Sad news

Rule One
by Philip Booth

Rule One of all
rules one:

No one ever knows
how much another hurts.

You.
Kate. Ray. Randall. Me.

The nurses who were kind to you,
the gaspump kid across the bridge,
the waitress here this noon.

No one ever knows.
Or maybe in a thousand,
one has the toughness to,

to care,
to give beyond a selfish pity.
Even any given day,

given weathers, detours,
chances of what look like luck,
if we feel bad

we refuse the givens.
What blighted lives we lead.
Or follow:

showering, feeding, changing shirts or
pants, working, as one used to say,
to make ourselves presentable.

Partial strangers to our painful selves,
we're still stranger to diminished friends
when they appear to hurt.

How much we fail them,
failing to come close:

a parent, newly single, in Seattle;
an upstate poet in intensive care.
You. Blanche. Alvin. Sue.

Who hurts and why.

Why we guess we know.
How much we never.

Aunt Kitty 11/30/1938 - 2/24/2012

It feels very sad to write a blog post knowing that
Aunt Kitty won't be reading it.

Okra-Walnut Salad

It’s 75 degrees here and it’s not even noon. I have the windows and doors open, airing out the house. This would have been a perfect day to cook greens or something garlicky because the odor wouldn’t have lingered. But it’s Friday and I have a refrigerator full of leftovers, so no cooking for me.

We’re having leftover bow-tie lasagna and I’m making another round of okra-walnut salad. When I served the salad earlier this week, I sat the bottle of poppy seed dressing on the table. Dad helped himself to salad, but declined the poppy seed dressing, waiting for his usual Thousand Island dressing to appear on the table.

I passed him the bottle of poppy seed dressing. “I haven’t had that kind before,” he said, taking the bottle with great reluctance. “Yes, you have,” I informed him, “the last time we had this salad.” Of course that's been about a year ago, so he can be excused for forgetting. He looked skeptical, but poured some of the dressing on his salad.

“You don’t use Thousand Island on this salad. It would screw up the flavor,” I lectured. Three helpings later, it was obvious that he agreed. I found the recipe in Southern Living years ago, back in the days when that magazine was really worth reading as opposed to the current skimpy, and frankly sad, incarnation. The recipe sounds weird, but it’s wonderful.

The quantities given were for a supper club group. I just cut them down proportionately. I’ve found that in my oven, the okra usually takes 30 minutes to brown rather than 20.

Okra-Walnut Salad

Makes 8 Servings

Prep: 15 Min., Bake: 20 Min.

1 (24-ounce) package frozen breaded cut okra
3 (5-ounce) packages salad greens
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
½ to 1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1 (15-ounce) bottle spinach salad dressing

Bake breaded okra at 425 degrees in a single layer on a lightly greased baking sheet for 20 minutes or until golden brown, or fry okra according to package directions.
Toss together okra, salad greens, red onion and walnuts. Serve with dressing.

This is a dog

Just in case you saw a photo of the Pekinese that won Best in Show at Westminster and were confused. There were many great dogs competing. Dogs that were beautiful, had character, serve useful purposes, would make great companions and looked like dogs. Yet they awarded the Best in Show ribbon to something that most closely resembles a piece of animated dryer lint and could have been the inspiration for the plastic troll dolls that were popular when I was a child.

Westminster annoys me on many levels, but I continue to watch it for the dogs. I find it ironic that the premier dog show in the country is held in New York City during Fashion Week. Many of the handlers would benefit from spending as much time grooming themselves as they do their dogs. They take frumpy to new heights. I endure the incredibly annoying David Frei repeatedly referring to what is a beauty contest as a sport. It’s obvious that running around the ring with their dogs may be the most exercise some of those handlers get, but that still doesn’t mean a conformation-based dog show is a sport.

A Labrador retriever, one of the best dogs God ever created, has never won Best in Show at Westminster. The Pekinese has won four times. Clearly, they need better judges.

More for me

At lunch today, Dad asked, “When you finish eating, can I prevail upon you to cut me a slice of that cake you baked?” We don’t have dessert at meals; we eat sweets as snacks. Everyone is responsible for serving themselves. I have no intention of changing that policy. He is not helpless. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.

“I am not going to cut you a piece of cake every time you want one. You’re perfectly capable of cutting your own piece of cake.” “Just the first one,” he said. “I cut the first piece last night,” I informed him. “Remember, I told you the cake was for both of us. It didn’t come out looking like a piece of cake. It fell all to pieces, but it tasted fine. You can manage to get yourself some cake and if it falls apart just eat it that way. It’ll taste the same.”

He managed to slice a piece and get it to his plate intact. “See, you did better than I did,” I told him. “That’s because it wasn’t the first piece,” he assured me. He sat down and ate his cake. I guess he’d been thinking about it since last night and couldn’t wait any longer.

When he finished, he informed me that, “The icing and cherries saved that cake.” That’s all he said. Frankly, I wonder where he was standing when they were passing out good table manners. He could use an extra helping.

Happy Valentine's Day

I baked Dad a Black Forest Cake. It looks very festive, Dad even commented on how pretty it was, and is super easy to make. I used sugar-free devil's food cake mix, sugar-free Cool Whip, and Comstock's no sugar added cherry pie filling.

Dillon got a treat too. Those white spots on his face are Cool Whip. I let him lick the container clean. Then he wiped his face off on Dad's footstool. Dad just laughed.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Lao Tzu

Hockey and potholders

I took the day of rest thing seriously today and accomplished nothing particularly productive. I listened to the hockey game that was on NBC this afternoon. It didn’t even matter to me which teams were playing; Doc Emrick was announcing and I’d listen to him call anything. Emrick won the 2011 Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality - Play by Play. He does absolutely brilliant work. He’s entertaining, informative, positive and doesn’t rely on tired, overused catchphrases; I just adore him.

While I was listening to the hockey game, I perused all of the listings for potholders currently posted on Etsy. After I went to all the trouble to open the stupid account, I might as well make use of it. I need potholders. They’re hard to find in brick and mortar stores anymore. I don’t want oven mitts, those take too long to put on. I’m usually in a hurry when I’m in the kitchen. I want to just grab a potholder and rescue whatever casserole dish or pan is in the oven as quickly as possible.

The listings for potholders are many and varied. I didn’t find any that I liked enough to put in my cart. I found more than a few that I wondered if anyone liked at all. There were Elvis potholders, I Love Lucy potholders, and more than a few half-naked men and pin-up girl potholders. There were tractors and Santa zombies and cupcakes. I understood the cupcake correlation; cupcakes are food. The others, not so much.

One seller posted a picture of herself holding a potholder. She had a lot of tattoos. I wondered if that picture helped or hurt sales. Some listings stated that the potholders were made in smoke-free households. I could see where that would be a plus. Some listing went even further and said the potholders were made in smoke-free, pet-free households. I immediately crossed those sellers off my list.

I don’t think being pet-free is a condition to brag about. Yes, I know some people are allergic or can’t have pets due to their housing situation or other circumstances. If I was looking to buy a food product, perhaps I might consider a pet-free household to be a selling point. But a potholder? That just made me wonder about the seller.

All I want is a relatively attractive potholder that won’t show every spill and will protect me from burns. It's hard to judge the durability of the fabric without being able to touch the product. I did mark a couple as favorites. If I do decide to go back and make a purchase, I don’t want to have to wade through all 100+ pages again. Once was more than enough.

Jonquils and parsnips

The temperature is supposed to drop like a rock tonight. That being the case, I figured that picking these jonquils was actually an act of kindness. I spotted them blooming in a friend’s yard when I was rolling their trashcan up from the street.

The homeowners are on a cruise in the balmy Bahamas. By the time they get back, these beauties would probably be dead, so I figured they might as well come home with me and add a touch of spring to my study. They’re so cheerful and pretty. I love jonquils.

I’ve had a pretty satisfying day so far. I exercised this morning. It’s funny, I always feel amazing after I finish a workout, but I never want to do it. Same with cleaning house. I always feel better when things are tidy and straight, but I go to great lengths to avoid the work involved in getting them that way. Despite that, I vacuumed after lunch before the Carolina game. Now I can enjoy the rest of my day guilt-free.

I think there’s a mouse living in my study. I keep hearing a rustling at night when neither Dillon nor I are moving. I asked Dad this morning if we had any mousetraps. He said we did, somewhere. I left it to him to locate the traps. Dillon and I headed out for our morning walk.

We came back early because Dillon didn’t want to walk the whole way. Dad was in my study. He wasn’t setting a mousetrap for me. He was helping himself to a handful of my cashews. Talk about getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. He looked rather sheepish, but that didn’t stop him from taking the nuts.

While I was cooking lunch, he headed down to the basement and returned with two mousetraps. He showed me how to set them. A real gentleman would have handled that task for me. If I catch anything, he’d better volunteer to dispose of the remains.

My new favorite vegetable is the parsnip. I bought some for a vegetable pie. I couldn’t remember the exact number the recipe called for, so I bought a pound. Turns out, I only need two.

I have to buy a couple more ingredients for the pie recipe, which I’d planned to make today until I realized I didn’t have a cauliflower or red bell pepper. I did a mental inventory of the contents of the refrigerator and decided we’d have sausage patties, biscuits, kale, sweet potatoes, and parsnips.

I found a recipe on-line for roasted parsnips. As luck would have it, I’m fresh out of the goose lard called for in the recipe. I substituted a rather more pedestrian canola oil. The finished product was just delicious. The parsnips were lovely and sweet.

Our local grocery stores don’t carry parsnips. I guess their customers are like Dad and view a vegetable that looks like an albino carrot with suspicion. I plan to stock up again next time I’m in Rocky Mount.

Roasted parsnips are easy to fix. My new vegetable peeler made preparation a snap. Mom was not a believer in kitchen gadgets. She thought pretty much every kitchen task could be accomplished with a dull paring knife. She was convinced that vegetable peelers and sharp knives would lead to trips to the emergency room to try and reattach severed fingers.

Following her lead, and an incident involving a cheese slicer that left me bloody and scarred, I’ve never had many kitchen gadgets myself. But Y-shaped vegetable peelers were highly recommended in a recent article of kitchen tips, so I picked one up on a recent trip to Target. I give it 5 stars. It made peeling the parsnips super easy. And I still have all ten fingers.

Where is the year going?

I can't believe it's February already. It's even more confusing since we've never really had winter weather. So even though it's technically winter, it feels more like spring. The trees and shrubs in my yard are confused as well. Two bushes that normally bloom in the spring have been sporting pink blooms on some branches all winter.

I've been eagerly scoping out the new spring fashions. Unfortunately, unless my closet suddenly expands, I've run out of room. I know they say if you haven't worn an item for a year, you should purge it from your wardrobe. But some things I haven't worn for years are suddenly coordinating perfectly with some of my new sale finds. So that's a really stupid rule. Except that I need to turn the garage into a closet.

And I'm discovering that it can actually be harder to get dressed when you have too many choices. I think it's time to concentrate on shoes. I really need shoes. But it's so hard to find any that are comfortable that it's much easier to snap up another top or skirt. I really need a great pair of jeans too, but shopping for jeans is work not fun.

The internet makes shopping way too easy. It used to be that I'd shop maybe one weekend a month. Now, I can order a new outfit before breakfast. It's a good thing that I only buy if it's on sale. And I've become much more selective about what constitutes a sale.

I need to devote my attention to redecorating instead of clothing. But clothing is easy and disposable and doesn't involve negotiating with Dad. I know how to buy clothes. Decorating, not so much. I'm so afraid of making a mistake that I refuse to do anything.

Even if I know what I want, any household project adds stress and becomes a point of contention. Father/daughter projects are not conducive to household harmony. Now I understand why Mom was so reluctant to do any redecorating. She lived with my father. And she realized much earlier than I that for the most part, change is just not worth the hassle.

We need carpet, but that means moving everything in the house. I need a new bedspread, but it has to be dogproof. New curtains mean new rods and paint. The kitchen cabinets need new knobs. That one I could probably handle except it means negotiating with Dad, who'll give me the look. I'm suddenly really craving new kitchen countertops. Again, negotiating with Dad.

He says that I'll be the one living here, so pick what I want. But then has a conniption fit when I mention the possibility of leopard-print carpet in a room. It can be tastefully done, even if you don't have a multi-story house or any particular desire for an orange chandelier. There are more muted prints, but this is the most recent one I saw and I'm too lazy to search for others to post.

So instead of actually doing any decorating, I keep scoping out decorating blogs for inspiration. I'm getting a little more serious since it occurred to me recently that if I don't start soon, it'll be time to sell the house and move into assisted living. Might as well have a little time to enjoy the improvements that would have to be made in order for the house to sell. I'll bet closets are really small in assisted living. Now that's a truly depressing thought.

In the meantime, to keep track of how time is marching on, I found a really pretty 2012 calendar by artist Michelle Armas on the design blog Pretty Pink Tulips yesterday. I love having the entire year on a single page. It doesn't work for noting appointments, I have other calendars for that, but it's nice to have beside my desk for checking deadlines and shipping dates.

Despite the fact that we're already into the second month of 2012, and the calendar wasn't on sale, I ordered one anyway. Which was a major pain because I didn't have a paypal or etsy account. By the time I finished jumping through all the hoops to set up both, I was so annoyed that I chose a really obnoxious password for my etsy account. And this decorative purchase didn't even involve my father.

Regardless of the hassle, I'm still really looking forward to receiving my calendar. It's going to look so pretty in my study. Now if the rest of my decorating projects could be as easy as point and click.

Step One

Every weekend, I think I’m going to clean out the storage cabinet in my bathroom and organize my desk and the surrounding area. Both qualify as disaster areas. They’re cluttered and disorganized and finding anything in either place is almost more trouble than it’s worth. But both projects are going to be time consuming and a pain in the butt. Which of course is how they got to be in that shape to begin with.

There’s always something more interesting to do. Like finding the cheapest on-line sites for magazine subscriptions. I love magazines. And surely, Martha Stewart will be a great source for organizational tips that will make my cabinet and desk organized and attractive. So really, I guess ordering a new subscription to Martha Stewart Living means that I started my organizing project. Maybe I’m further along than I thought.

Happy Groundhog Day

Since I don't think I've ever seen any Groundhog Day decorations, we'll just skip right along to Valentine's Day.

I hit Michael's last weekend and caught their Valentine's supplies at 40% off. I bought ribbon and turned my Christmas wreath into a Valentine's wreath. Who knew even I could make a bow? Internet video tutorials are wonderful. I just kept replaying it until I finally caught on.

The heart and cupids were super cheap and I think they're fun. Yes, I do realize that I still have a poinsettia arrangement on the table. But since the real poinsettia I bought for 99 cents at Lowes the day after Thanksgiving is still alive, I don't think it's so wrong to still have the silk arrangement out. It is red. And there are 2 deer, so obviously they're a couple. Yes, I do know that since they both have antlers, they're males. So, we'll pretend they're Cam and Mitchell from Modern Family, one of my favorite tv shows.

I found the turquoise felt hearts at Target after Christmas. They had them in all kinds of fun colors, marked down to 50 cents for a pack of 4. If they'd used their heads, they'd have displayed them with the Valentine's decorations and then they could have sold them at full price. They look cute hanging on the cabinet knobs of the built-in shelves in my study.

Dillon's most recent batch of homemade dog biscuits are shaped as hearts. Trust me, he's much more excited about them than he is the decorations. When we were growing up, Mom always bought us holiday-themed cupcakes with fun decorative picks and she'd use cookie cutters to make our sandwiches in holiday-themed shapes. I still love any excuse to celebrate.

Life with father

Last week when we went to breakfast, Joanne, our waitress, informed Dad that she was just fine, thank you.  He completely ignored the fact that he hadn’t asked how she was.  He’s very lazy when it comes to communicating.  He seems to feel that a nod or shake of his head and the occasional hand gesture is all that’s required.  It’s as if he’s afraid if he uses his voice too often, he’ll wear it out.

This Sunday, Joanne told him that she was glad he enjoyed his breakfast.  Dad just nodded.  After we got out to the car, he commented that her remark had been rather odd.  I didn’t see anything odd about it.  “She’s trying to get you to speak,” I told him, exasperated.  I reminded him of what she’d said last week.  “Just because you’re hard of hearing doesn’t mean you’re incapable of speech!”  He just laughed.

I got my hair cut yesterday.  The ladies at the salon were all raving about what a cute father I have.  They think he’s just adorable.  I told Renee that’s probably why he’s reluctant to open his mouth.  It might dispel the image.  Although apparently he does speak when he’s there.  Needless to say, it tickled Dad no end when I passed on their comments.  He doesn’t get much praise from me, so he welcomes what little he receives from others.

When I got home last night, Dillon ran to get his ball.  He dropped it at my feet and gave me an imploring look.  I picked it up and tossed it in the air.  Dillon can make incredible catches; if he misses, it’s only by a hair and it generally bounces off his snout, sort of like a seal performing circus tricks.  Last night he missed.

As luck would have it, we were playing in the narrow walkway between Dad’s chair and the couch.  Dad was sitting in his chair reading his book.  Dillon leaped up; the ball bounced off his nose and ricocheted off the top of Dad’s head.  If we’d been aiming, we couldn’t have done it any better.  Dad issued the requisite “Ow” and started rubbing his head.  Since it was only a tennis ball, no lasting damage was done.

I collapsed to the floor in hysterical laughter.  Dillon, having retrieved the ball on the rebound, collapsed beside me in delight, rolling over for a belly rub.  Dad was still rubbing his head and complaining that all he’d been doing was sitting there reading his book and he should be able to do that in peace without having to worry about balls bouncing off his head. 

“You’re supposed to jump up and catch it,” he groused at Dillon.  When I recovered the power of speech, I told him he should be glad Dillon hadn’t leaped after it.  That would have placed him squarely in Dad’s lap, which would have done a lot more damage than a ball bouncing off his head.

This morning, Dad stopped me to point out a cartoon in today’s paper.  The little boy was asking the father if he wanted his reflexes tested.  “Dillon did that for me yesterday.”  “You failed too,” I told him.  After all, Dad didn’t catch the ball either.