before the rain came

got a light?

May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young

I wanted a cigarette.  Really wanted a cigarette.

I was driving home from a party, around ten o'clock, the sunroof open and a back window cracked so the breeze would circle around and blow directly at my face. 

I had just reached the spot in the road where I know to move to the middle lane or be forced to u-turn and head back to Plano, when the craving hit.  Out of the blue, just like the continuing waves of grief. 

Where did this come from?  It's been years since I smoked, but tooling down the frontage road that night, all I wanted was a Merit Light.  For the next seven miles I tried to figure out why.

Obviously, B and B and Bob Dylan are to blame. 

Spoke and I met our friends Jack and Beth for dinner the other night.  After the meal and a wee bit of coconut cake with a black coffee, I ordered a B and B.  "No, neat," I told the very young waiter when he asked if I'd like it on the rocks. 

Beth ordered a Sambuca.  It came slightly chilled, not a coffee bean to be found.  She likes it with fly and she doesn't like it chilled. 

I know this because for many years we would sip B and B or Sambuca late at night, listening to everything from Humble Pie to Janis Ian.  For hours, snifters glowed and smoke filled the air, occasional smoke rings floated over the table. 

We had few responsibilities and fewer worries.  As that changed, as we grew up, we each quit smoking.  Is the B and B as good now, I considered, sitting at a red light.


May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

May you stay forever young


My sister had a birthday this week.  Her 39th.  Yet again.

It was made festive thanks to several ladies.  There was wine, plates of appetizers, more wine, pasta and pizza.  More wine.  Bob Dylan provided my birthday toast to her, which I asked Beth to read, knowing I might cry because the celebration, though much fun, was still missing something for us....... missing Mom. 


May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift


It was a perfect storm that made me want a cigarette as I drove home; love, pain, family, friendship, food, fun, the past, the future, all colliding. 

The week was swirling through my mind, like the wind swirling through the car. 


May your heart always be joyful

And may your song always be sung

May you stay forever young

                 Forever Young by Bob Dylan

Last cigarette: Labor Day weekend,
1991, early afternoon
175,200 hours ago

fat is good

oh happy day

As predicted, the first thing cooked on the new cook top was an omelet.  A sweet, Spanish onion omelet for Spoke.  His favorite. 

I planned to eat later; merely an excuse to cook again... 

Such fun it is!  Feeling rather like I did when I was sixteen and finally had that long-awaited, driver's license in hand, prodding my parents hourly with, "Need milk?  Need anything?  Wanna go for a ride?"

The world was my oyster then; now the oyster is my world.   

Maybe I'll heat myself some soup.  See if SIMMER really means simmer. 

Then later, I'll make a bowl of late-night popcorn and watch a yummy film.  I pop corn the old-fashioned way.  It's healthier so you can splurge now and then, drizzling a little butter on top. 

I like to infuse the butter with rosemary... 

When I was nine or ten years old, I announced one night at the dinner table, that I was going to change my name to Rosemary.  I'd heard it was possible.  That was great to know because I felt like a Rosemary.

Popcorn with Rosemary Butter

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

2 tablespoons of canola oil

1/2 cup popcorn

salt

Wash and dry two sprigs of fresh rosemary. 

Remove the leaves from one stem, chop them very fine and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter over low heat, adding one sprig of rosemary to the pan.

Keep it warm, jabbing at the rosemary now and then to infuse the butter.

Preheat a stock pot until it is very hot, then add 2 tablespoons of canola oil. 

Throw in 5 popcorn kernels, cover, and listen.  

When all five kernels have popped, remove the lid and add 1/2 cup of popcorn to the pot. Cover again, shaking the pan to coat the kernels with oil. 

Cook over medium high heat until the popping stops. Remove the pot from the heat.

Discard the sprig of rosemary from the pan of melted butter.

Transfer the popcorn to a bowl, drizzle it with the warm butter, sprinkle with the chopped rosemary, and salt to taste.  Toss to coat.

Sit back and enjoy a movie.

Highly recommended while eating Popcorn with Rosemary Butter:  MOSTLY MARTHA

(Don't miss the last, very therapeutic scene.)

the biggest hurdle

The Mark McKenzie Quartet.... 

I went to hear them the other night, by myself.  Without Colleen. 

Had to. 

Yep, very hard.  Very, very hard.

Here's Mark.  I wish he was our neighbor.  Oh, what it must be like to open your windows and hear sax riffs on weekend afternoons!  Heaven.

This is Jon.

I have to credit Spoke; he's helped train my ear to hear that driving force of the drums.  I get it.  I love how Jon revs it up sometimes, too.  But sorry Jon; I'm not sure I'd be quite as enthusiastic to have you next door.  No offense. 

And look at Raylan here, playing what is my second favorite instrument, following a sax.  There is nothing like a deep, mysterious, sexy bass hiding in the background of any song.

There was a moment I wish I could have captured of Raylan, leaning on his bass, waiting; waiting patiently as musicians do, between sets.  I know from Colleen's recollections of bands...  It was classic and so film worthy yet I was the only one to see it.  An advantage to going alone.

And here's the talented Lakewood George, as I think of him.  Piano man.  Guitar man.  What an evening one could have around his piano; some vino, some cheese,  baguettes, and a very long list of requests.  

So, there's the quartet.  Four big-hearted guys who always went out of their way to stop by and talk a little jazz with Mom.  They've no idea how much the gestures meant to her.

I haven't been able to listen to much jazz since my parents died.  It's such happy music...

The group is helping me get there, even though they don't really play a lot of standards.  Well, not by my standards...

Still, I could listen to their jazzy renditions of songs like Bye Bye Blackbird, all night long. 

Every night.

Mark McKenzie Quartet
at D'Vine Wine, Firewheel

Come!

I'll see you there...



a daunting task

A blind child can't see his teacher standing at the door, silently reprimanding with her hands on her hips, her lips pursed. 

He can't see the lady with the tray of her daughter's birthday cupcakes for the class; he just knows there's suddenly new excitement in the room.

He also, now knows, what it means to nod.  He's been practicing; up and down for 'yes', side to side for 'no'. 

Their experiences live in my memory, dormant, emerging unexpectedly...

"Describe a car to me," I once asked of a young blind student.  Without hesitation, she said, "Well, it's like a sofa that moves."  What could I say?  She was always hurriedly ushered into the back seat, where she sat for each and every ride.  The child had never walked around a car to grasp its size, felt the (four!) tires, or sat behind the steering wheel. 

A teenage student, who would later also lose most of her hearing, talked about food with me at lunch one day.  "So," I asked her, "What is okra like?"  "Oooh, so good," she exclaimed.  "They are little round things.  And they're crunchy!" 

I recall these conversations when I make dishes like this one.

I wash and peel carrots, wondering how many blind kids are unaware that carrots grow in the ground and hazelnuts on trees, the nut growing inside a hard shell and emerging with a papery skin which is very difficult to remove.

I slip thyme leaves from their stems by pulling them downward, the scent lingering on my fingers.

I toast the hazelnuts in the oven, first gauging when they are ready by the smell.  

I rely on all my senses, my good vision the most.  

I laugh remembering the stories.  I laugh to keep from crying.  

It's serious business; teaching unseeing children in a visual world. 

Multi-Grain Spaghetti with Carrot and Hazelnuts

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided 

1 cup carrots, peeled and cut into small, irregular chunks

salt and pepper
2/3 to 1 cup water

a large pinch of dried, red pepper flakes

3 to 4 ounces multigrain spaghetti

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan large enough to later hold the spaghetti. 

Add the carrots, add a little salt and pepper, and saute them until they have absorbed some oil and begun to soften. 

Add about 1/3 cup of water, allowing the carrots to continue to cook.  Repeat, adding additional cups of water, about 1/3 cup at a time.

While the carrots are cooking, boil the spaghetti according to package instrutions for al dente pasta. 

When the carrots are soft and the water has evaporated, add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan.  Transfer the spaghetti to the pan.  Salt and pepper to taste, add the red pepper flakes and the thyme, and toss to coat the pasta with the oil. 

Transfer to a warm plate and serve with toasted hazelnuts on top. 

{one single serving}

bouncing off the desk