Growing up: Culver Center

Culver City was a nice little town in Southern California to grow up in during the early 60s. Tucked in between the Pacific Ocean and downtown Los Angeles, and in the sunny part of the state, what's not to like about it.

We had so much freedom then and I can remember, at age 10 or so, walking by myself to friends houses or to the big shopping area, Culver Center, about a mile and a half, to meet friends. During the summer we rarely wore shoes and when we'd cross the hot blacktop street we'd either run or walk on the painted white crosswalk lines. I guess I got fed up with this and bought myself a pair of Zorries, that's what we called thongs, and wore them home only to rub a nasty blister between my toes.

Culver Center was one of the first shopping centers in Southern California and the strong merchant's association, with the help of the city council, kept May Company, a large department store chain, from moving in. The block had a long narrow street with businesses on both sides and large parking lots in the back. At one end was a Bank of America and a Market Basket, a chain super market. There were a few shoe stores and both men and women's clothing stores, all privately owned. At the other end was Hellmans Hardware and a toy store where I bought a hula hoop when it was such a craze. I paid one dollar in 1959 and that was a few weeks allowance.

Mom worked at Torrey's, a jewelry store in Culver Center so if I stopped by she'd give me a quarter. When she was almost 16 my sister worked across the street at W.T. Grants, the five-and-dime store. Her job was to dip up ice cream cones and sell candy and we all fell in love with Jordan Almonds when she had that job. You could go in and buy a nickel's worth of candy in a little white bag. Most of the time my money was spent on a Drum Stick ice cream or root beer Popsicle at Thrifty Drug Store. We never had enough money to go to Curries so that experience was reserved when adults were paying the bill and it was a treat. Their "Mile High" ice cream cones were wonderful and there was a giant replica of it outside. It was the pole to hold up the front of the building painted like a huge ice cream cone. Fascinating to a ten-year-old.

Culver Center had a music store, Martin's. There was a little soundproof booths, only big enough for two people, with turntables so you could listen to a record to make sure you liked it. My sister remembers seeing a young Johnny Mathis come to Martin's Music to sign autographs. What a heartthrob he was.

A big favorite with my sister's friends was Wellingtons. This was a drug store but they had a soda counter and a magazine rack. What teenager didn't love Wellingtons. They made hamburgers but I loved the grilled cheese sandwiches, that was my treat. I can remember listening to the big kids talk about the scandal of the day, Payola.

Since my mom worked on Friday evenings Daddy would often take his two daughters to Ships for dinner. Ships was a coffee shop and though it wasn't on Culver Center street it was on the next corner. Everyone went to Ships with it's 50s modern deco and coffee shop fare but it was too expensive to be a teen hangout. Being a small town you would see many familiar families in line for a table. Fried shrimp and a baked potato I thought that was the best. My sister loved the boysenberry deep-dish cobbler. They came out hot with a scoop of ice cream. They had toasters at each table. Who knows, it was the 50s.

During Christmas they decorated all the store fronts and the street and parked Santa's Sleigh in front of the toy store. You could just walk up and sit on his lap to tell him your holiday wish, no photographers waiting to take your photo but mom or dad could snap one if they had a camera. I was in third grade when I realized a teacher from our school was Santa. I never told anyone for fear of not getting any presents but when I sat on his lap I saw it was him. To me he looked like a sad Santa and as an adult I'm sure there was some humiliation taking this part-time job. Teachers have never been paid what they deserve.

Most of Culver Center is gone now. A Ralph's market took over the Market Basket and Ships has gone the way of most 50s coffee shops. It was torn down and it's now a Starbucks and a juice stand. Grants and Wellington's are gone too and the Thrifty's is a Rite-Aid but I can't help thinking that it was there when I needed it and I'm glad for that.

No lint

Oh this is pathetic. You know the lint you clean out of filter on your dryer? Well, if you wash a load of everyday clothes, dry them, and have no lint afterwards; your clothes are old. Mine seems to be pathetically old.

What a dope

Manny Ramirez has really got himself into trouble this time. He's brought shame to himself and a team and city that took him in. I usually want to give people the benefit of the doubt and hear the whole story but if it looks like a pig and smells like a pig … and this does; then he's a pig. I hope the Dodger's let him go.

The drug he tested positive for is HCG. It is one of dozens of substances prohibited under baseball's drug policy. Players can call a hotline to check on the legality of any substances, and they can obtain a therapeutic use exemption for any legitimate medical use of a banned substance. So did Manny think he was smarter than everyone else? Or was he just too stupid.

Thanks Manny, I hope you rot in hell.

G**** H***

My office window faces the front of the house. Yes, I have an office and for the life of me I can't figure out why I need an office but it's my space; I've claimed it. He has the entire outside, garage, yard, storage area and I have two rooms; my office and a miniature room I laughingly call my studio. I share my workspace with two large stand-alone closets with drawers and storage. It is also crammed with "stuff" waiting to find a home whether it's going off to a charitable organization or the trash, I'm still trying to decide.

At first these cupboards were to house my artwork and supplies but I found I really needed some more space for those big-box food items and it's now become the Glory Hole. To glass blowers it's the furnace, miners; the opening of a mine, but my mom always gave that name to a large cupboard where you stored food.

Typing those two words, G**** H*** is going to get me into a whole bunch of trouble. You see G**** H*** has some porn reference and there will be a lots of people, surprised people by Google-ing those two words and coming up with this rather tame site.

Third Eye: Open

Ajna Chakra

After I'd had that lightening bolt experience and started painting again I shared my first pastel with a docent friend and she immediately said it opened my Third Eye. This is an Eastern spiritual reference to vision. It did get me thinking. Is there a special part in your brain that if repressed kills your creativity?

Some researchers have suggested that the third eye is in fact the partially dormant, pineal gland which resides between the two hemispheres of the brain. This pineal gland has some cells that resemble the photoreceptor cells in the eye and some reptiles can sense light via that third eye

Do I believe this? I'm such a skeptic which leaves me in a place where I don't believe much of anything. Raised in a Catholic family I tend not to agree with anything from Rome but do feel somehow we, as organisms, have a connection. Whether it's electrically or biologically or spiritual, I have no idea but feel some invisible connection.

Listening to NPR, National Public Radio, I heard an interview with Bruce Hood, chair of developmental psychology and director of the Cognitive Development Centre at the University of Bristol in southwest England. He's written a book, Supersense: Believing the Unbelievable. What he said was superstition is baked into our human nature. Humans are born with brains designed to make sense of the world and that sometimes leads to beliefs that go beyond any natural explanation. To be true they would have to be supernatural and it's these supernatural beliefs that bind us together into a society. If you get time, listen to the interview it is thought provoking.

So, are you superstitious?

Remember Yom Hashoah

Last week was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Because it follows the Hebrew calendar it falls on different days. Next year it will be April 11. I'm posting this because I have a number of Jewish friends and like them, I don't want anyone to forget the horrors.

To augment the family income, my mom was a dressmaker in her spare time and she made an acquaintance with the owners of the local fabric store, Joe and Pauline Meyerhoff. I understood their thick accents meant they weren't from the United States but I'd never asked where they were from.

A trip to this yard goods store, for a nine-year-old, was fun so I never minded tagging along. The deep shelves lining the walls were stacked with long rolls of fabric with the smaller bolts sitting on tables. They were neatly arranged by the type of fabric and then into similar hues. I was fascinated by the color and can even remember the smells which, as an adult I know now, were from the dyes.

In the front of the store, near the windows, was a wide low table was used to measure and cut the fabric. Pauline would roll out the fabric, lay it flat then slice it off with the sharp long handled shears. If it were near the end Pauline would measure the remaining fabric and always say, "Only a few inches I'll give you a good price." I think she always did, I never heard my mom say anything bad about Pauline. After she was done Joe would quickly re-roll the bolts and place them back on the shelves. I think Joe was the neat one. They worked well together.

In the back of the store were racks of buttons, zippers and thread and I never tired runny my fingers over myriad of colors. I was convinced, if you tried hard enough, you could tell colors by touch and would experiment every time I was there. My successes only reinforced my theory; my failures meant I need more practice.

Pauline was a sweet woman though always seemed a bit sad to me while Joe was outgoing and gregarious. He would talk to me, not as a child but, as an adult and it made me feel special. Of course the of candy he had for me didn't hurt. My mom would buy her fabric but chat as well and what they talked about I have no idea. The Meyerhoffs learned momma was a dressmaker and would give out her phone number to customers needing her service. She got a lot of jobs from their store.

One afternoon while watching Pauline cut fabric, I noticed something on her forearm and, as children would do, was caught staring. At first she pulled her cardigan sleeve down to cover it and my mom admonished me for staring but she then called me closer. "Did you notice my tattoo, she asked?" I said yes and she then, after asking my mother's permission, proceeded to quietly tell me why she had the tattoo.

When Joe and I were younger we lived in Germany. We knew each others families and when we were old enough, we got married. From across the table Joe added, "She stole my heart when I was your age." Pauline waved him off and with her usual quite voice went on. There were some wicked people who hated all the Jews and put us in prison just for what we believed. Young and old, brothers and sister and husbands and wives; we all went to the prison camps. They made us work hard and every day some of our friends or neighbors or family died. They fed us horrible food and many starved.

By this time Joe had come to stand next to Pauline and wrapping his arms around his wife he added he would eat no matter how bad the food because he knew they would survive somehow and get out. Pauline smiled softly and said this was true and Joe would often force her to eat something. She turned to him, gently touched his hand, and said he did save my life.

We were some of the lucky ones and when released we learned Joe and I were the only ones left from both our families so with nothing to keep us in Germany, we left and came to the United States to start over. Now we have lovely American friends who have made us feel very welcome even if we are Jews. The wicked people put a number on our arms that would never come off. Now it just reminds all of us never to forget.

Even at such a young age I understood the pain these two people went through and regretfully, had a million questions I did not ask. I did ask my parents about what Pauline had told me and they said it was all true. I think that is when I realized there were evil people in the world.

There are very few survivors from the prison camps these days and I would love to find out what happen to these two dear people. There was a famous survivor names Joe Meyerhoff but he was a professor on the East coast. I might not even have the correct spelling of their last name but I do remember they kindness and could never understand why someone would want to kill them.

Kitchen stories: Little Crow

My father, one of three boys and two girls, had a bit of a different name and I never did find out where the name came from. His full name was Dorus Eugene Eley but everyone called him Dory. That's all I remember him being called but when we left Indiana to come to California in 1957 he changed his name to Gene. I guess he never liked the name.

This photo is of Daddy at about three-years-old and I love that you can see the shadow of the photographer to the left. My Grandfather Howard did take photos and developed and printed them himself so I would assume that was him taking this photo. This is unmistakable as Gene.

His older brother was named Gayle, yet another odd name for a boy but get this, his sisters were Harriet and Bernadette. The last boy, Roger. Whew, the cycle of odd names was broken. I never asked my grandmother, Lavon just what she was thinking when she named the kids but then her name was odd, Lavon Sumaria.

My uncle Gayle had a nickname and I only remember hearing it a few times as a kid. He really took after his father Howard and had a lot of his traits, a quick temper being one of them. His first wife Margaret was a good match for him because her temper was as bad as his.

Margaret was dear to me, she would babysit me from time to time and showered me with attention. She had three boys and would have loved a daughter. I was only about five when I remembered a particularly bad argument of theirs. They'd scream at each other like crazy and this time Gayle must have really made Aunt Margaret mad because as he was leaving she threw a kitchen chair at him, it hit the wall and one leg stuck. When he came back they patched things up but that did leave quite an impression of me not to mention a hole in the wall.

At times my dad, especially when he wanted to make his older brother mad, called him Crow. The nickname would make him furious so it wasn't used often. I never knew what it meant until years later, when my Uncle Roger moved to California. Roger was a great story teller and I have most of the family history from him. He was relating the story of Doggie Votaw to me and then asked if I'd remembered they called his brother Crow. He then related the following.

When Gayle was just a little kid he'd drop his pants and pee just anywhere. His mom would scold him but this didn't make him stop. One day he decided it would be fun to pee through a knothole in the fence. He dropped his pants and poked his little penis through the hole. There was a big old crow on the other side and it decided that was one great worm and grabbed a hold. Gayle ran home without his pants screaming bloody murder the whole way and from then on they called him Crow. You can see why, as an adult, he hated that name.

My mother is Frog Clan

Frogs are good signs.
The Frog is a doctor and healer, seer,
and fortune-teller.
The Frog is a messenger of rain …

We need the Frog now.

Today is Earth Day so all you losers not recycling or saving water get with the damn program, will ya?

Last Friday darling companion and myself went to the local Farmer's Market and the city had a handful of booths set up to remind folks what to do. At every booth we both said, "We do that."

So what's left for us? We've cut our water and electric consumption way back. We ride public transportation and my darling rides his bike around town. We don't use plastic bags unless we recycle them so will you fat bastards get off the couch and recycle, now!

One last rant; to the designers and makers of washing machines: Now you come out with energy efficient machines. Where were you ten years ago?

To those of you that are already friendly to Mother Earth, thank you. Thank you very much and keep up the good work.

The little guy

His first pix on the blog he was only a few hours old and crying. Here he is much happier and all of 17 days old. I got to hold him this morning and see his mommy and daddy. All is well. He's a very cuddly little guy.

Kitchen stories: Best of Show

If I were to judge my father's mother Lavon on her cooking I'd give her the blue ribbon on her pies. Of my two grandmothers her pies were winners. She was the slowest cook I'd ever seen but the results were fantastic.

Her pies were nothing fancy, always a fruit pie, but crust that was perfect every time. I'd watched her many times as a child but had the pleasure of watching her make pies when she'd visit California for the winter. She'd stopped using lard but Crisco still gave her a very tender crust, though she said she missed that flavor. She could roll a ball of dough into a perfect circle every time and if you've ever tried you'll appreciate this talent. Each pie maker has their own way to finish off the edge of the pie. My mom and Lavon used the tines of a fork to decorate the edge. I pinch the edge into a scallop but ever so often I'll use their method just to remember their method. Though my mom's mother Emily was a good cook she was more of a cake or cookie baker. My mom Lorna learned a lot from her mother-in-law Lavon when it came to pies.

Much of Lavon's life was spent watching the pennies and when she cooked she made use of everything. I still can't throw out and extra pie dough. You either made a small pie or baked the extra on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. That was always the treat I loved best but sometimes she'd have enough and make a "Vaseline Pie." What it was really was a Sugar Pie. This is sugar, milk and an egg baked into a custard; it only looks like Vaseline but tastes great. I remember eating the last piece of sugar pie once and caught hell from my uncle Roger. My pie making skills are some of my best but I've tried to make a sugar pie but it never comes out like she did. I think it was just her "touch" that made it so good.

Now blooming at the Getty Center Central Garden

This wonderful leafy plant is now blooming and can be found at the beginning of the Central Garden at the Getty Center.

The Honey Bush, or melianthus major, is over five foot tall with a beautiful spiky burgundy flower. It comes from South Africa and although toxic when taken internally, it is used medicinally by their local people. They mostly use the leaves to make poultices that are applied directly to wounds, bruises, backache and rheumatic joints. I'm allergic to things that aren't toxin, so I'll pass, thank you.

Since the Central Garden is seasonal we have plants that come and go and sometimes it's a bit of work to keep up on the names. We have a wonderful contact who knows all things growing and he's a life saver when it comes to names of plants.

Kitchen stories: Those poor Colvin children

Around 1928 my mother's family lived in Greenville, Michigan and her father Thomas worked for Gibson Refrigerator Company. He had a management position and they had more money than when they lived in Indiana. They weren't rich but they did live comfortably. Comfortable enough to send the two older girls to a Saturday matinee once in a while.

Greenville was a very small town and like all towns they had their share of financial hard times. A citizens committee thought it a good idea to identify children of the families in need and treat them to an afternoon at the local movie theater. The newspaper also took pictures of this philanthropic event and when my mom and her sister showed up in front row of that picture printed in the Sunday paper, there was hell to pay. Needless to say, that was the last Saturday free matinee they attended.

Celebrating Spring

In 2006 we took an Easter Hike. Would like to do the same but I've volunteered for extra duty at the Getty Center that won't be possible. Maybe next week my beloved and I can get outdoors; we both need it.

Holidays are always the hardest to staff and since we don't celebrate Easter I'm celebrating Spring at the Getty. What better place. The garden is looking like Spring has sprung though the grass is a little ratty. It's been seeded and it takes a few weeks before it is lush and wonderful again. I always feel a bit sorry for the visitor who comes when it looks so bad but we have to do it sometime and I guess the timing has something to do with the weather. I always finds something that is spectacular and highlight that for visitors to reassure them they've come at the perfect day.

The weather is a guess these days and it's the same all over the country. I heard they had wildfires in Oklahoma and tornadoes in most of the south. I shouldn't complain about windy weather. Wear a coat or not? I know it's Spring when I have turtlenecks and shorts in the same load of laundry.

My Springtime wish would be for everyone to take a break from the news and do something that makes them happy. The news sure won't. What ever happens, put it in your rear view mirror and keep on driving.

Kitchen stories: Nicknames

My Great Grandpa Votaw, on my Dad's side, was a character. They called him "Doggie". His true name was Charles D. Votaw, born in 1878. Grandpa's wife died in 1941 and he and his "housekeeper" lived in a little house in Berne, Indiana for as long as I can remember. He called this woman his housekeeper but when I was older my mom told me it was his live-in girlfriend. She was with him until the day he died in 1968. I saw him just three years before that and he had not changed a bit from when I was a kid.

His house didn't have indoor plumbing because he'd say, "No one's gonna crap in my house." Us kids though it was funny though my Grandmother Lavon, his daughter, didn't like that sort of talk at all. He also had a little red pump in the kitchen sink. I guess he washed up there but he never seemed to clean to me.

There was always a garden and when we'd visit we'd sit outside this tiny house under the shade of a huge tree. I can't remember if he chewed or smoked but he always smelled of tobacco. Grandpa would always have a story to tell and how he got his nickname was pretty funny.

Before motorized trucks hauled goods around the country the teamsters did and when Charles was young he was pretty good with a team of horses so he became a teamster for the local railroad station. He was a tall skinny kid but strong as an ox and would sometimes stand in the wagon, a whip in one hand, and the reins in the other. He never wore much of a heavy coat, no, they worked to hard to get cold but he did fancy a cap with ear flaps. You could tie up the flaps when it was warmer but he said, "It was a damn waste of time 'cuz they'd always fall down, so most of the time they'd be flappin' in the wind."

One spring day he was late with a delivery and was "urging" the team on down the road at a good clip, standing up on the wagon with his ear flaps blowing in the wind. When he got to the station he was met by his boss and a few other teamsters. "Votaw, his boss bellowed, you look like a damn fool dog in that cap." The other men laughed, so did Grandpa, and the name stuck. From then he was called Doggie Votaw.

We have nothing to fear but ourselves

Not too long ago I wrote a piece on me being lazy. For what it's worth, I actually did something yesterday. And when I say "something" I mean painting. I "do" something every day. Cook, laundry, clean, well not everyday but I keep busy.

It was my Yoga instructor I have to thank for getting me back on a somewhat creative journey. She said, during our Savasana on Saturday morning, don't let fear run your life. So I'm laying there and wondering what am I afraid of? Is fear keeping me from being creative?

Then this bolt of lightening came through the gym and singled out me; I am afraid.

When I started in pastels, almost two years ago, I thought I'd sell some of my work. I know they aren't masterpieces but decent enough for someone to shell out a few bucks for and hang on their wall. This journey took me on the road to market my work. I made prints of my work for the folks who would love to own my work but didn't want to buy the original, matted same and framed them; quite nicely I have to admit. I bought a booth at a few Holiday craft shows and thought I'd priced my work reasonably. There we small miniatures of my work in the form of greeting cards, too.

When I couldn't get anyone to purchase anything more than a few of the greeting cards I'd created I packed up everything and put it all back in my studio. Shut the door always thinking I'd get back to it as soon as I'd washed the taste of defeat from my mouth.

Comes February 2008. I brake my wrist (read posts with label "wrist") and I am down for the count. My wrist still hurts to do somethings but painting is not one of them. Good excuse not to paint, right? My beloved never pushes, never asks why; I stopped in November of 2007. I did wonder but didn't try to find out the reason. Self doubt wraps its self around you like a wet blanket.

Yesterday I saw my husbands old boots in the corner of the stairs to the garage and knew I had to paint them. I don't care if it ever gets framed or sees the light of day-- I did it for myself and I feel pretty good about it. I'm not afraid if anyone doesn't like it nor wants to buy it. I'm only sharing this photo because I want someone to know I've found my way back to my studio.

Oh, and the Vodka bottle in the studio? Naw, not what you think. I just don't have room anywhere else for the booze.

Kitchen stories: Lavon Sumaria

Everyone has two parents and I'm no different, there. Relating to my beloved about the interesting information I'd found investigating my mother's maternal side, the Truesdells he asked what about my dad's family. We were as close to them living only about twenty miles away but I don't remember as much.

My Grandfather Howard Brian Eley, born 1896, I remembered as a gruff old cranky man. Stiff as a board and when my mom and dad divorced in the early 60s, disowned my mom, sister and me. I never did understand and it was hurtful to have your Christmas card returned with a note not to contact them anymore. He relented slightly and did have a relationship with his son but I never had much to do with him and when he died in 1976, I did not attend his funeral.

There are much better memories of my grandmother, Lavon Samaria Votaw. She was quiet and kind and a pretty good cook. Born in 1902, she always referred to as "ought two", and married at 18. She was a proper church attendee and I was surprised to learn, just last week, she was pregnant when they married.

Lavon had little formal education but in her later years could speak on any popular subject. She read the paper cover to cover and loved sports though had trouble remembering the name of a LA Lakers basketball player from the late 90s, Vlade Divac. She called him the "bearded foreigner" and that name stuck with all of us.

Lavon never cursed and I rarely remember her raising her voice. She was patient with the grand kids and secretary of the Eastern Star for more than fifty years. Not one to give up on anything. She had five children the youngest coming quite late in life. My uncle Roger, as an adult, related how difficult it was to have a father too old to play catch with him as a kid. He grew up like an only child and I think, very lonely.

Three boys and two girls lived in a very small little house that Lavon occupied until about a year before her death. She was still spry of mind but her poor body had given out and rather than fall down the basement steps, again, her remaining sons moved her to a retirement home. Not an easy decision for anyone, when my Dad visited her in the home he said it was the saddest moment he ever had.

In the early 80s she would travel from Decatur, Indiana to my dad, Gene and his wife Mary's in Palm Desert and spend the winter. I believe this was the joy of her life. It was happy for me because I got to see her as an adult and she even came to stay with me for a week. So happy to have my young daughter enjoy some of the same things as I did.

Lavon confided to me her pain in losing her two daughters. Harriet died suddenly in her 40s and Bernadette, dying in a car crash on vacation, was in her 60s. Grandma said it was difficult losing Howard, her husband, but to outlive your children was heartbreaking. She would outlive one more, her first born son, Gayle. He died when she was in her 90s. She was a kind woman but strong in spirit and I might get a little of her stubbornness from her.

Welcome: baby

Here's our second baby, the one with the blue booties.

He was born today and checked in at a whopping 8lbs 2 oz. 20 1/2 inches long. Momma and Daddy are doing fine.

Welcome little guy.

An attention whore

Cooking has been the thread through both sides of our family and I seem to have passed that love on to my daughter which make me quite happy. I do it for the praise; I'm an attention whore and love the adulation. The challenge is important, too but praise is what I live on so I cook, and feed, and cook some more. This sometimes, for me, can be a problem.

The Teardrop Gathering at Lake Perris was great this year and since I'd won a outdoor dutch oven in the raffle last year I participated in Friday's DO potluck. Got lots of great ideas for managing my outdoor cooking and we ate some pretty good food, too. Some pretty ordinary food as well which is the reason for the post.

Outdoor Dutch Oven cooking is not for the faint of heart nor feeble of muscle. Visit our food blog, Peanut Butter Etouffee and see. You are cooking with hot coals, no way other than guess work to regulate, and sometimes, an unfriendly environment. I've seen the enemy, and it is WIND. Did I mention the weight? My 12 inch weighs all of 25 pounds. So why would you just use it to heat up something canned when you've got a camp stove?

The DO is a cast iron beautiful bit of engineering. Heavy pot on three, perfectly balanced legs leaving room underneath for the coals. The lid, heavy with a lip that allows coals on top without getting them into your food. This lid fits tightly on the pot but can be turned easy so there are no "hot" spots while cooking. My darling made me a lid lifter and pretty much anything I ask for. Nice to know someone who welds. Ok, so why not use it to its limit? I love cooking tools but only use the correct tool for the job. Jeeze, I'm a snob.

Once I made a large pot of chili verde while camping and with it was serving beans. Since you can stack one pot upon the other and take advantage of the heat from the bottom, I had beans in the smaller pot on top of the chili verde. I was only really heating the beans so the camp stove would have worked better. The DO is no easy critter to handle and clean up. Empty, it requires hot coals to boil water while you scrub out the pot, rinse and repeat until clean. Never, ever put soap in a DO it ruins the seasoning. The last thing I want to do is heat something in it.

Oh, but if you want a real treat, like biscuits, lovely fluffy biscuits when you are camping by all means get yourself started. I warn you, it's addicting.

Kitchen stories: Chickens

When I was young, about six, I spent a week with my grandmother Emily and her second husband Virgil Rollins at their lake cottage. She met Virgil at the General Electric plant in Ft Wayne. He was a truck driver, she worked in the factory, and they dated for a long time. Finally, in 1952, she agreed to marry him and he moved in with her. I believe he owned the cottage at Snow Lake. Virgil never had children of his own and loved being part of this growing family. Each of the girls, my aunts Mary Alice and Marcella and my mom had two children and the boys, Uncles Tom and Joe produced an additional 11 grand children between them.

It was always fun to be go to the lake, Virgil loved all the grand kids and was a kind patient man. He supplied the love that Emily couldn't but she loved him more than she loved anyone else. Adversity was to visit Emily once more; in the late 50s Virgil was diagnosed with throat Cancer. She would take care of him for less than a year before he passed away. After he died she sold the lake house because she'd spent her happiest days there and it was torture without him by her side.

On the way to the lake we stopped at a farm and bought three chickens and the next morning Virgil took them down to the lake and axed their heads off. They ran around headless flapping their wings and when they'd stopped their running he took them into grandma to clean. As I think about it now I'm horrified at the thought of that sight but then it didn't bother me in the least.

Sitting on a chair in the corner of the kitchen I watched Emily pull most of the feathers then she proceeded to clean out the "inards" and remove the final small feathers. She taped a few of the big feathers together on a piece of folded newspaper, attached a string, and tied that around my head telling me it was my war bonnet. That might have been the only time she did anything fun with me so I cherish that memory. The big reward was the perfectly fried chicken for dinner that night.

Emily cooked many meals at the lake and one of my favorites was a fish caught in the lake; Sun Perch. Grandpa Virgil and my uncles would fish all Saturday and bring home buckets of them. She'd always clean them herself but not remove the bones. There would be big heaping platters of the fried fish along with corn on the cob and always bread with butter just in case you swallowed a bone. From an early age us kids knew how to remove the spine and all the little bones from our fish. The bread was always there but I never remember anyone choking.

When Virgil took us kids fishing it was only about twenty feet from shore. I realized later we really weren't fishing. He'd bait a line for us and put it in the water until we got board and wanted to go swimming. I'm sure that's why he kept close to shore, he knew it wouldn't take long for us to lose interest. The only time Virgil raised his voice was when my cousin let all the minnows used as bait go.

In the boat or on the dock we had to wear a life vest whether we could swim or not. I know I didn't swim but could paddle around with the life vest on all day. Best memory was of the mud and if you have not stepped into a lake and felt the soft squishy mud between your toes you've never lived.

Interested in starting at the beginning of these stories? Read Kitchen stories: an ear full

I thought I was just lazy.

Last year I broke my wrist and stopped painting for a while. Now, for some reason I can't start again. It's been troubling me and I keep making excuses for not getting back to the studio. It seems I'll do almost anything to keep from picking up the chalk. It's not because of my wrist, I've worn out that excuse, although "downward facing dog" kicks my butt from time to time.

Writing has become more of a challenge but I'm running out of Kitchen Stories and I've been spending way too much time at the Family History center at the local Mormon church. Not that they aren't all darling people there. I've never met a Mormon I didn't like except when they start to talk religion. Oh wait, I did work with a horrible woman but she was a convert and not born to the LDS church. Horrible. So horrible I won't even talk about her here for fear the page explodes. If I believed in anything I'd believe she was the devil; but I don't. I could start a rant on people who are converts to anything but I'll leave that for a completely different post. Converts who share; suffering bores. That includes people who've quite smoking, lost weight, found Jesus, Jehovah, Muhammad or blogging. Keep it to yourself.

So, who am I? A quote from Mary Todd Lincoln might be my mantra, My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season.

After reading Wiki's definition of procrastination I feel like pulling down the shades, curling up and closing my eyes for a while. Are you afflicted with this illness?

Kitchen stories: The Great Depression

My mother Lorna was the first of five children in her family. Three girls then two boys. Before the boys were born her Emily and Thomas had a grocery store in Southern Indiana, Jeffersonville. I don't think it was very large and they lived above the store. I do know they had a wood stove for heat and cooking and Emily said she could cook anything on that stove. You didn't dare let the coals die during the winter or you'd freeze to death and even the children, at an early age, learned to keep the fire going. There was always a pot of coffee at the back of the stove for anyone coming by.

In the late twenties they moved to Greenville, Michigan and Thomas went to work for the Gibson Refrigerator Company and, as a family history states, had something to do with the design of the gas refrigerator. I've done a small bit of investigation but found nothing to substantiate this claim.

What I do remember is momma telling of the Christmas they were in Michigan and how much money they had. Everyone had lots of gifts to open and each package her mother opened had luxuries like electric toasters and waffle irons with an added bonus; there were $100 bills slipped inside. It wasn't long after that the Great Depression hit and they ended up back in Indiana on a farm outside of Ft Wayne, in Monroeville. Thomas told the children he wanted them to know the joys of growing up on a farm as he and Emily did but my Aunt Marci confided it was was cheaper to live there and grow some of your own food. From time to time different relatives would move in with them and on Sunday Emily always cooked enough for a visitor or two.

Once Emily, knowing they were having a difficult time, told a city relative to come by and she'd give her a chicken. Grandma asked the husband if he knew how to kill it and he assured her he did. The woman took the chicken then invited them to dinner that Sunday. When they walked it the house it stunk to "high heavens." She didn't gut the chicken and cooked it with the "innards." The chicken was inedible. Emily had her come back to the farm where she gave them both a lesson on butchering a chicken.

The Depression was pretty hard on most city people but on the farm they raised chickens and and had a little truck farm; they even had a calf, they called him Popeye. When Popeye got bigger the three girls loved riding him but one day he was gone and they suspected he was served the next Sunday. When a baby chick would die, which would happen often, they would bury it in a matchbox in the yard complete with good Catholic burial to send it off to the great beyond. She said for a while you couldn't walk through the yard without stepping on a chicky grave.

The youngest, Uncle Joe was six-weeks-old when his father died but somehow Emily Pricella, now called "Pruce", carried on. She tried starting a beauty shop in her house for a while but ended up working at the Perfection Bakery in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. One of the benefits of working there was once a month she could buy a big box of "day old" bread and pastries for a quarter. She'd drag a huge box home on the street car just for the sheer joy it brought her kids. She'd also share with family members that always seemed to show up on that day. She'd also never let the kids eat the Ginger Snaps because she said the swept the floor and put it in the cookies.

Kitchen stories: we all have skeletons

Thomas and Emily stayed in Kentucky until right after my mother Lorna was born. They headed by to Jeffersonville where is family lived. Not much is known about the Colvins. Thomas had a few brothers and sisters and it seems most of the family was on the wrong side of the law. Wilder Colvin was married to a woman named Johanna Dabney from Ohio or Pennsylvania. When Johanna married Wilder her family disowned her. She had a few children and later the family relented and asked to meet her in Ohio. She had no money for a winter coat so she went without, caught pneumonia and died. I don't think the Dabneys had anything else to do with the Colvins after that.

Grandma Emily would tell of her father-in-law, Wilder and his business of counterfeit dollars. Once, when Federal agents were searching the house, Emily stood on a rug holding my mother in her arms. Under the floor boards were the counterfeit dollars. She said she was shaking the whole time. It wasn't long after that exciting episode they left the Colvin house to start out on their own.

Thomas' young brother Dewey. When he was young he and a friend got themselves in a bit of trouble for stealing something minor. For this they were sent to reform school which turned out to be the best education a young lad inclined to larceny could have gotten. When released he fancied himself an outlaw and robbed gas stations, liquor store and the like; did a little time, too. Story has it he got ambitious, robbed a bank, and was shot in the process. At that time you died from getting shot in the process. Now this story was never told but my mother learned about it and was sworn to secrecy for the shame of it. She kept that secret for a very long time.

In the 1980 when genealogy became popular my aunt and her sister-in-law went to Jeffersonville to research some family history. My mom was horrified and told me the story and was afraid the two researchers would find out the truth. When she spoke with her sister she asked tentatively about Uncle Dewey. Yes, they did find some newspaper reports but had known the story for years as their mother told them the same thing and swore them to secrecy, too. Seems Emily told quite a few this "secret."

Kitchen stories: a word from Marci

Taking a little break here. This is from a letter from my Aunt Marci, my mom's youngest sister. She sent this letter after my mom passed away and I'm glad she shared this with me.


This is not a story about Lorna, but, as you will see, there wouldn't have been a story without her.

When she was eighteen Lorna worked at the General Electric. As do all eighteen-year-olds, she spent all of her money on clothes. One payday she came home with a pair of I. Miller shoes. Now I'm not talking just any shoes … I am talking a pair of navy platform sandals. At that time, I. Miller was the Mount Everest of Shoedom. And, the most expensive shoes that Wolf and Dessauer sold. (Wolf and Dessauer was the place to go for swanky clothes in Ft Wayne.)

The next payday she added a silky two-piece navy and white print dress and a navy straw fisherman's cloche. Now if you've not heard of that hat, it's nothing more than a version of a real deep sea fisherman's hat. The difference is Gene Tierney wore one in some movie and instantly every adult female in America was sporting one.

Now comes the good part. I had this adventurist spirited friend, Clare. Together we cooked p this plan to borrow our big sister's clothes and go do something … adventurist!

Lorna actually let me borrow the whole rig. I don't know how I talked her into it, probably agreed to wash her underwear for a year. Trust me, your mother was no push-over.

Comes the night. I don't remember what Clare wore, but picture this--a fifteen-year-old that looked thirteen, with a twelve-year-old body. I am arrayed in a dress that probably wasn't much more than a size too big, a hat half as big as I am, and those magnificent platform shoes.

No one was home when I left or I probably wouldn't have gotten out of the house (what do I mean probably). We meet at the street car line and downtown we go.

We go into the Berghoff Garden Grill, slither into a booth and order a "Tom Collins." To her everlasting credit, the waitress does not laugh.

A few minutes later, we have our two glasses in front of us, and we are prepared to be initiated into adulthood (six years earlier than the law allows).

I take a taste, Clare takes a taste.

"What does this taste like Clare?"

"Lemonade."

"Lemonade with Gin?"

"I don't know what Gin tastes like."

"I don't either, but I think we'd know if there was something besides lemonade."

"Right."

"What should we do?"

"Drink it, pay the bill, and go home."

That's exactly what we did. We never told anyone, even till now, what we did. I carefully put Lorna's outfit back in the closet and that was probably the saddest ending to a great adventure.

The waitress at the Bergoff is still in the kitchen, laughing her fool head off.

For the Irish in all of us

Happy St Patrick's Day

Kitchen stories: Mom's birth

For Grandma Emily Pricella to get off the farm all she had to do was marry a man ten years older than herself. Her future husband, Thomas Perry Colvin, came into her life when she was almost fifteen. He'd worked on their farm as hired help and wanted to marry her. Now her father James didn't want to lose her, she could work in the fields and could even drive a buckboard so I'm sure that's why she wasn't married until she turned sixteen. She was sixteen on January 1, 1922 and one month later married. I believe they ran away since they were married across the Ohio river in La Grange, Kentucky

Le Grange, in Oldham county Kentucky, is an odd little town. The train tracks go right down the center of the small street. Literally, everything stops while the train moves through. It was on the trip to locate our family cemetery in New Albany that my sister, aunt and I wandered over the river into Kentucky to find the birthplace of our mother. She was the only sibling of five to be born in Kentucky and it was a small town with an odd name; Pewee Valley. Mom was always teased with the name of her birthplace but I found later the town is named for a local bird, the Pewee, and had nothing to do with the size of the the quite small city.

Since she wasn't born in a hospital and we had no clue to where they lived, so we drove on through this very small town and ended up in Le Grange. The older section of town had some antique shops as well as some touristy places so we parked and started poking around. Standing in a gift shop I felt the rumble before I heard it and thought we were having an earthquake. Nothing major mind you, I'm quite the expert on the ground moving but I did look up, check to see what was shaking and when I then heard the rumble, glanced outside. I was quite amazed to see a towering locomotive with dozens of cars lumbering up the street just inches from our rental car. We stepped outside to see this sight as did a few other strangers in town; the locals just go about their business.

It's hard to imagine my grandmother at sixteen, newly married and pregnant with her first child. Yes, I've done the math and there was no "happiness ahead." She did come early and grandma tells this story.

It was mid-December and though cold, no snow. They had no car but did have a buckboard and Emily, no stranger to driving one, used it to go to town. God only knows where her husband was but on the 14th, as she was coming back from town, the horse spooked and threw her down on her knees. All alone she got the horse and wagon under control and drove home. It was still a few weeks until her due date but the next day she went into labor. The mid-wife was called and momma, Lorna Georgiana Colvin was born later than night.

I never asked grandma if she were frightened because I don't think she ever was. If she was she never showed that side of herself. Anyone knowing her knew she was a tough old bird and this could be the result of a lifetime of pain and disappointment. She was 25, had five children, one only six-weeks-old, and in the midst of the depression her husband died.

Kitchen stories: Capt Clinton Truesdell

Not all stories heard were funny; some just odd. This was a story not heard as a child so at least sometimes the family was descrete. I was reminded of this part of the family history when my sister and I were investigating the family cemetery in New Albany a few years ago.

Our maternal Grandmother, Emily's family farm was in the southern part of Indiana, New Albany just across the Ohio river from Louisville, Kentucky, and was given to them by her Grandfather, Clinton DeWitt Truesdell, born 1827 in Galla, Ohio. He was a riverboat captain on the Mississippi. Grandma always said St. Louis but some other data says St. Paul; either way he moved commerce on the mighty river.

James Morgan Truesdell, born 1864 in Lawrence, Ohio, was her father. As a young boy he took to the Mississippi as a cabin boy aboard the riverboat, Marrietta out of St Paul. The captain of this boat was Clinton DeWitt Truesdell, his father. I'm not sure how old he was, but James fell in love with a woman and had a child. When he informed his father he was told they couldn't marry. Seems Capt Clinton had an extra marital relationship and this woman was his half-sister. James left the woman and the son and later met and married Susan Cora Very from New Albany, Indiana. These were Grandma Emily's parents.

Clinton gave them the land for their farm and it was there grandmother, Emily Pricilla, January 1, 1906, the seventh of fifteen children was born. Captain Clinton left the river and lived with them on the farm and eventually died there.

Emily's maternal grandparents, Martin and Mary Jane Very, also had a farm in New Albany and it's on that land we found Slate Run, the family cemetery. Grandma spoke fondly of that farm and of the Very grandparents. Martin Very was a kind man. He built a Methodist Church and would let poor families bury they relatives in the cemetery resulting in a number of headstones with no family ties.

Grandma spoke little of her childhood. With all those kids the farming family was extremely poor and her father, by many accounts, was quite lazy. Grandma Susie, on the other hand, was energetic and when she'd say, "I'm gonna take papa his lunch out in the barn," the older kids knew there'd be a new sibling soon.

She did tell of the Spring House, a little house built over the stream used to keep the milk cool and though the children were not allowed in, in the heat of the summer, they'd often sneak down and have a taste of the cool milk. She said knowing it was forbidden made it all that much sweeter.

When she did talk of her time in New Albany it was to relate how very poor they were. All the children needed to work to help support the huge family. I did get the impression she didn't have a happy childhood. She lived through the Influenza 1918 outbreak but lost a good friend. Lifes day-to-day struggle touched her personally when she was nine and came down with the chicken pox. After contracting them her two-year-old brother Cecil Albert died. She always said it was because of her. Sad to think she carried that burden her whole life.

Everyone worked on the farm, even the younger children and when Emily was ten she worked all summer on a neighbor's farm to have money for a warm winter coat. When time came to be paid her mother took the money and she was given a hand-me-down. You can see why she left the farm as soon as she could. The only way for a young, uneducated woman to get away was to marry and when Thomas Perry Colvin, ten years her senior, came by she was more than happy to become his wife. They married in La Grange, Kentucky February 4, 1922; Emily turned 16 the month before. My mother was born in December of that year.

Cell Phone Numbers Go Public; not

I posted something that was in error regarding registering your cell phones so telemarketers could not obtain your number. There is an e-mail circulating as well as some media reports; all in error.

The most important is the following:

Contrary to the e-mail, cell phone numbers are NOT being released to telemarketers, and you will NOT soon be getting telemarketing calls on your cell phone.

There is NO deadline by which you must register your cell phone number on the Registry.

There is only ONE DNC Registry. There is no separate registry for cell phones.

The DNC Registry accepts registrations from both cell phones and land lines. You must call from the phone number that you want to register.

So, no need to rush and register but definitely register. Life is just a little nicer without those pesky calls. If you've registered for more than 31 days and are still getting calls, file a complaint.

File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

One here; one waiting

Our "pink" baby came on Monday and she is a darling little doll. Mommy and Daddy could not be prouder. Pix to follow.

I've not seen her in person but I live across the street and have viewed the stream of family and friends arriving to give witness to this blessed event. Not a voyeur, just watching from my sick-bed. By Monday I'll be good to make a visit. I hope the new smell isn't gone by then.

Baby "blue"? He is somewhat on schedule for April and it would be kind for him to come then but who really knows with these small packages.

It's raining lemons

As an update to the previous post. Life really threw me a few the past week. On Tuesday my darling and I stopped by the local Popeye's restaurant for a quick lunch. It turned into four days in bed for me. Lucky husband didn't eat the same thing because he had to nurse me back to health. He did a fine job though cooking not his forte I couldn't eat anything anyway.

And, because my glass is half full, I lost four pounds.

I do have lemons

Wish I'd said that:

When life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over.

Kitchen stories: An earful

When I was young I loved to listen to grown-ups talking at the kitchen table. After dinner, the dishes removed and replaced with cups of coffee, they'd talk about all sorts of grown-up things. Politics, gossip but what I like most, old family stories. My cousins were off doing something else but I was quiet so most times I'd go unnoticed and get to stay. I'm not sure I spoke much and for a while thought I might be invisible but that's another story. Many times I remembered playing under the table. If they did shoo me away I'd end up in the hall just past the light from the kitchen, still within earshot.

My mother's uncle Jim was a great story teller and I'm sure added things that weren't exactly the truth but he could spin a tale. One of my favorites was the one he told often about his mother, Susan Truesdell.

The Truesdell family had eleven children surviving to adulthood but when this story took place there were only a few. They were a farm family and though school was available the older boys didn't stay in school very long. One reason might be they were feisty boys.

One evening one of the older boys, about twelve came home from school and told their mother, Susie about the teacher whipping him with a switch. Susie never asked what he'd done but went to the barn, saddled her horse and loaded her pistol. Off she rode down the road to the school house. Driving his buggy home that evening the teacher saw Susie coming, slowed his horse, got out and stood next to the buggy. There were no pleasantries exchanged. From horseback Susie shouted at the teacher, "Did you whip my boy Martin?" The teacher said yes and started to explain the reason. Susie drew her pistol, said "Don't you ever touch one of my children again, " and fired hitting him in the ear. She calmly rode off.

The teacher, far from mortally wounded but seriously scared, jumped into his buggy and sped away to town. He found the sheriff and insisted he arrest Mrs. Truesdell showing his bloodied ear. The next day the sheriff arrested Susie and took her before the judge with the teacher. The judge listened while the teacher, with a bandaged ear, emotionally told his side of the story. The judge never listened to Susie but told the teacher, "Susie Truesdell is a pretty good shot. If she wanted you dead you would be. I'd suggest not whipping her boys anymore. Case dismissed."

The teacher taught the rest of the term but never raised his hand in anger against any of the Truesdell children.

Babies?

There are babies coming.
Tiny toes,
tiny ears,
big voices and wet bottoms.

Sweet little hungry pink mouths
darling knees;
they are coming two by two
one pink one blue.

Chubby round little faces and dark eyes
tiny grasping hands complete with finger nails;
Can't wait to see the color of their hair.

They are coming and
Mommies and Daddies are anxious, too.

Updates to follow.

He could read the friggin' phone book and sell it

I just like to hear him speak but can't stand all the "after" drama. I don't need anyone to tell me what I heard. I liked what I heard.

Text of his speech

Louisiana Gov Bobby Jindal is trying to make a name for himself and run for President. Jindal's politics are firmly on the Republican right: he is opposed to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage and the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling. We will hear more from this punk.

Information pant-load

Let me just say one thing about our new President. Leave him the hell alone; it's only been a month. Do I like every single thing he's done? No, but I like it a thousand times, maybe a trillion time, more than the last administration. I hated them the moment they took office.

Why does he need to be scrutinized every day? This information overload is disturbing. There are so many news outlets needing to say something new or different that they look like sharks feeding.

In my opinion Bush was elected by the Supreme Court and not the American people for his first term. What happened four years later just amazed me but the Dems did not have a decent candidate but enough about the past eight years, time will be the judge on that presidency.

So will giving each person a check work? I don't think so; I didn't like it when it came from the past administration and I think it's fluff but it's part of the package. Now one thing that could help is the subsidy for COBRA for laid off workers. I know a few and if you are trying to find a job the last thing you need to worry about is health insurance for your family. This part of the package addresses people who need it.


What worries me more? Those monkeys in Sacramento. You need to keep tabs on them and they are way easier to contact. Find your monkey from this link. California State Representative.

Need to drive in the Carpool lane?

I'm sure this would qualify you for the HOV lane. Sure, just tell the cop, when he stops you, these are co-workers.

Buddy?

This is not our dog; repeat, NOT BUDDY. He looks like Buddy but it's his doppelganger. He seems to be the anti-buddy. Click the link to see a video and read about this amazing dog. "Thrown Away Dog Saves Little Girl."


This is our Buddy. He's never saved a life, that we know of, and he's just a tiny bit bigger than the dog above. He is a very loyal, good at heart, dog. If I'm sick he'll stay right at the foot of the bed and he barks at intruders. I love him just as much as he's heroic cousin.

We'll be watching and waiting

It has been a year since my beloved had a cancer removed from his bladder and four periodic test for the recurrence of that cancer. Now, instead of every three months he will go every four months for a test. Doesn't sound all that much better but it is because it a step closer to going every five months for a year, then twice a year, and finally yearly. You see, his type of cancer is what the Dr called an annoyance like some skin cancers. You just have to keep watching to make sure they don't come back.

So when you find yourself at your happiest you also get bad news. Why? Who the hell knows, it's just how the universe works. I'm thrilled and a good friend is sitting in the hospital with her husband and her news isn't so good. He has Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer. I've read it responds well to chemo and I do hope this is the case with him. They are a darling couple and I think of her by his side and how lucky he is to have her. I also think of her pain and wish there would be something I could do or say to help. But there is no magic cure, just waiting.

Sisters

Publishing photos of myself is something different for this blog but I got such joy from finding this photo. I was contemplating giving away an old book and there it was, stuck in the back. As with all photographs there is a story.

In 1988 Doodles and her beloved invited us to their condo in Key Largo, Florida. They were living in Connecticut and thought it would be fun to celebrate Christmas in their little corner of paradise. I even made t-shirts for the trip for everyone--I'm wearing one in this photo-- which was not something our sixteen-year-old lil bird had a desire to wear but did without too much complaining.

We had a great trip of sightseeing, snorkeling, and boating and way too much laughing but that's what family's are all about. Now the next June, sister Doodles invited me down to celebrate my 40th birthday, just the two of us, and we won't tell anyone what we did.

We have our winner!

What a great event! I've selected two winners and they are:

Donna K Schrader at cards and clay in Alaska. She'll be receiving the set of art cards.

Chris Bennet at Creative Corner in New South Wales, Australia. The handmade felt lapel pin will be traveling off to her.

Check out their blogs to see some creative people. Thanks to all the artsy folks participating in this fun event and to all those who came to comment. Don't be strangers.

Weather report: Damn this is good

If I complain about wind I should surely express my thoughts of our current weather, rain. Lovely, soothing rain. The sound, the smell, the wetness--wetness? It is music to my dry ears and has come at a wonderful time, on the heals of a horrible windy January. I can't say enough. Sure, I can't walk or go to water aerobics but our rainy season will be all to short so will sit and enjoy. Reading, knitting, writing, anything quiet enough not to interfere with the drops.

We are trying to conserve water so days like this are a bonus for my thirsty citrus trees though the orange tree, in full blossom, has shed a number of blooms under a pounding shower a few days ago. The fruit from the orange has never been prized but the lemon, ah the lemon, is a favorite with friends and neighbors.

For the dry times I have a CD on my Ipod, Thunderstorms. I've gone to sleep many a time listening to that one. I should really live in the PacNorthwest where rain is not the fleeting visitor but a companion. I did try but we had to move to Bakersfield and after that the prices of property in Oregon skyrocketed; now with the crap economy we can't afford anything. Oh, well I'm reduced to dreaming and listening to our brief rain.

Some can never be rehabilitated

Our darling Buddy dog, at one time in his life, was a monster. Chewed everything mine, including an expensive signed by the photographer art book. I would refer to his as the "bastard with fur " and his breed being a "wire-haired terrorist." His only interest, not that he has a lot now, was finding a way to get into the trash. We'd had baby-locks on the cupboard with the can until we remodeled and have a wonderful slide out drawer; fooled him.

After my beloved retired seven years about Buddy became a model citizen. Imagine that, he was just lonely. He loves going camping and doesn't bolt out the door when it's opened. He is quite enjoyable even though he's not a cuddly dog. I do miss my Sheba, she was the best snuggler in dogdom. Buddy will sleep on the bed but faces the door waiting for some bungler to attack, he's ever vigilant.

Just to keep up the aforementioned title, ever so often, Buddy will pull something sneaky. Last week he must have felt no one was paying enough attention. My Aunt and I were heading for the Getty Villa and, out the door, I remembered my camera and returned to the house. There he was standing in the middle of the dining table his muzzle deep into the remnants of a cup of coffee I had carelessly left. He was so busy slurping up the coffee he didn't notice me and I was too shocked to say anything. Too bad I had not gotten my camera yet as that would have been a fantastic snap. He finally did look up and just turned, jumped to a chair, then the floor, and out the doggy door like nothing happened. Thanks, Buddy, I thought you'd lost all your spirit.

Starry mornings

The weather has been near perfect, still a bit windy but warm, not hot, and clear. If mornings in the spa were like this every day I'd never get anything done. Now the moon is almost half it is cutting down on the star viewing but still great.

For three days we were host to our darling 83 year-old aunt. She enjoyed her visit so and that's all that matters. Her husband of more than 50 years of marriage passed away two years ago and she will never get over it. It's true you can die of a broken heart.

One World-One Heart Event is closed. Winners will be announced tomorrow.

It's time for the One World-One Heart Event and I've almost missed it. Vacations have a way of making you forget everything. This is event is so much fun you just add a comment here on this blog to be entered to win five note cards. These are prints of my pastels and are 4 1/2 X 6 1/2 inches. Envelopes are included.

Giveaway Update: If I get 100 comments I'll give a second prize. This is last years lapel pin but I'll give something similar. It is handmade felt with embellishments.

To enter please include:

• Just click on "comments"
  
• add a link to your site, if you have one,
• or your e-mail address.
  
• Let me know if you are also participating with a giveaway.
  

Now just go to the host's site One World-One Heart and visit all the other participants. Right now there are almost 800 other crafty people participating. Have fun!


DEADLINE February 12th. I will randomly choose one name and let the lucky person know by e-mail or their blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

From El Rincon: Breakfast with the Godwit's

At sunrise the Pacific was flat with just a hint of morning mist hanging off the coast of Santa Cruz one of the five Channel Islands. I sat with my morning tea watching the shore birds dash around looking for breakfast. Marbled Godwits, Whimbrels, and Willets made up this early morning crowd. A wave comes in then retreats and they scurry down to the edge of the water to poke and prod the wet sand looking for sand crabs and small invertebrates. They usually get away before the next wave but sometimes the wave will wash over their slender heads as they come up with something particularly yummy and worth the cold splash. The Sanderlings, much small birds, run in a pack of ten or twenty and they rarely get wet. They perform a choreographed ballet dancing between the wet sand and water.

In front of a cresting wave a pelican glides effortlessly only inches from the water. Near sunset a dozen or so birds will glide single file for miles. I often wonder if they are looking in the clear water of the wave for fish swimming by. They also hunt fish from about twenty feet then plunge headfirst into the water resulting in a dramatic splash.

Beyond the breakers, small groups of Bottle-nosed Dolphins travel up and down the beach feeding on fish. There is a photo of dolphins riding a wave off Ventura but I've not seen it in the wild. I did see California Sea Lion in a wave snatching himself a large fish once. What a treat.

For other post about this lovely area click on the label "Rincon" at the bottom of this post.

AFK to celebrate 39 years

Last year we celebrated our anniversary at the beach so it seemed only natural we head back. To add a little spice we've planned a trip with our dear friends. This should be fun, we've traveled many times together and they are game for some short day trips--plus they love to "antique" and eat as much as we do--so we are expecting a pleasant getaway.

As we are watching the weather the forecast looks promising, though cold, it's 38 this morning. This is just a reminder it's winter because after the past two weeks of 80 degree temps here in SoCal it sort of makes one forget.

For dinner I've planned some outdoor cooking with my camp dutch oven if we find a nice level spot. Rain would be the only thing keeping me from trying this. I could post something interesting on our food blog, Peanut Butter Etouffee, but my camera died. Maybe someone else could take a snap it's not good to be a stranger at your own food blog. We'll also eat out as there are some great places just a short drive from El Rincon.

Sometimes the locals are right

There is a blogger from LA that I like to read, Chanfles. He lives in a small corner of Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights, kvetches--my word not his--like so many of us do, about what goes on in our community. He has a category "Shit I hate" and is funny. He's, among other things, a vegetarian in search of the perfect Huevos Rancheros and reports back when he finds the good ones as well as the not so good. His most recent food venture lead him to San Bernardino and stated he wasn't going back even if it was popular with the locals: sometimes the locals are wrong.

That story rang so true as my sister and I are foodies and while traveling together we try all sorts of restaurants. We even had one entire trip in search of the perfect tamale but ended up learning so much of the New Mexico cuisine I don't know if we decided. We did find posole, ah and don't forget the sopapillas.

One trip to the Southwest we were in search of some tasty Mexican food and after settling in at our hotel in Sedona asked the clerk if there was a good local place to satisfy us. There were directions and a full parking lot and a list to be added to for a wait so this all looked promising. Wrong. We thought, maybe the locals were Gringos because this wasn't hitting any bells with us.

Our next stop was Page, Arizona in the Northern part of the state. Tired from a full day of sightseeing we again asked a hotel clerk and she directed us to a restaurant within walking distance. Not to many in the joint but they had a bar which was now a big part of our criteria. With only one other table with customers they seated us on a large patio. I grimaced. What the hell, I'll have a hamburger but it smelled good with that gentle mix of lard and corn and the salsa was great. I had a good feeling in my gut, well, maybe it was just hunger but we stayed. I opted for Chili Verde, my benchmark in a good Mexican restaurant. We were so hungry by this point anything would do.

That turned out to be one of the best meals we'd had on our ten day vacation. So does that mean the locals were right? It didn't seem to matter that there weren't many customers so how do you actually find the good places? Luck, and the Kitchen Gods were happy with us that night.

How do you find good places when you are on the road? Do you hit the chain restaurants for something safe or are you adventurous?

The skin I'm in

Actinic Keratosis is a scary name for something only somewhat scary, skin pre-cancer. I'm just lucky, and I'm honest with that word, to only have these types of problems right now. I did have one basal and two squamous cell carcinomas removed so I get a good check-up twice a year.

My problem right now is I've had this dry patch on my upper lip frozen with liquid nitrogen three times and it still won't go away. So my darling dermatologist, he is darling, too, will re-try something; a horrible treatment that went somewhat awry last time. Last time I used this cream I got flu like symptoms and my lips swelled twice the size of Angelina Jolie. I was miserable. He says it has to be and I can do it slowing using a third of the dose.

As a warning to anyone younger than a boomer, SUNSCREEN. Buy buckets of the stuff and don't leave the house without wearing a lipstick or lip gloss that has an SPF of fifteen or better. Seems like all that lip gloss we wore in the 80s did quite a bit of harm to the old lips. Who knew? I suppose putting baby oil on and sunbathing until we were a crispy shade of brown didn't help either.

My President

For two terms I've longed to pen that phrase, My President and now, as of January 20, 2009, I can. I do feel in my entire heart that he is representing what I believe in; finally.

From the moment I heard his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention I knew he'd be the saving grace for America. It just took a bit longer to get him on the Capital steps swearing the oath of office.

Pride to be an American is what I felt for a few reasons. Pride in the system; I've always been an advocate of the power of your vote and quite angry when people say it doesn't matter. It does and Barack Obama proves that point. Proud of my daughter and her husband because they supported Obama from the very beginning and traveled to Washington, stood in the freezing cold for hours to be no closer than a few miles to watch the inauguration. I'll leave her blog for how that made them feel I know I was so proud they could believe in something so strongly. It was only twenty degrees for God's sake!

Time will tell how he does but I only beg that everyone gives him time. It took eight years to get us in the mess we're in so we can give him time to get us on the right track. Congratulations, Mr. President.

lil bird: on the wing

With the inauguration next week we are all a twitter here. Our own lil bird and her husband are traveling to the nation's capital to view some history and you can follow their antics on Twitter or her regular blog, Maltese Parakeet. Twitter allows herto publish from her cell phone so here's hoping we get many photos directly from the "goings on."

I'm truly jealous of them but will be thrilled to get them back and hear every word. I hope they remember and that it isn't all a blur.

Wind

So simple a word but can mean so much. It's the air that moves about us and out of us, sometimes. It can be a gentle breeze or something attuned to a hurricane. In my little corner of Southern California it is the bane of my existence. For thirty six years I've dealt with the winds, some years better than other but always a pain in the backside.

Our wind in the spring brings pollen from areas I'd never visit and my allergies can't do a dang thing about it. The fall, oh the fall, the hot Santa Ana wind comes sweeping off the desert to dry up what little moisture we have in the hillsides and makes us shiver at the thought of a wild fire. At the least it makes my front porch a depository for any loose trash in the neighborhood. Winter wind can bring anything. One year the '94 Northridge Earthquake. This winter it brought 85 degree days. I'll take the warm days but I am tired of the blowing.

Negative ions are odorless, tasteless, and invisible molecules that we inhale in abundance in certain environments. Water moving about creates negative ions. Beaches, waterfall, even your shower but the wind sucks the life out of them causes those little old ions to go positive. Positive is usually something good but in the case of ions it isn't. So here a little negativity is good but how to get it. There are a myriad of product for sale that produce negative ions. Oh so many crazy late night sales pitches but the best thing? Go get in the shower and let the water beat on you or sit on the beach and breath deeply. Some things are so simple, aren't they?

They didn't call him Tricky Dick for nuttin.

One can't watch the new movie, Frost/Nixon without drawing some lines to our current president. No fan of Nixon here but you almost feel a bit sorry for him. I said almost because you still had some insight into his denial since he felt it part of the presidential powers bestowed upon him. Respect for he job diminished with him and didn't recover. This is why I have hope with the incoming administration. Please, just bring some respect back to the job.

Humans are a compassionate lot, as a group, but will the American People somehow feel the same for Bush after he is gone? It might depend on what is said about his involvement in, his words, variety of mistakes. He is now saying some things did not go as planned. Ya think? In our life time we'll never know the truth. Hopefully, one of the "loyal to the group" will write a death-bed confession and then we'll know who's been controlling this country for the last eight years. Just how old is Wolfowitz?

Do go see Frost/Nixon before it slips into video. Frank Langella--who could forget his Dracula, pretty hot for 1979 but I digress--his performance as a beaten Nixon is spellbinding. Like driving by an accident, you can't look away, though it is painful to watch. Now my grandmother would have relished this part of the movie since she hated Nixon with a purple passion. She had two books beside her chair, the Holy Bible and Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry Truman; she could quote chapter and verse from both. She was none to found of Johnson, as she was sure he murdered Kennedy, until her nephew became the Johnson's Texas minister. Loyalties have a familial ties.

I'm looking for the original interviews on Netflix even though I lived through that era I don't remember watching the program. I did, on the other hand, watch too much of the Watergate hearings; who didn't. There is one thing my darling companion and I remembered, the country was glad to put it away. Hey, it was the '70s.

Just beachy

We did end up spending New Year's at our favorite camping place, Rincon Parkway. This little stretch of road is just outside the town of Ventura on the Pacific Ocean. Although this photo does illustrate the camping area is not representative of what the place actually looks like. I've never seen it so empty, ever. People who live local will come, park and pay on Wednesday and not show up until Friday evening to camp all weekend. Most of what we see these days are those huge diesel guys that we feel miniature next to.

If I stop and think about the camping area it's amazing why I love it so much. Let me try to describe it. Before the freeway opened a two-lane road ran parallel to the water. Between the west side of the road and the beach was space to park your car and on the east side of the road a high berm with rail tracks. A variety of passenger and freight trains travel on this line up and down the coast of California. This space is now designated for camping and most of the 127 spots are about 18 feet wide and close to 40 feet long.

When you pull in, depending on the width of your RV, you have a five feet no parking zone with a bike lane on the road side and about five feet of crumbling blacktop on the beach side. Cars and big trucks rumble by your spot at an alarming speed all hours of the day, and night. I shouldn't make it sound so attractive there are already too many campers. Past that large boulders help with beach erosion then, depending on the tide, a sandy beach and the million dollar view of the Pacific Ocean. Hook-ups? Nope, this $25 a day site is d-r-y.

The beach access can be difficult especially with a dog since you need to scramble over the boulders down to the sand. The height of the rocks varies and at many sites it's near impossible to navigate over the boulders so choose wisely. Once our site had great access and along with that came many visitors tramping through our five-foot front yard. I'm willing to share just knock the damn sand out of your shoes before you traipse across my rug.

So why is it always packed? The price has a lot to do with it and maybe because there are so few spots at the beach in Southern California but everyone I ask says, the view. You set up, get out a chair and sit down to watch. You're treated to Sea Lions and Bottle-nosed Dolphins playing and feeding in the surf and if you're lucky, the occasional blowhole spray from a migrating Gray Whale on it's way down to Baja to breed for the winter. Shore birds are too numerous to count most of the time and their antics will make anyone chuckle. Add to that the day-trip possibilities of Ojai, Cartpenteria, Ventura and Santa Barbara at for 25 bucks a night.

Wait, maybe I've said too much. Forget every thing I've said.

2009

With so many things happening this year, good and bad, I'm happy to say good-bye to 2008. Not that I believe Thursday morning will be any different that any other Thursday morning, it's just a formality. Maybe this Thursday will be a bit different. We are planning to go camping to the beach and I'd love to wake up on a brand new year at the Rincon, our favorite spot. A twenty-five dollar spot with a million-dollar view.

Twenty O (insert number here). I've never liked the sound of that but somehow, Twenty ten slips easier off the tongue.; I'll have to wait one more year.

Cheers, it's Christmas time

Do you ever wonder how we get through the holidays? Vodka? Not so much these days but at the House of Moon though my darling and I did have a glass of wine last night. Wine is so versatile. Summer time, it's a cooler with ice and fruit while Winter evening it warms your body. So it seems a little glass of Old Vine Zin is helping me get through the season.

Not that I have a lot to do this year. I've cut way back. My baking consisted of decorated sugar cookies and one batch of peanut brittle. These items will be given to family and friends as my darling and I have absolutely no willpower. None.

So with a little extra time I'm sitting here thinking of my best Christmas ever and honestly, it's difficult to find one. I've been fortunate to have wonderful family and friends around me at the holidays and all year long. When I was six Santa brought me a red firetruck pedal car that I thought was the best. It had wooden ladders and a bell. I have no idea what happened to it as a few years later we moved to California and sold most everything before we left.

Much older, my darling bought me a little stuffed bear we'd seen in an antique store weeks before Christmas. It looked exactly like one of the only toys I still have from my childhood only bigger. He went back to the store the next week and wrapped it himself. Over the years he's given me more expensive gifts but that one stands out in my heart.

We no longer give gifts but that is by my choice. We usually take a trip, or buy something for the two of us and that's fine with me. You see, my darling husband, quite regularly, surprises me with flowers for no good reason other than to see me smile. I'll take those types of gifts any day.

Our tiny family will be celebrating together, all seven of us, and that will be the best present this year!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"