about--the Great War--the real beginning of the 20th century. Mighty real, alas. 


So on Thursday 11 November take a minute (at 11 a.m.) to think of the first cataclysm of modern times (pretty fair to say that). I'm often asked why I study military history, strategy, tactics, spies, nurses, Resistance fighters, and franc-tireurs. Because far more innocents die in these conflicts (including many in uniform), and they deserve to be remembered.


Pax vobiscum.
 

Wasting Joy

You may think this is a metaphor, and it very well could be, but the reference here is purely literal.
The kitchen sink is from 1961, with a mechanism for stopping it up to retain water for dish washing. Aged Parent felt that somehow, no one could really be sure, the water was surreptitiously draining, so she made sure the seal was perfectly watertight by (I kid you not) cleaning the edges of it with her fingernail (as reported in detail to me). She made certain of the hermetic seal, showed me the now-operational sink, and justified this entire project with: "...otherwise we would be wasting Joy." Yup, the detergent. 
See why I am in an existential crisis?