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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It is the evening of the day . . .

Earlier this evening, I sat on the bench on our front yard porch & pulled obnoxious tiny trees threatening my hibiscus & Mexican petunias out of the ground.  

I saw two young people walking across the street.  They paused while she went through his hair, both laughing.  Then they kissed, joined hands & kept on walking
.
Later I went out to check the sprinkler & the same couple was returning from wherever they had been headed, still holding hands & laughing.  They paused for a moment, kissed & then kept on walking, hands & laughter & the moment interlocked.

And I thought about love & what it means when one is very young.  About that first kiss, that first moment when it is enough to just hold hands & talk & laugh.

And about later, when somehow things get complicated & it is no longer just enough to talk & laugh & share a kiss while walking down the street.

I have no illusions that life or love is as ever as simple as it is in memory.

And I have no regrets – I remember every man in my life with fondness.  And with each one, I can recall a wonderful moment just talking & laughing & sharing a moment.

Love, at any age, is not a state of being.  It is a choice, an action, a process.  Love is a dynamic, living force.  It challenges us, it requires of us, it soothes & comforts us, it inspires us to be everything we should be.

It does not always end with the end of a friendship or a relationship or a marriage or a life.

In this evening of the day, I needed to remember that as I grieve for the loss of my friend Barry Morrison.  A good man.  A good friend.


As tears go by . . .

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Best Laid Plans of Mice & Men Disrupted

So, this evening, I truly needed to clean up the kitchen (which involves more than filling the dishwasher).  But I took a break & checked Facebook & found a message that reduced me to inaction, despair & tears.

A man I knew & with whom I spent countless hours of laughter & discourse & ease, died yesterday.

A man I once knew very well, who was kind & generous & supportive of me & my little family, whose family spent holidays & birthday parties with my family & evenings playing Trivial Pursuit.  

A man who teased me relentlessly about our political differences (whom I still believe put a Bush sticker on my car back in the 80’s).   

Who let his wife use his frequent flyer miles & Marriot points to take me along on a girls’ trip to New York during a particularly rough time in my life.

A man who did not blink when his wife & I sat in the driveway or in the hot tub, all night, drinking champagne & talking.

He loved his family.  He spoke with pride about his daughter.  He loved & admired his wife.

Barry Morrison was a good man, a kind & loving man.  He was not perfect.  But as I always remind people, there are no saints on earth.

He was 56 & he died too damned soon.

Needless to say, the kitchen is still a mess.

Rest in peace, Barry.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

How Jean Met Jack

This afternoon Jean & I were chatting & I asked her how she met Jack.

When Jean left the farm, she & her friend Marie moved to Dallas & took a room at Marie’s aunt’s boarding house.
Jean took the bus to work & after a time a group of “kids” with a car began to take notice.

Now, this is from me, not Jean, but she was brunette with blue eyes & quite noticeable.

I asked her what she meant by “kids” & she said – “people my age.”

After a bit, the “kids” offered to give her a ride to work. 

She accepted (saving on bus fare, no doubt).

One day the kids invited her to join them at the “It’l Do Inn” for an evening out.
Jean said, “But I don’t have a date.”

The kids replied, “We have the perfect match.”

So Jean went to the “It’l Do Inn” & met the perfect match & they did the Bunny Hop.

I asked her if he kissed her that night & she said, “No, he did not kiss me for a long time.”

When I asked if that bothered her, she said it bothered her enough to ask her brother, Edsel, & he suggested mouthwash
.
Eventually, there was a kiss.  And a match.  Jack.

And then there was me. 

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tea Party Players & Racism



Decades ago, in another position in my life, I visited the concentration camp of Dachau. 

Three things struck me:  it was too damned clean.  Young people viewing the exhibit & film of the allies rescuing the survivors laughed.  And a monument out front read:
  • “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The Nazis used every form of propaganda available to them:  books, comics, magazines, posters, radio, film, fine arts & TEXTBOOKS. 

They did not have the advantage of Photoshop or the Internet.

The Tea Party (who usurped a legitimate event in our history to justify their own prejudices) does have that advantage.

So, an Southern California Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party, Marilyn Davenport, circulated the picture featured to a number of “friends”.  Again questioning the birth certificate of a citizen.

Her defense was that it was a joke.  She has friends who are black.

While I doubt Marilyn Davenport has ever asked her “black” friends to show her a birth certificate, I also cannot imagine that they would enjoy the photo.

Unless they would be honored to be among their ancestors.

I personally feel honored to descend from such fierce & amazing beings.

As for Marilyn Davenport & the Tea Party - take notice:  There are those of us who will not fall into the trap of your racist & divisive rhetoric.  

There are those of us who remember the past & will not be condemned to repeat it.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Crab Cakes

Today my friend Andres posted “the last Friday Lenten dinner meal before Good Friday. Getting better at making Crab cakes.”
I advised him to go easy on the bread crumbs, to make it all about the crab.
When I lived in Washington, D.C., I made a study of crab cakes.  Part of my job to convince people to spend obscene amounts of money on flowers for whatever occasion, was to establish & maintain relationships with catering managers & salespeople, with restaurant managers, with party planners. 
All of whom fed me, and fed me well, constantly.  So I sampled crab cakes in the best kitchens in D.C. 
But it was an article on the last page of Washington Post Magazine that forever changed my perception of the noble crab cake. 
When I made it, I knew, from the first taste, that this was the best crab cake to ever have touched my palette.  And it was, dear Andres, easy on the bread crumbs, heavy on jumbo crab meat. 
A pinch of bread crumbs, a little mayo, a little mustard, an egg, some lemon, chives or scallions, a dash of hot sauce & cayenne pepper.  Or, if one is very brave, tiny bits of fresh jalapeño. 
Form the mixture into cakes, place on a sheet, & refrigerate for at least an hour to give the patties time to firm up.  I usually broil the cakes, but they can be sautéed in a conservative amount of olive oil – after rolling them lightly in some flour & then some bread crumbs.
I like to serve the crab cakes with the slaw recommended by that original article in the Post:  yellow & red cabbage, green onions & a dressing made of yogurt & lemon juice & whatever spices tickle your palette. 
Now, this is a lot of recipe information for those of you are not particularly interested in recipes or crab cakes.  But these crab cakes are all about concentrating on the essence, on making sure that what could be extraneous in excess, would compliment but not destroy the original flavor of the essence of the recipe.  Its original intent. 
A bit like making changes & additions to a government, to add to it & improve it, & still not take away from its original intention, its essence.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Banning Brown Bear

A staple in the lives of the children who have grown up living or visiting in this house here in Meadows Place is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see?" by Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle.  

So I read in the Huffington Post that this beloved children's book has been banned from time to time, as so many of my favorite books have been banned.

And I wondered why “Brown Bear”.

After all, an omniscient narrator asks a simple question:  “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?”

And Brown bear responds that he sees a red bird “looking at me.”

And the narrator asks the red bird who sees the blue horse who sees the green frog who sees the purple cat who sees the white dog who sees the black sheep who sees the gold fish who sees the teacher who sees the children who see the brown bear & the red bird & the blue horse & the green frog & the purple cat & the white dog & the black sheep & the teacher – all looking at “Me.”

I love this book – I love the memories of my mother reading it to my sons & nieces & nephew.

So I did a bit a research.

It seems that our Texas State of Board of Education, in its zeal to censor any provocative or creative thought provoking books for our children, mistook Bill Martin, Jr., the children’s author, for Bill Martin, the philosophy professor & author of “Ethical Marxism:  The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.”

I am still trying to make whatever connection the Board made between “Brown Bear” & Marxism.

And I am wondering, Texas State of Board of Education, what do YOU see?