My Childhhod Fourth of July

When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was the biggest party of the year. I grew up in the small town of Wilton, Connecticut. Our town had a parade from the town graveyard to the center of our village, as it was quaintly called. Once in a while I marched in the parade as a Girl Scout, but that was not what made the fourth big in my eyes.

The real party was held at our tiny club, The Wilton Riding Club. The riding club, or “the club” as we all called it was a bucolic swim and tennis club, which also had horse back riding as a side activity. The club had a barn where parties were held with an attached snack bar. In the world of clubs it was less than a junior varsity place, but one we loved.

Growing up every kid knew every family who belonged to the club. It was a small group. We had a day camp and a swim team so all the kids spent all day everyday at the club. We ran wild as our parents literally dropped us off before eight in the morning and reluctantly picked us up sometime after four or five.

As a little kid, less than nine or ten a parent might hire an older kid, like an eleven year old to keep an eye on you during the day, between camp and swim team, but once you hit double digits most parents let us run wild all summer. Sometimes parents were around, playing tennis or eating lunch at the snack bar, but mostly the club was kid heaven.

The Fourth of July was the only day of the summer when kids and grown up alike were all at the club. The day started with an intra club swim meet with fun additions to the normal fare like family team relays and a greased pig contest. That was when a Crisco covered watermelon was thrown into the pool and people vied to try and get it out of the pool, thus claiming ownership and the title. There was also a tennis tournament, but kids were not part of that activity as the serious players whacked balls across those red clay courts.

As evening approached people changed into red, white and blue preppy clothes and we had a big picnic on the lawn in front of the party barn. Wilton was a dry town then, which meant the club could not sell liquor, so members brought their own bottles and left them on the bar with their name written on the label

The Fourth of July was one of the only events where members of all ages would gather together. My father named the “old” people the “porch members”, because they only sat on the porch of the barn and drank and talked. I laugh now because I am the age that the porch members were then and as a kid I thought they were ancient.

One of the highlights of the Fourth of July were the family games, egg toss, three legged race and the like. I felt like I was at a distinct advantage because I had a young Athletic father and we did well in those games.

As the evening went on, fried chicken and potato salad was put out for dinner and the kids were relegated to eating on the lawn so the adults could sit at tables on the porch and in the barn. I think many porch members never ate, as drinking was the main sport they engaged in.

As darkness engulfed the club and the fireflies made themselves known the exhaustion of the day took kids out one by one. It was a big long day of family fun. It was the kind of scene that inspired Ralph Lauren ads for years and he certainly never came to the riding club.

As we celebrate a quiet Fourth of July here today, better than last year’s lock down, it will never be anything close to the fourth’s of my childhood. I can close my eyes and see the Hurdman, Clough, MacClea, Lawson, Heeks, Shipman, Hesse, Conrad, Vartabedian, Martin, Perry, Cowie, McLean, Colina families and so many others all dressed up on the lawn at the club year after year. It was one big happy family, it was a happy birthday to America for us kids. One I will always cherish.

An Excuse for Lobster

Sometimes I make something for dinner that I have been so looking forward to that I forget to take a photo. Then after everyone has eaten it and I need to write a blog I’m like, “Shit, I wish I took a photo of dinner.”

Tonight we had our friends the Blanks for dinner. It was out pre-July 4th celebration. As we have not traveled or gone to a restaurant in so long I decided I was going to go all out on our dinner tonight.

All out when you have a garden is not exactly the right description. Every meal we eat these days must include at least three things from the garden. I made some pole beans in a shallot dressing with a couple of our first cherry tomatoes. Marinated cucumbers, nothing exciting, just the crunch and the sour of the vinegar to be the foil to homemade potato chips. So far nothing sounds like it is that special, but it all was in service to the star, Homemade lobster rolls.

I have been craving a lobster roll and since our trip to Maine is still six weeks off I broke down and made our own. I bought lobster tails and cooked and picked them myself. Adding a lot of lemon juice, a touch of Mayo and some chives from the garden and a tiny amount of finely chopped celery for a bit of crunch. There were no split top rolls to be found, but I did pan toast Hawaiian hot dog rolls with butter just like in Maine.

It takes a lot of lobster to make a roll, but it was totally worth it. Shay was sad we did not share with her and thus this sad photo of no dog lobster rolls face.

Thanks to the Blanks for coming all the way over for Raliegh and giving me the excuse to make something decadent. When the rest of the meal comes from the garden it seems justifiable to have lobster.

Happy fourth everyone. Fly your flag tomorrow, no matter what party you are. No one party owns the flag and we all can celebrate our Independence. Never forget democracy is not a given and we must work to ensure it flourishes.

Time to Be Social

Today was the first day since the pandemic where I had two social engagements in one day. I am marking this day on the calendar as the day things really go back to normal. I first had lunch with my friend Jeanne. We became friends 12 or thirteen years ago. Then she and her husband moved to Alexandria about six years ago. I would see her a couple times a year while she was gone, but never enough. Then they moved back, March 2020. They might as well have lived in Alexandria since we never saw each other during lockdown.

Now we are trying to get back in the swing of things and had lunch out today. It felt like old times. We didn’t do anything serious, just lunch and gab. The way it used to be.

Then tonight we went for cocktails at our friends the Howell’s. The Howell parents, who were some of our best old Durham friends, who moved to Atlanta years ago, were in town visiting their son Elliott and his family. It was like a real old fashioned Friday night cocktails with other old friends from the neighborhood. There is never enough time with Roz and Earl so thank goodness we are all vaccinated and could be together.

Two social events events in one day and we have another tomorrow and it is still not yet the holiday. It’s like that Prince song, “I’m gonna party like it’s 1999.”

I have no guilt about having so much fun because I have been nothing but productive for 16 months and now I am perfectly fine just letting go. I’m not sure how many parties Russ can take before he says it’s time to stop, but so far he is all in. Now that’s something.

When in Doubt, go with Ottolenghi

Julie and Julia was a successful book and movie about a woman who cooked through 500 of Julia Child’s recipes from the Art of a mastering French Cooking in a year. Yes, Julia Child was iconic, but I could not imagine eating through nothing but French food for a year. Now two weeks of eating French food in France is one thing, but the world has discovered that everyplace on earth has good food.

If ever I was limited to only cook from the books of one chef I would chose Yotam Ottolenghi in a heart beat. In my humble opinion the Israeli born British chef is the most exciting food writer of our time.

This morning I worked in the garden and after the harvest I asked Russ what he wanted for dinner that used eggplant? He turned to his iPad and in a flash had pulled up a recipe of Ottolenghi’s from the New York Times Cooking section called Chemoula Eggplant with Bulgar and Yogurt. I looked at it and told Russ that was the winner as it used plenty of things that I had in the garden and all the rest I had on hand.

Now Yotam’s recipes almost always involve a lot of ingredients, but I have a well stocked pantry and like his flavor profiles, using lots of cumin, coriander, fresh mint and lemons.

I did substitute a half a Burrata ball for the yogurt because we needed to use that up, but other than that I followed the recipe fairly closely. Russ declared it was a huge hit. Of course, I can take no credit for inventing it, just growing the food and following the recipe.

In a similar fashion to Julie and Julia I have cooked at least half the recipes from Yotam’s book Plenty More. That is practically unheard of for me because I tend to read cook books for educational inspiration and hardly ever follow a recipe directly. I have pared my cook books down to under 350 from a high of over 500, but most of them I may have only cooked one or two things from.

So pick a seasonal ingredient you like and do a search on that word and Ottolenghi. I guarantee if he has a recipe using that ingredient you will love how the dish turns out. I am yet to be anything but wowed.

I Am More Than an Ally

I just realized that it is the last day of June, “Pride Month” and I have almost let the whole month go by uncelebrated. So in the last possible blog of June I want to write as an ally to all my LGBTQ+ friends and family of which there are many.

Early on in grade school I had a friend K. who did not like to play rough sports on the play ground with the other boys. K. was a cool kid, not very tall, with this gorgeous hair and very funny. I can remember recruiting him to help hold the Chinese jump rope around his ankles when we needed an extra person. That started him hanging out with the “creative play” group as we were always bringing new things to play at recess, like jacks or yo-yos since we were tired of getting killed in dodge ball. Although none of us knew anything about sexuality in second grade, we did understand different and our group of creative girls welcomed K into our fold with open arms. I think we all were a little jealous of his beautiful strawberry blond hair.

Sometimes some of the Neanderthal boys would try and pick on K, but K was smarter than them and he had our group of very vocal girls supporting him. When I was in junior high school K told me that he never would have made it through school without our friend group. I did not understand then that K was gay, just different, but different was OK with us.

As I grew up I always liked the different people. Not that I didn’t like the regulars, but I felt some kind of calling to bring outsiders into the fold. This was somewhat due to the fact that I was drawn to the funniest people or the quickest wits. I quickly learned that if I wanted a good laugh that a gay audience would never disappoint me. If you have one gay friend you are going to get a dozen.

Girl, let me tell you, everybody needs some gay friends. At our wedding when all the different group photos were being taken, Russ’ Aunt and uncle were sitting in the room where the groups would gather. First the families, then all the friends from Wilton, where I grew up, then my college friends. Russ and I would stand in the middle with all our people around us.

The last group photo, Russ stepped out of the photo and a dozen gorgeous men surrounded me. Russ’s Aunt said, “What group is this?” One of my friends said, “We are all the men Dana would not marry.” Russ’ Aunt looked confused. What is wrong with Dana?

I never said out loud to Russ’ Aunt, “These are my best gay friends. And those women over there, my friends Gloria and Laura, they are lesbians, and by the way, my sister and her girlfriend are lesbians as are my father’s secretary Kathy and her girl friend. All here at our wedding.” I should have said that. But that was ages ago and I did not feel it was my place to tell other peoples stories.

I don’t know what happened to K as I lost touch with him when I went to boarding school, but I’m sure if he were around and I needed someone to spin the jump rope he would volunteer. Today I am more than an Ally, I am a friend and I count myself so lucky to have such a diverse group of dear friends who are always good for a laugh or a hug, whichever is needed.

Male Resting Bitch Face

This morning I got an early call that I was needed at an emergency meeting. The emergency was not mine, but a vendor’s and they needed a big favor. I went to the meeting, early, as I am always early. Being trained at a young age as a sales person I learned that making people wait for you is the worst way to start off a relationship. It says, “My time is more important than your time.”

My colleague and I waited for these two men to arrive so we could help them with their big problem. They texted two minutes before the meeting that they were going to be late. Nice to let me know two minutes in advance since they were literally walking from their office three minutes away. They ended up being ten minutes late. That had made me mad enough to tell them so.

The very young of the two young men immediately copped a serious “Male resting Bitch face” with me. Certainly the wrong thing to do when you called me to drop everything I was doing, to help you fix your problem.

“Having an attitude with me is not going to make me want to help you.”

I know to this young man I am an old, unimportant woman, but he took this attitude at his own peril in front of his boss. His boss did apologize and tried to back peddle, but it was too late.

My advice to all young people in business is look in the mirror and see what your face does when you are not actively smiling. Customers are going to make you mad, but you should not challenge them by looking like an asshole. Learn to be on time, and don’t expect other people to make your life easier. And for god’s sake, your emergency is not someone else’s emergency.

How to Explain Dental Care to Your Dog

Our baby Shay Shay is a doodle. Being one means she is predisposed to bad teeth. No matter what we do she builds up tarter and gets gingivitis easily. So we have to have her teeth cleaned at the vet’s every year.

Dogs getting their teeth cleaned is only slightly like humans. First they have to have their blood work done days in advance. Assuming that your sweet puppy is healthy in every possible way they give you the go ahead to get their teeth cleaned.

No food the night before so Shay knows something is up when I ask her if she wanted to go in the car first thing this morning without breakfast. I wish that she could speak to me and say she understands when I am explaining that this is for her own good. Shay is so trusting she happily goes with the vet tech when they come and take her from our car.

To clean a dog’s teeth she must have anesthesia and be put out so the doctor can safely clean her teeth. Thankfully, despite the gingivitis, Shay’s teeth were in good shape and did not need any extractions. I wait all morning for the call from the doctor to tell me that Shay is fine. It comes at noon and I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had to wait until three so that she could come fully out of her nap.

Right at three she was walked out to the car, with her little shaved band on her right leg where the IV was attached. She was still a little groggy and came home and drank a bunch of water, ate no food and went right to bed. I know she is still out of it because she did not do her “exactly at 6PM” demand of her dinner.

Her mouth is hurting a little because she has hardly opened it and certainly has not given me a kiss. I know she is not happy about having to get her teeth cleaned. I just wish I could explain to her that we do it so that she lives a nice long healthy life.

No Hate Fences

The phrase, “good fences make good neighbors,” is not just for humans. Today I was reminded why I spent two hot months building my fenced in garden.

I have a second garden plot behind my first one, but it is not fenced in. It is probably a sunnier spot than my fenced garden, but last year’s job of building my garden was big enough for one human so I did not fence my back garden. This spring, as I finished planting the fenced garden I found I had a couple of plants or started seeds left over so I went ahead and planted them in the unfenced garden. I knew this was risky, since I fenced the first garden after years of heartbreak growing vegetable just to feed wild life.

For most of the spring and early summer the things in the unfenced garden went unnoticed by the abundant deer and bunnies that call our neighborhood home. So I actually bought four cantaloupe plants to add to that garden, thinking that deer did not like them.

Russ had gone to Boston first thing this morning to see Carter since he has work in Rhode Island this week. Shay and I lazed around since no one was watching. As I was getting ready to be a productive human I looked out my window and saw a patch of brown in my unfenced garden. Sure enough a deer was there making a buffet of it. I pounded on the window screaming at the deer who could not quite figure out where that sound was coming from as the storm window was down.

I threw on some clothes and trusty guardian Shay and I went out to discover the murder of the cantaloupe, okra, green beans, and peppers in the unfenced garden. On top of that the butternut squash, which had grown out of the fence and back in as well as some pole beans that had grown up the fence had been sheered off on the outside of the fence in the fenced garden.

One of the reasons I put up the fence was I was trying to eradicate hate from life after so many years of a certain politician as well as the innocent deer just trying to get a good meal. The fence had worked as well as a good and fair election. I had not felt hate in my heart for months.

Today, for just a few moments it came back. Then I went into my fenced garden and harvested today’s bounty. The hate disappeared just a little bit. I know I never should have advertised that baby cantaloupe on the blog two days ago. It was just begging for it to disappear. That dear had no trouble eating the whole little melon along with every single flower that represented future melons and 80% of the leaves.

I already knew that fences were good. I just needed to be reminded. I am not sure I need to build a second fenced garden. It was so much work. I just need to be satisfied with the one I have and not plant things the deer would like to eat in an unfenced area.

I Can Do It Myself

My mother gave me her beautiful silver chest, minus the silver. It has four drawers but was missing the inserts in two drawers that make it a silver chest that keeps the tarnish away and holds everything in place. I did a little research to find some, but the odd size of the drawers meant that I would need to have some custom made.

There was a company out of Texas (of course) that makes custom silver drawer, cabinet or room inserts to keep your silver in. Imagine having a whole room just to store silver!

I followed the instructions about inquiring about getting custom inserts made. I had to email Patrick and he emailed me back the instructions. It looked like it was going to cost about $250 per drawer plus tax and shipping and take 22 weeks. It seemed slow and expensive to me, but the real kicker was I had to send a place setting of silver for them to keep those whole 22 weeks. What if I was having a party?

I decided this was a project I could do myself, with a little wood working help from Russ. I order $17 worth of Pacific Silver Cloth from the same people who made the custom inserts. There is really only one real kind of silver cloth, the brown kind, which had silver imbedded in it to attract the tarnish causing particles away from your flatware. It is like brown felt that cuts, glues and sews like felt.

I cut a piece of mat board the size of my drawer and covered it with the silver cloth, leaving a tail as big as the board itself. I sewed the edges of the tail so they would not unravel. I drew a template of the piece of wood I needed Russ to cut for the thing that holds the silver in place, which he did twice.

I then covered the wood in silver cloth. I fit the flat, felt covered board in the drawer and added the wood spine. It looks and acts exactly like the $250 model and it cost $8.50. Since I made two I saved $483 plus the cost of not shipping my silver to Texas, and the tax and shipping for them sending it back. So I easily saved over $550. It took about two hours to make.

Too bad I don’t have a room to cover in silver cloth because I could totally do that myself. Imagine how much I could save? Maybe enough to fill it full of silver.

Uneven Harvest

One problem with having a small garden is the unevenness of ripening fruit. One day I will get five Zucchini, the next three yellow squash. Two days ago I had to harvest the last patch of arugula as it does not like hot weather. This makes me so sad since it is my favorite thing to grow and the easiest.

I overfilled my harvest basket, which was an inspired gift from my friend Mary Lloyd. The recent hot, hot days had made the arugula bolt, growing tall and flowering. When that happens there are very few tender leaves for consumption. So processing it is much harder work than my normal way of just cutting one salads worth directly from the patch.

After triple washing the basket full in the sink I pulled off any edible leaves. The resulting yield was about a fifth of the harvest basket. Still good, just a lot more work than cool season harvesting.

Today I had three nice cucumbers. Those vines have been prolific. I have already gifted cucumbers and pickled a bunch. I had one tiny cherry tomato. It is actually my third tomato. I picked my first two day before yesterday when my friend Lane was visiting and we ate them standing right in the garden. There are hundreds and hundreds of green tomatoes on my plants. I know that most will ripen all at once and I will have my hands full.

I also picked the first of my pole beans. I had a big handful’s worth with a few more still on the vine I am letting get slightly bigger to pick tomorrow. It would be enough to add to a nice Niçoise salad so I am thinking of that for tomorrow. I have plenty of tender lettuce and perhaps another couple of cherry tomatoes.

The saddest thing was my single Okra pod. I added it to the three others I have in the fridge. Four okra are not quite enough to cook into something. I hope to get a few more before these whither.

Lastly, I noticed the first of my cantaloupe. I have an unfenced garden next to my fenced one and I thought the animals would not like melons. So far so good. The animals have eaten all my overflow plants I put in the unfenced garden. I am going to have to experiment with what I might grow there next year along with the melon.

I am getting to that point in the growing year where the cool season vegetables are over, like the kale, spinach, arugula, cilantro and chives. My yellow squash aren’t faring well and I fear I will need to pull them up. That means I have some space to plant something new. With the likelihood of really hot weather to come my choices are limited until the end of August when I can add more cool weather greens and cabbage.

This first year of the new garden is certainly trial and error. For the most part I am thrilled with my raised beds and the garden soil I filled them with. Keeping that soil well amended and doing smart crop rotation is going to be a life’s work.

For now I am most looking forward to a big tomato sandwich with a warm red fruit straight from the vine. One good tomato is worth all the work of building this garden.

You Can’t Change Your Mind If You Are Dead

I am tiring of people not getting their Covid Vaccines. Probably most people who read this blog have gotten your shots and good for you! But as I look at the data I am shocked how many eligible people still haven’t done it.

For people who are afraid of shots you need to close your eyes and get over this because if you get Covid and go to the hospital you are going to have to get a lot more shots than two once you are admitted. If you have any children under 12, get your shots to help protect your kids who still can’t have the vaccines. The more people around kids who are unvaccinated the higher the likelihood you will give Covid to a kid. Yes, children rarely die from it, but do you want to take your chances?

I am tired of watching people on TV who are dying in the hospital saying, “I wish I had gotten the vaccine, this thing is no flu.” You dumb ass should have gotten the vaccine. It is free, available everywhere, everyday. I know people say they can’t get the time off work, but there is a pharmacy almost everywhere where they can get the vaccine any day of the week.

Right now Pfizer and Moderna have submitted to the FDA for full approval of their vaccines. I can hardly wait for those to be done. The Data on 140 million people over the last six months should be convincing. Once the FDA does approve for full use and not just emergency use then insurance companies need to require customers to get the vaccine. If they don’t, the insurance companies should not cover Covid related medical expenses. If you are an anti-Vaxer you should have to pay an extra premium for not protecting yourself. Why should I foot the bill for people who won’t protect the public in general?

Now that we have this vaccine, Covid is just thinning the herd, and I wouldn’t have a problem with that except it also can hurt those people who are immune compromised, or very young.

There are people who say they don’t know the long term affects of the vaccine, but we already know there are a lot of people who have long term affects of Covid, if they survived it in the first place. Pick your poison? It looks like the vaccine’s downsides are less than Covid’s, and now with the Delta variant, unvaccinated people are having a harder time not catching it.

Look to the Manatee County, Florida government building as a perfect example of how Covid and the vaccine work. The IT department had an outbreak of Covid, two people died, four were hospitalized and the one person who was vaccinated did not get Covid. Those four hospitalized people could still die.

I know people who are contrarian just because they want to be. This is not the time to fight the system. You don’t have to tell people you got the vaccine if it is so important to appear not to follow the crowd, just get it anyway. It’s too late to get a vaccine if you are dead.

Bee Allergy

The year was 1973. I was a camper at camp Idlepines for girls in New Hampshire. My cabin ate some and I were up at the tennis courts having our lesson. It was my least favorite camp activity. As I was changing sides of the net a bee landed on my finger and stung me. It was the first time I had been stung by a bee, but I was the third camper that day to be stung. No one seemed too concerned.

The counselor told me to walk down the long camp road to the office and get an ice pack. I did and on the walk my hand swelled up as if I were Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When I reach the office the swelling was starting to go up my arm. Aunt Jane, the sister of the camp director and another counselor determined I must be allergic and fearing the swelling getting to my throat decided I must go to the hospital. I can’t remember exactly where it was, but it was a long enough drive that the swelling did reach my shoulder and I was seen the second we got to the ER.

My bad allergic reaction to the bee sting prompted my parents to get me allergy shots. Apparently I was so sensitive to the allergy shots the doctors had to add a bit of adrenaline to the serum every time I got a shot. The once a week shots lasted close to three years.

I told Lane I needed to go buy some Benadryl right away and even though she was only halfway through her lunch she jumped up and drove us over to Target. I took one and a half pills in the parking lot. The swelling on my arm had started just a little, but quickly subsided. My years of childhood allergy shots obviously worked.

Since I never was stung by a bee again I was never fully sure the allergy shots worked…Until today. I was eating lunch outdoors at the new Happy and Hale at University Hill with my dear friend Lane. I had just finished my salad and I brushed my hand on my arm without realizing I was brushing a bee and it stung me.

Lane went home after a little more visiting at my house. I made a phone call and as I was talking my words were noticeably slowing down. I went to lie down on my bed and fell asleep at 2:30 with my iPad in my hand. I awoke at 6:30, in exactly the same position holding my iPad.

I have no swelling and have had the hardest nap I have had in years. No wonder people give babies on planes some Benadryl. The good news is I finally have confirmation that getting all those shots were worth it.

Processing the Harvest

Last summer I spent two solid months building my garden. Most days I worked a minimum of four hours, but some days as much as eight. I thought it was the hardest job I would ever do when it came to gardening.

This spring I started planting, and compared to building the garden it was a breeze. Weeding, watering, harvesting all a pleasure especially when compared to building, shoveling and carrying.

Now I am in the high output season of the garden and processing the fruits of my labors is taking almost as much time as building the infrastructure. Yesterday I made a quart of pesto from some basil, a quart of pickled cucumbers and four quarts of yellow squash and onions. Today I made three zucchini and onion quiche. Tomorrow I am going to make English mint sauce, zucchini bread, stuffed zucchini blossoms, pickled peppers and I am going to process the last of my arugula.

Processing is my least favorite job. When the arugula has gone to flower it is time to rip it all up and wash it in the sink and pull the tender leaves from the woody stems, dry and store it. I put the arugula in a big plastic container with a sheet of paper towel inside on top and a tight fitting lid. I then store the container upside down so the paper towel is now on the bottom. This process keeps greens the freshest.

I need to process the lettuce, but it is keeping a little better than the arugula so I may wait a bit. I also need to harvest at the cilantro that has gone to seed. The seeds are coriander. To dry them I cut all the stalks down and hang them upside down in a paper bag. When the seeds get dry enough they fall into the bottom of the bag. The chives also need processing as they have gone to flower. They are a little easier since they just get cut into tiny snips and frozen.

I am not sure what I am going to plant in the beds that will be vacated by all this harvesting. That is a plan I will have to make another day because I will be too busy cooking and processing everything else.

Thank goodness everything doesn’t come all at once. My tomato plants are huge and full of green fruit. I look everyday to see if anything is getting ripe, but alas, nothing so far. If all these tomatoes come in at the same time I might have to give up some hours of sleep.

Thinking in Public

The other day I wrote a blog titled “Similarities between my garden and the Bible.” It immediately elicited a response from my friend and minister Chris. He worries if I wade into the biblical. His response was, “After the first few lines I went, ‘oh no…’ and by the end I went, ‘I think she’s on to something good here.’”

When I asked him what caused the “oh no”? He responded, “Sometimes things come out of your mouth/keyboard that are unpredictable.”

I replied, “Absolutely unpredictable. Otherwise why would you keep reading?”

I write every night for twenty minutes, then I post it. I have done this everyday for over ten years. Rarely do I know what I am going to write about. I sit down after dinner and think, “Oh Lord, what happened today that I can write about?” There are plenty of things that happen, which are, “off the blog record.”

This Sunday I was watching an interview with the brilliant Malcom Gladwell on CBS Sunday Morning. I, in no way, am in the same hemisphere as Malcom Gladwell, but he said so many things about writing that I try to subscribe too, without my knowing they were his ideas.

First, “A Writer’s job is to be interesting, not always right. They raise questions that need to be raised.”

Second Gladwell said, “I would rather be interesting that right. I am thinking in public.”

Third, “The best way to stay interesting is to stay a moving target.”

I am not always interesting, but I do raise a lot of questions. I have plenty of people for whom those questions resonate and some who despise me for asking them. My blog is the ultimate act of thinking in public. It is off the cuff, often unresearched and always original.

Sometimes I write about controversial issues which makes me a target, but then I post an original recipe just to calm the waters. Nothing about the way I blog is going to change, but I did feel a sense of calm when I heard Gladwell talk about his writing. I am probably never going to produce a NYT bestseller. Most of the time I am just happy if I can make people laugh. Some days, especially the last 439, things have not been as funny as I would like them to be. Thinking in public is really the best description for a blog. Thanks Malcom for giving me those words, it sounds so much better than being unpredictable.

Father’s Day Needs a New Date

Happy Father’s Day to all you father’s out there. I am lucky to still have my father in my life. Father’s Day was never fully celebrated in my childhood home. Being at the end of June we likely had just finished school and us kids were more excited about getting to go swimming than in being good daughters.

If we did something for my father it was probably cutting the grass without complaining. Well, my sister Janet never complained about cutting the grass and Margaret, being the middle, probably never cut the grass. So to my Dad, sorry that your girls were not great Father’s Day celebrators. Despite our lack of real gifts I do hope my Dad knows we appreciated all he did for us.

Carter is lucky that she has a great Dad in Russ, but she too was away more father’s Days than she was home due to camp starting right after school ended. So celebrating Father’s Day for Russ falls down to me. Given my poor upbringing as far as celebrating Father’s Day was concerned Russ gets cheated. Tonight he wanted Toro Pizza for his special day and he got it. Then there was Shay begging for his crusts. He couldn’t even enjoy is own meal.

I think we could improve our Father’s Day celebration if it happened in October and not June, but I doubt anyone else is interested in that change. For now I want to wish every father a happy day. You are appreciated, even if your kids are not there to do it in person.

The one think I know is that Shay gives Russ the most attention and to her, everyday is Father’s Day. Hey Russ, just take the love you have from Shay and know she speaks for all of us.

Similarities Between My Garden and the Bible

There is a parable in the Bible about a Shepard who leaves his ninety-nine sheep to go and find the one lost sheep. I have heard this story at least a dozen times as it appeals in both Luke and Mathew and every time I have heard it I have a hard time wrapping my brain around why you would leave 99 unattended just to find one. What if you came back and now three were missing?

This week I went away for four days and left Russ in charge of watering my garden. He did exactly as instructed, but the days were hotter and the sun was stronger and when I came home my yellow squash plants were in distress. Now most everything else was flourishing. The tomatoes have grown well over my head. The cucumbers are producing many fruits. The okra are about to start providing and the zucchini are doing well.

This morning I went to work in the garden and for the first time I understood the parable of the lost sheep. I was unconcerned with working on anything but my yellow squash, even though everything needed some tending. My yellow squash might have been lost, but I wanted to try and save it, and let everything else tend to itself.

Perhaps I never fully I understood that story because we have only one child. I have not had to split my attention and pay all of it to someone in need and be hopeful that the rest can survive on their own.

It does sound crazy to liken a squash plant to a sheep or worse a child, but when you raise something from infancy you feel committed to it. I did prune the plant of any failing foliage and I hope that will save it. If not I will have to be satisfied with the harvest I have already had from that plant and tear it out and replant something else in its space. Gardening is an education all the time, kind of like the Bible. You can read and not embrace every story until something similar happens to you.

The First Meal

Ten days into dating Russ Lange I had still not cooked for him. He asked me to marry him and I said yes and then that night I made him a spur of the moment pasta and veggie dinner. He said my cooking was a bonus he did not expect.

Today I harvested some Japanese eggplant and zucchini from the garden along with some basil. I decided I would recreate the veggie pasta I made Russ that first meal. I sautéd some onions along with the squash and eggplant and then added some roasted garlic marinara sauce I had.

I added spaghetti and mixed it all together and put it in a baking dish, added a little cheese and baked it until the cheese melted. Fresh basil was sprinkled on top as it was served. Russ, recalling that first meal perfectly said, “This is delicious, but the original dish did not have red sauce in it.”

He was right. I can’t believe he remembers that exact ingredients in the first meal I cooked him. That is true love.

A Clean Floor Means Happiness

I have been away from home for four days. Russ and Shay were all who were left keeping the home fires burning. I had supplied Russ with plenty of good leftovers so very little cooking was needed. He did a good job of eating some of it, when we wasn’t out with a work colleague having dinner; something he has been unable to do for 16 months.

So after three long days of teaching Mah Jongg and going out every night with friends I was fairly exhausted when I walked in the door tonight after my three hour drive home. I needed to water my garden despite Russ watering it yesterday; which I did before I even stepped foot inside the house. So it came as such a nice surprise to see a clean kitchen floor when I did come in.

We have this black and white tile floor that is a pain to clean. I have to mop and then dry it. I cleaned it before I left for the beach and usually it gets dirty again in two days. Well, Russ must have only microwaved leftovers and made coffee while I was gone, because the floor is in decent shape.

There is something so nice about coming home to a clean house. I never go away and leave it dirty because I know that there are no little fairies who will come and clean while I am away. But if I leave anyone home while I am away there is no guarantee that it will remain clean.

I would like to comend my wonderful husband for basically not messing up the kitchen. He is always good at doing dishes, but floors are way too far from his site line to even register if they are dirty or not.

It was just a nice welcome home. Now if it could just rain for my garden I would be really happy.

Sharing the Joy

Teaching someone to play Mah Jongg is a multi-day event. If anyone tells you they can teach you in one afternoon, don’t believe them. But unlike Bridge, which is a life’s study, you can really learn Mah Jongg in three days.

I told my students this week not to judge if they liked playing Mah Jongg by their first class. It takes at least two days to fully comprehend all that is involved. The first day of teaching is exhausting for me since I have to talk the whole time. (If you know me you think I talk the whole time anyway.)

Today was the second day, and it was much more hands on for the students and less theoretical. They paid attention, they asked good questions, they thought hard and then one by one you could see the light bulb go off in their brains as they caught on to the intricacies of the game.

People played whole games for the first time and won. There is nothing more fun than hearing the call of “Mah Jongg” from a first time player. Of course some don’t say it as a declaration, but more like an unsure question. Once I confirm for them that indeed, they have won, then it is a real celebration. It is so joyous when the other other players at their table also cheer for them in a heartfelt way.

Great new friendships are started at Mah Jongg. People who learn together exchange contact info so they can plan on playing together after classes.

Tonight Reba and I went to dinner with her neighbor Susan, who was one of my students five years ago when I first came down here to teach. She told me a story about the time I was teaching her class and heard her discard a tile from across the room and told her to stop and rethink that discard. She was still amazed that I knew what she was playing when I had not looked at her hand for five minutes and looked at a number of other ones in between.

I can’t believe she still remembers that, but it made an impression. I am just thrilled that she loved the game and is still playing five years later.

Tomorrow will be my last day of teaching this month, but I will be back in July to teach two weeks. The pandemic has kept me from Mah Jongg with real people. Teaching it this week has reminded me why I love it so much and love teaching it almost as much as playing it.

Mah Jongg Vs. Fishing

Today was the first day of Mah Jongg class for two groups of lovely ladies. They came dressed up to learn to play and at first I thought they must have thought it was a party too, but then I realized everyone dressed up. I have been so long in pandemic I was unaccustomed to seeing women out of yoga pants.

Thankfully teaching Mah Jongg is a something that has a lot of muscle memory even if it has been unexercised for such a long time. I warned the students not to judge if they like Mah Jongg by the first lesson since it really does take three lessons to start to understand it. Thankfully I don’t think I had any students who did not catch on today so the next two days should go well.

After class Reba took me downtown in Morehead city to see the Big Rock Fishing tournament that happens to be going on this week. I have absolutely no knowledge about big time competitive fishing. The money in competitive fishing is absolutely crazy, but you couldn’t tell by the way people were dressed.

We got to see a big marlin that had been caught today, which was hanging and weighed in at over 500lbs. I am sure getting that fish I was a big fight. I actually felt sorry for the fish who looked so beat up.

As far as I am concerned I think competitive Mah Jongg is a much safer than fishing and is a lot less expensive, even if you average in the wardrobe.

Head-First, Full-on

I should have eased out of the pandemic, instead I have run full-on, head first back into social life. This past weekend we had guests spend Friday and Saturday night with us. Then we had guests come for Sunday lunch. Today My friend Hannah and her mother Boogie came for lunch and a tour of my garden before I left to drive down to Morehead City.

Tonight I am back at my friend Reba’s readying myself to go teach both a morning and afternoon Mah Jongg classes for the next three days at the Coral Bay club. Add all that to going to film church where I lectured and a lot of gardening in preparation for being away for three days when it probably won’t rain and I am already exhausted.

Coming to stay with Reba is a bit of a vacation as she always greets me the first night with a yummy dinner of shrimp salad and heirloom tomatoes. I just wish I wasn’t already tired before I even begin teaching. My extrovert stamina is out of practice. I have gotten really used to a solitary life of reading, gardening and needlepointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I have loved seeing my friends, especially the ones who have not been around much. I am just not used to go, go going all the time. Well, there was that moving my parents and estate sale work that I have done for the last three months. I was looking at teaching Mah Jongg as kind of a break.

At least I will get a good night’s sleep so I am ready to introduce the fabulous game to two giant classes of new friends I will meet tomorrow. It has been so long since I have taught I hope I won’t be rusty. I also hope my extrovert gene comes back, because that is the only way I can teach for seven hours straight. Maybe next week I can go back to half pandemic mode.

Zucchini Red Lentil Salad

During vegetable garden season I try and use things I grow to make up most of our meals. Today we had some friends for lunch. Since I don’t grow protein I added Salmon to the menu. I also don’t have any melons growing yet so I had to supplement with a store bought watermelon, but every other dish was full of the bounty from the garden.

We had sumac rolls which were filled of herbs from the garden. Watermelon salad with mint, lime and salt was yummy. The best dish was a zucchini red lentil salad. It was easy and could be an entire meal as the lentils are full of protein.

2 medium zucchini cut into 1/4 inch rounds

1 cup of red lentils

1/4 cup of goat cheese

Three handfuls of arugula

Twenty basil leaves, chopped

Olive oil

Lemon juice

Shallot vinaigrette

1 shallot minced

Juice of a lemon

3 T. champagne vinegar

1/3 cup of olive oil

1 t. Sugar

1/2 t. Salt

Black pepper

Heat fry pan to medium hot, coat bottom with olive oil. Salt and pepper zucchini rounds and place in single layer of fry pan. Cook until light brown on one side and and flip and cook the other side.

Place Red lentils in Sauce pan and cover with water. Bring pot to boil and cook for two minutes once boiling. Drain the lentils. Add zucchini and lentils to bowl and squirt a little lemon and dash of olive oil on them and chill.

Make vinaigrette by mixing everything together in a jar and shake vigorously.

When ready to serve, crumble goat cheese in the bowl with the veggies and add the arugula and basil. Add vinaigrette a little at a time so as not to over power the salad. You won’t use all the vinaigrette. Toss and enjoy.

Out of Practice

It has been a long time since I had to cook for two meals for guests. Let’s be honest, it has been a long time since we have had guests. This morning I had to go do some filming and it took longer than I had anticipated. I got home and had some lunch then got to work cooking.

Our friends Jan and Rex started moving in their new house, but it is hardly ready to be slept in so they are with us. I told them to come back for dinner tonight after what I knew was going to be a long day. Since they are still sleeping here, dinner at home seemed like the way to go.

Now that my garden is producing I try my best to use things I grow in as many dishes as I can. I made a saffron chicken and rice dish that had nothing from the garden so I cut a bunch of lettuce for a salad to be my garden component.

Tomorrow we are having an old friend and her new Beau for lunch. Russ bought a new cookbook, Falistin, because he saw an herb filled bun recipe he wanted me to make. Talk about complicated. Today I made the dough, which is currently rising in the fridge, as suggested. I made the onion, sumac, oregano and thyme filling using herbs from my garden and the parsley, chili oil, also from the garden. Tomorrow I will roll out the Dough, fill it, proof it, bake it and dress it with the herb oil. After all that it better be spectacular.

I prepped zucchini and red lentil for a salad that will include goat cheese and arugula. I also made the shallot dressing for that. And I prepped the salmon I will cook tomorrow. The only thing I did not do was cut the watermelon and mint. Mint gets fussy if cut too early.

After I finished cooking I cleaned the kitchen and mopped the floor and I was exhausted. I really had not cooked that much. I was only standing in the kitchen about five hours, but I was way out of practice. I had to go lie down on my bed and rest.

Certainly my cooking muscle will come back as well as my planning ahead gene. I must have gone to the garden no less than six times with sheers in hand looking to gather ingredients I needed. Pre-pandemic I would have gathered everything I needed all at once and been ready to hustle out multiple dishes one after the other. I felt like a total amateur in the kitchen today.

At least dinner tasted good. It just should not have taken so long to make. I guess I was just out of practice.

All is Right In the World

After what I call the eleven year Bobby Ewing shower, Our friends Jan and Rex are back to being Durham Residents after a jaunt in Texas. Jan was one of my first and best Durham friends and when she told me that she was moving to Texas over a Mah Jongg game eleven years ago I said, “That is only temporary, right?”

I thought they would be gone five years. Jan did come and stay with us regularly and once and a while Rex would come too, but almost eleven was getting to be just too long. Thankfully they closed on a house in Durham today and all is right in the world.

They are spending their first night back in Durham with us since they don’t have their furniture yet. We went to Nana Steak to celebrate and Jan did mention she was happy to live in the same town as her favorite designated driver.

So the way I see it, we are fully vaccinated, we can start Mah Jongg back up regularly and it will be like Jan never left. Throw back that shower curtain, Pam Ewing, Bobby never really died, he was just in the shower. It was all a dream.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Wonder what’s moving in between Only Burger and Tutti Frutti? The building gives away nothing, but soon enough the sign will be put up and then all of Durham will know that Sage & Swift Catering is now a neighbor to Hope Valley.

I had lunch today with the dear Amy Tournquist and learned the exciting plans she has for her new space. Getting dinners to go will be so much more convenient now that she is around the corner. We talked about in addition to her regular yummy offerings that she might do healthy options in the dinner-to-go category. She already makes good for you taste great, so it will be nice to have guilt-free along with the work-free dinner. Of course you can still get her award winning mac and cheese for the kids.

The big news is going to be her once a month wine nights with small plate offerings once the front of the house gets finished. She is not going back to having a full time restaurant like Watts Grocery. I miss being able to have an Amy Crab Cake, so this will be a way to get my fix.

For now, I would just like to welcome Amy and Jeremy to this side of town. I look forward to seeing the big ampersand in the Sage & Swift every time I go to the post office. It’s nice to have a caterer back in that space, especially since it’s Amy.

The Zucchini is Coming

There is a point when growing zucchini when you can hardly keep up eating it as the plants produce so much at once. So far we have had about four squash, spread out over two weeks. I made Zucchini bread to stock Russ up with his favorite snack. Today I picked four nice fruits and saw more coming tomorrow and the next day.

Wanting to do something different with these zucchini I made a Palestinian dish of zucchini and yoghurt. The squash were so perfect with no seeds at all, they were perfect for this recipe.

1 large onion chopped

4 zucchini chopped into 1/2 dice

2 T. Olive oil

1 cup of Greek yogurt

4 cloves of garlic, minced

Sprinkle of red pepper flakes

1/2 t. Sumac (or lemon zest)

Salt and course ground black pepper

4 T. Fresh mint, Chiffonade

Heat oil in fry pan on medium heat and add onions. Cook, Stirring occasionally, for 5-7 minutes until wilted, but not browned.

Add zucchini and Cook for 15 minutes until soft.

Add salt and peppers. Remove from heat and let cool.

Add everything else to cooled mixture and stir. Serve at room temp or cold with pita bread or as a side dish. We added lamb meat balls and tomatoes to a mezze plate.

Strange Day Alone

I have grown very accustomed to having Russ working at home. It has been a pleasant fifteen months of getting to see him in the middle of the day. That changed today as he flew to Washington before I woke up, for a meeting, like the old days.

I was already planning on driving up to the farm to pick up the ten tables I borrowed from friends to use for the sale and to have lunch with my Dad. As I drove up rt. 86 I listened to a book for my book club.

I got to the farm and just as I pulled into the drive behind the little house my Dad called me and said his doctor’s appointments were taking too long and he couldn’t have lunch. So I spent the next hour and a half retrieving the tables from all over and packed them into the car. Back on the road home I was thankful for my book reader because I had not seen a real person all day.

I came home to the exciting job of cleaning the house since it had been neglected last week and we are having guests this weekend. As I scrubbed toilets, I continued listening to my book. Shay and I played outside together all while I listened.

I ate dinner of leftovers alone and listened to my book. It was a rare day where I did not see another person, despite being out. Thank goodness for audible. Russ should be home before I go to bed. I am not sure I am going to like him going back to the office. It’s very quiet around here without him.

The Sole Carter Farmer

Now that the farm has been sold I am the sole farmer left. Truth be told no one in my blood line has actually been a farmer since my great grandfather. The joke has been the farm is where executives go to play.

I am only a gardener, not a Farmer, but still my garden grows more food than the farm. The farm mostly grew hay because my father liked the hundreds and hundreds of acres of fields to be beautiful.

Two and a half weeks ago my tomatoes barely reached the first ring in their cages, except the one in the corner, which was planted a couple of week earlier. It had not reached it’s top ring.

Today that corner tomato plant is about to reach the top of the gardens support and all the others are well outside their cages. Still not harvestable tomatoes, but many small green globes are growing on the plants.

I have harvested zucchini and made Russ bread. I did a major basil harvest and made two quarts of pesto this morning. The lettuce and the arugula continue to feed us and the hot peppers are off the plants and in the fridge.

I see many small cucumbers as the vines grow up the strings I added so they had a place to go. The pole beans have surpassed the strings I gave them, but no beans yet.

As the sole farmer I am going to keep experimenting and learning how to grow better and more food. I am thankful I don’t have a bigger garden as this one is enough work.

Recovery Day Interrupted

I got home last night around 7:30. Carter made me dinner. I read my email and took a sleep aid so I would sleep hard. Not because I needed help falling asleep, but because I did not want to wake up at 5:45, which I have been doing for the last three weeks. The pill worked. I stayed asleep until 8:45 and felt sleepy all day.

Carter also slept a hard 13 hours, something she says she hasn’t done in years. For her it was the exhaustion of having been with so many people for two days. She is ready to go back to her working from home solo life in Boston.

As this was my appointed recovery day I watched CBS Sunday Morning and church and was generally lazy this morning. Russ went to his office to do his weekly chore of watering the plants when I got a call from him interrupting my recovery.

“I’m in the parking garage and the Smart car won’t start, can you bring the battery jumper?” I did. Didn’t work. The little 12 year old Smart had just driven up and back to the farm yesterday, but couldn’t make it two miles back from the office. Russ looked at the code that was appearing on the dash board and found the Internet called it the three bars of death. That code could be one of fifteen things wrong with the car. We called AAA and they took it away to the dealership. Russ loves his Smart because it is a convertible. We pray it is a fuse or something else minor on the list of the three bars of death.

So much for a total recovery day. Outside of helping Russ get home I have been fairly lazy. Some time with Carter as she is flying back to Boston before dawn tomorrow and that is the end of my weekend.

Tomorrow brings a new week and some needed productivity at home. No sleep aid for me tonight. It’s back to getting up early.

Keep Going

At 6 PM, with my car full of boxes of goodies I had to bring home for remote shoppers I drove down our farm lane collecting the signs I had put out for the Estate Sale. The one most people mentioned to me was the “Keep Going” because they had no idea our driveway was a literally a mile long and they were certain they must have missed the sale. But I had placed signs all along the driveway like traveling down I-95 and Pedro speaking to you as you go in search of South of the Border.

I threw each old sign in the back of my car and after getting the last big one at the intersection of the two main roads I turned around and drove back to the the dumpster by my Dad’s office barn. This estate sale was done.

We had a slow, but steady day today. It is funny what people buy and what they don’t buy. None of the Crystal of glasses sold. I guess that fifteen months of pandemic got people out of the habit of having parties and no one thought they needed eight, twelve or sixteen wine glasses.

But people went wild for tiny leather gloves of many bright colors I thought only my mother’s small hands could wear. We hardly sold a lamp, yet young people bought cassette tapes of artists I was surprised they had heard of. My mother’s art was the most popular item and that was no surprise. It seems like every volunteer also bought art.

It was a fun day because I had my dear friend Jan and Carter had her oldest friend Ellis and we made a good team selling and packing up items our customers purchased. My mother had it easy with the team we had.

We beat our goal number, and yet we still had lots left over. Carter had mentioned that if no one bought the big set of Wein a China with tiny rose buds that she would love to have it. In the end my mother gave it to her. I know that Carter will forever cherish her grandmother’s China and the happy memories of her childhood at the farm which it will hold.

One by one we packed our cars with our treasures. I was desperate to go home and sleep in my own bed as everyday my sleeping situation got a little worse due to people buying all the blankets and pillows. I was not last to leave as Carter wanted some alone time to say goodbye to the farm. It was not my last time there since I have to go back on Tuesday and pick up all the tables to return them to my garden club friends who kindly lent them to me.

As I drove off I thought of my sign “Keep Going”. It’s all we can do in life.

A Very Successful Day

We sold a lot of stuff today. Thanks to my mother’s cute friends who came and volunteered and my dear friends who came and worked and my wonderful Carter who took the day off work to help her Grandparents, we moved things out.

By ten in the morning we had hardly any rugs or antiques. The good stuff goes fast at Estate sales. The Utensils for a dollar were also popular, especially if it was a big good knife or new garlic press. Not surprisingly my mother’s art was a top draw. It made for a good day.

Still, even with a good day of selling we still have a lot of stuff left. Tomorrow we start discounting. In the morning most things are 30% except for full sets of China and some antiques. By the afternoon we will go to 50%.

So after a day of hard work Jan, Carter and I went out to dinner at a new to us place in Danville called Cotton as it is housed in a old Dan River Mill building. We ate outside and felt almost human after all the day’s hard work.

After dinner we took one last nostalgic drive through the farm. Carter got a little teary eyed. Hard to think of the place she has spent her whole life not being a place she can get away too. It will be time to explore new places and make new memories.

One more day of Estate Sale and then this hell will be over. But honestly, today was fun thanks to the people who came and helped. My Mom owes you all!

The Bittersweet

Today was the last day of prep for the sale. My friend Jan arrived from the mountains ready to work and boy did we need her. Although my mother and I, along with the army of helpers, have been diligently working away every time we turned around we found something else, a drawer of kitchen utensils, a closet full of linens, a cabinet filled will serving pieces. It seemed like we would never be done with all the prep work.

My mother, a life long collector, has been a trooper about parting with many treasures. It helps that she got to chose only the things she really loved to take to her new house, but the fact that they are still packed into boxes means she doesn’t feel comfortable in the new space yet.

By late afternoon we called it a day. I took Jan up to my Aunt Janie Leigh’s who lives next door in my Grand Parents old house. Jan is staying in their little guest house, the house where my great grandfather was born. She was getting settled after we had dumped a bunch of trash in the dumpster my father had hired.

I went back to my parent’s old house and cleaned up to go to dinner and as I was walking out the side porch I noticed a rouge bag of trash that need to go to the dumpster. I threw it in the back of my car and drove over to my office barn, when the dumpster is parked. After I tossed the bag in I looked out over one of the many ponds my father has built on the farm. It was the golden hour where the sun was just dipping to the tree line and the light glistened on the ripples of the water.

I have been so busy working, cleaning out and setting up I had not taken in the fact that these are the last few days on the farm for me and my family. My Aunt will still have her house at the front of the farm, but the back, with the rolling hills, gurgling creeks, and beautiful trees belongs to someone else.

I have sixty years of memories of this place. My grandmother driving my sister Margaret and I down to pumpkin creek in her turquoise Covair so we could play in the cool water on a hot summer day. Or the many farm parties I had with my Washington or Dickinson friends. I remember one farm party when Grace Farley was out eight. We had gone fishing and swimming and the kids put on plays for us. Grace turned to her Mother and asked, “Do you think Dana will invite us back for another farm party?” The answer was always, “of course.”

I so wish we had one more farm party.

One of my very favorite memories here is of Carter learning to ride her bike. With the long private paved road it was safe to take off her training wheels and run along side of her holding the seat. When I let go of the five year old Carter and she peddled up the lane all by herself I knew it was the beginning of her independence.

But things must change. The farm is too big for my aging parents to take care of. It is too much for us to take care of, even if won the lottery. So I lookout over the setting sun and am taking it in one last time. The farm will always be in my heart. So many happy memories, but like watching Carter ride away from me, they are bitter sweet. You want to hold on to the old, but you have to let go and move on to the next chapter.

Nature Takes Over Quickly

My mom has been a trooper cleaning out more closets and pricing things. Just when I think we have everything priced and merchandised we open another hidden closet and find more stuff to sell, like the Burberry suitcase!

My parents moved out of their farm about two weeks ago. So no one has slept at the big house since they left. Today I came up to stay for the next five days to get this sale over and done with.

My new second Mother Sandra came over to help again today. She brought us a homemade lunch & Dinner and she shopped a little for herself, but not until she had done some excellent work.

After a good hard days work everyone left and I am staying in the big house. After all this work setting it up I am guarding it all. Since we don’t have TV, or wifi I have been walking around the outside noticing how huge the trees and shrubs have gotten since no one is trimming anything. I encountered at least a dozen bunnies on my trip around the house. They were very surprised to see me.

Not as surprised as the two wood chucks who scurried past my mother when she opened the art barn door. Apparently the back door was open. Who knows how long those woodchucks had been squatting there.

I have a feeling if the new owners don’t come to the farm soon after they take over, the house might be fully engulfed by hollies and bunnies. I know the wild turkeys have been camping out in the front and the deer are drinking out of the pond every morning. When humans leave, nature just takes over.

June 1 Means Summer Suppers

The Basil in my garden is huge already. Although my tomatoes won’t bear red fruit for another few weeks I still need to find ways to use the basil now. I could make pesto, but I was too busy today to take that on. So for supper tonight I used some Campari tomatoes from the store and added a huge amount of basil, really good balsamic vinegar, burrata and some homemade corn bread I cut into cubes and toasted in a cast iron pan. It had to be a cast iron pan, this is North Carolina after all. One bite was the taste of summer.

Basil is the easiest thing to grow. It can be done in a pot or in any old soil. Animals tend not to like it so you don’t have to fence it in. It will get bushier if you cut the main stem as it grows tall. There is nothing better to add to corn salad, tomato sandwiches, simple pasta or even in your morning eggs than fresh basil.

It’s not too late. You can plant basil until September as it will grow until the first frost, but why wait? All you suppers will taste like summer if you add home grown basil.

In Support of Naomi Osaka

Having the media report that Naomi Osaka did not do a press conference after her first win at the French Open and complain that they did not get their free interview is not exactly kosher. The Four Grand Slam Tournaments fined Osaka $15,000 for skipping the press conference after her first win and threatened to ban her from other Grand Slams if she did not participate in Press conferences because they say the press conferences are good for building the sport and required. The press conferences are good for the press and the tournaments to sell more advertising. It is not the responsibility of each athlete to build the sport. They do their job by playing a good game.

Osaka claimed that the press conferences are not good for her mental health, so rather than make the French Open a pissing match she cordially pulled out of the tournament to take care of her own mental health. Good for her. If she stayed in and kept skipping the press conferences that is all the tournament would be about, not tennis at all.

Tennis is a mental game. Why should players have to endure press conferences before the whole thing is over? And why should a winner have to endure them at all? Most players want the publicity, but if the press treats them badly why should a player be forced to face them? We watch tennis to see an athlete, not a spokesperson.

I think pulling the big bad bully card on the last day of Mental Health month was poor form for the Open organizers. If they want to promote tennis then don’t push your athletes around.

I don’t see golf making players have to face the press between each round of a big tournament. Now plenty will talk to the press, but it appears to be their choice. The press should have to cultivate interviews, not just be able to throw any old question at a player who in essence is trapped into being in front of them under duress.

Osaka is the highest paid female athlete in the world right now and number 2 in women’s tennis. Driving her out of the sport would be bad for tennis. Has tennis learned nothing from the women who started the Virginia Slims tournament to control their own situation? Players being treated badly makes them want to not play your tournaments at all and in today’s world it wouldn’t be hard for someone of Osaka’s caliber to pull together a few other women and create a new tournament with more modern and reasonable rules.

So you bully’s in the tennis world and you press who are whining you did not get your automatic conference which was handed to you on a golden platter, you don’t get to call all the shots. The athletes that actually makes the shots should have some say in who she talks to and when. Not having to face the press in the middle of a tournament, or ever, seems perfectly reasonable if that is what she needs to do.

Estate Sale Queen Holley B to the Rescue

I love having friends with all kinds of talents. Holley B is the queen of estate sales and she volunteered her expertise today to help pricing the sale items. She was a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm.

Pricing unusual things like Avon Collectible Bears was the kind of research challenge Holley was expert at. She also looked at some of my mother’s antiques like pewter and decoys and advised we take them to auction because they were too valuable to be left estate sale regulars.

We labeled bar ware, plates, rugs, sofa, cookware, scarves, purses, pillow, quilts, serving pieces, Christmas decorations, chairs, tables, and so many lamps. It was a sticker and tag palloza.

We are about 80% done with pricing thanks to the Amazing Holley B. I can’t thank you enough for all that she did, from driving up to the farm, to entertaining my mother and convincing her that pricing things right will make the sale successful. I love you Holley B!

One More Week

I can make it one more week until I am finished doing this estate sale. Even though there is just a shit load of stuff still to do. I can at least see the end in sight.

Despite the fact I have been the one unpacking all the boxes and setting up displays Russ was the real hero today. My parents are the BC generation as the Apple Customer Support staff call them. That means they lived most of their lives before computers, well almost before color TV, and that means they are completely unable to set up anything computer related. Hell, I too have trouble doing it, and so I consider myself the luckiest woman in the world to have married Russ Lange.

If Russ had known he was going to be the IT department for my parents for the rest of their lives he could have negotiated a big ass Dowry. Today he came to the rescue setting up all my parents Internet, wifi, Tv’s, computers, IPads, and Phones at their new house. It took him a better part of the day, which was the best use of his time.

I did not mind shlepping boxes and washing Crystal and rolling rugs, just so long as Russ was fixing everything computer related for my parents. I had one of my mother’s dear friends Sandra to help me. She has been a godsend setting up and being just a lot of fun to have around. Today she even brought a picnic of food and drinks.

After a hard eight hours Russ and I decided to take a break from other people and went into Danville to Our favorite Mexican Restaurant, el Vallarta. It was before six, but the place was hopping. They seated us at a big table with what the waiter said was, “the best view.” Based on this photo you can see what a fabulous place Danville is when this is the best view.

Tonight I hope I can sleep when I know in the next room is a big table of my mother’s doll collection on a table. I am not one for dolls. Thankfully they are not the scary kind, but mor like the primitive. Please god, let someone come to this sale who wants dolls, China, or is setting up a bar because I have at least seven hundred glasses for sale.

Lunch Out

Shay was suspicious. First Russ changed out of his t-shirt and into a collared shirt. Then I came in from gardening and took a second shower and put on a dress. Shay nervously followed us around. She hadn’t seen us this cleaned-up in the middle of the day in months.

Russ asked me if I was ready to go. Shay ran to the garage door on the word go. We asked her if she needed to go out. We let her potty, but asked her to come back inside. She stood by the car and did not budge. So Russ and I had to go back inside the house and close the door, leaving her out alone.

The trick worked and she came inside thinking she must have been wrong about why we were clean and dressed. That’s when Russ and I made our get away, calling out, “Be good, we’ll be home soon.”

This was the first lunch out in Durham Russ and I have had together in 15 months. We went to the Durham Food hall, down by the farmer’s market because they just recently opened up for inside seating. There are a number of little stands in the Food Hall and we thought it would be nice to eat amongst other humans who were also dressed in regular, read non-athletic, clothes.

After ordering from four different stands, two for food and two for drinks we secured a two-top and had an adult conversation like we used to have many years ago. We saw our friend David who was out with his son so it was a real Durham day, where you can’t go out without seeing someone you know.

We were back home within the hour and Shay was no worse for the time alone, but she has stayed close by one or the other of us for the rest of the day. It is going to be a long haul to retrain her to be OK when we both are out.

As for us, lunch out was a treat, but as Russ says, it doesn’t really beat my cooking. I am making a watermelon, avocado, basil, mint and goat cheese salad with some crushed peanuts for dinner along with grilled salmon and homemade corn bread baked in a cast iron pan I got from my parents. Russ is right. Dinner home is still better, but seeing humans out having fun was exciting too, except for Shay.

A Scary Snake

Today was the first big day of setting up the estate sale at my parents. Thanks to the help of one of my friends and one of my Mom’s we got everything unpacked in the big house. The unpacking was all the stuff from the apartment in DC. We also sorted and organized a large number of sets of China. We still have many kitchen items to set out for display and pricing of everything.

The little house is still full of boxes we need to unpack and organize, but that is a job for Saturday. One of my mom’s friends came by and bought a good amount of stuff so before we even have the sale we made a sale.

I will post photos of everything when we get it set up. Think sofas, rugs, antique side tables, China, China, China, Crystal, housewares, lamps, linens. Basically everything you need to set up a nice house.

It was a more fun day than any of us expected. We had a lot of laughs, until the very scary snake. One person went to the basement and before they went in they were back reporting to us, “There is a very scary, dangerous black and white snake at the bottom of the basement steps before the door.”

Since snakes do not scare me I volunteered to go scare the snake away. I took two pot lids to clang together. I banged the lids loudly as I approached the basement steps. I looked down the step well, I saw the black and white supposed snake. I turned to the person who had reported the snake. “Is that scary bungee cord the snake?”

We got a big laugh out of that. I threw that scary bungee cord away. We don’t need to scare anyone else.

Double Birthday Celebrations

With the loss of birthday celebrations last year we are doing double parties this year. I think we are all so ready to be with friends everyone is thrilled to come to two events for each birthday person.

Tomorrow is my darling friend Christy’s birthday. So we could fit in as much merriment as possible we started yesterday. We had a breakfast birthday. I made my “how I met Colin Firth” Raspberry streusel nut muffins. I forget how good they are and they definitely are birthday worthy. Thanks to Kathi for hosting that lovely morning.

Today we went to the WaDu to have our celebratory birthday lunch on the terrace. Thankfully Christy’s birthday is not on a graduation week so we had the regular menu which meant Chopped salads were the popular lunch.

It is good to have wonderful young friends like Christy who deserve all the merriment we can come up with. Next up will be Mary Lloyd’s birthday. We most certainly will be on the double birthday party scheme in August. Don’t worry Lynn and Karen, Double birthdays in September too.

I hope we don’t have another pandemic, but I do like having two birthday parties. Wish Christy a happy day tomorrow, the revelry continues.

Coconut Rice and Kale

Wanting us highlight my home grown kale I made this coconut rice. It is a good side dish or main dish with the addition of a fried egg and some crushed peanuts.

1 cup of unsweetened coconut flakes

1 large sweet onion, chopped

2 T. Olive oil

2 cups of rice

1 can coconut milk

1 t. Knorr chicken soup powder

1 t. Turmeric

Zest and juice of 2 limes

10 big kale leaves, center stem removed and cut into ribbons

Sliced red chillies

Black pepper

In a big stock pot heat half the olive oil and add the coconut and toast for a minute, stirring so it doesn’t burn. Remove from pot and add the remaining oil and onions. Cook on medium high for three minutes, until translucent.

Add the rice and stir to coat with any oil and onions. Add the coconut milk and a can of water. Add the chicken broth powder, turmeric and a few turns of black pepper mill. Cover. Heat to boil and reduce to simmer. Cook for ten minutes covered. Add the kale to the top of the rice and cover and cook another ten minutes or until the liquid is gone.

Add the lime juice and zest and pre-cooked coconut. Serve with chillies on side.

Growing Summer Squash is a lot Like Life

Growing summer squash is not hard in the scheme of gardening. It gets big fast, like kids, yet you don’t get mature fruit right away. First you get blossoms. Big, beautiful, bright yellow flowers. Some are male and some are female. The male ones have a stamen which is long and pointy, the female has a cup like center. It takes both of those blossoms to make a squash.

Actually it takes the pollen from the make to reach the female and that takes, bees, just the right breeze or a tiny paint brush and an interested human. The blossoms are sexy and inciting, especially to a cook who wants to stuff them with goat cheese, fry them and serve them on a puddle of roasted red pepper sauce.

True success in squash requires patience and discipline to leave the blossoms to grow a vegetable. Then the trick is to watch it closely so you pick it when it is not to small, but not too big. You never know if you get it right, but you enjoy it nonetheless.

So getting the balance of enjoying a few blossoms and leaving the other to grow fruit is the key. The trick is to take the Male blossoms to stuff and just brush their pollen on the female blossoms, because only the female actually can grow a vegetable. Just like life.

Hotel Dogs

For the first time in a year both Russ and I were away from Shay for 48 hours. We could have taken her to South Carolina since were stayed in a dog friendly Hotel. My cousin Mary had her three King Charles Cavaliers with her, but they are seasoned hotel dogs.

Shay is not a dog who likes to be left alone in a hotel room. We have tried it. As soon as we leave the room she howls. She is not really much of a howler at home, but in a strange place she lets us and everyone in a two block radius know that she is unhappy.

Of course this is unacceptable. I am very interested how people who travel with their dogs get them to be quiet when you leave the hotel room?

It does not seem like it is something we could practice. If we put her in a strange room and left the room and stood in the hall waiting to see if she stops crying we might be there for a few hours. If we come right back and open the door she will think that the howling worked to get us back. We could rent out three floors of a hotel to try and do a training session that would not disturb other guests, but we don’t have that kind of money to spend to train our dog.

I am certain that other dogs love their humans as much as Shay loves us, but why don’t they cry when left alone. I don’t think Shay has a history of being abandoned so she should have no deep seated fears about being alone, but the pandemic has not helped with us all being together every minute.

At ten years old we are not going to train an old dog new tricks, but I would like to train myself for future dogs. Please give me advice. I would love to be one of those people who could travel with their dog.

Write Down Your Last Wishes

Today was the funeral for Flo we came to Columbia to attend. Before the actual event we had a morning of story telling, walking and general merriment. When the hour rolled around to go to the cemetery for the graveside service we all cleaned up good to say our last good bye’s to Flo.

Thankfully the weather was not as hot as predicted and they were a lovely breeze under the big tree at the Heyward plot. A bag piper played Amazing Grace as the friends and family who gathered there looked on.

Flo had written down her wishes for her service and true to Flo’s selfless ways she only wanted a short graveside service. Her nephew gave a sweet and funny eulogy telling stories that perfectly illustrated Flo’s generosity. It was the quickest service I have ever been to for someone who was so loved. There was no wailing or nashing of teeth, just to the point.

Afterwards our newest adopted family members, Walker and Sally tried to lead us to the reception at Missy and Davis’ house after the service since they are locals. We had a big tour of all of Columbia only to arrive at the sight of Missy and Davis’ old house. Thankfully Russ had the address of the new house so we re-toured Columbia ending up on the other side of town at their new house.

More loving on family ensured, making sure Mary and Haidee felt the love we had for them at the loss of their mother. Mary and Haidee did a great southern job making sure we all were taken care of, having many meals and plenty of drinks at every turn.

We have one last little gathering tonight, where we will rehash all the stories and plan for our next reunion. Flo would have loved what a fun weekend it was, and how easy going everything was, except for the limo flat tire and the grandchild throwing up. But hey, it was perfectly imperfect and the guests all had a fabulous time.

I know it’s time to write down what we want as our last wishes just because it makes it so much easier on the ones left behind when planning the service. No one can argue if you say, “We are just following the orders she left for how she wanted it.”

Best Weekend of The Year

Fourteen months of no social interactions is the excuse why I am writing this blog at 12:30 in the morning. Technically this is yesterday’s blog, but I was having way to much fun to stop and write my blog. See, I am at the highlight of my pandemic year, the memorial service for my cousin Flo. I have never been so excited to go to a memorial or funeral before in my life and so far it has lived up to my expectations.

My sister Janet drove down to my house today and she, Russ and I drove to a Columbia, SC together. Normally visiting Columbia would not be the place I was dying to go to, but thanks to dying I am here with many of my favorite relatives and none of my least favorites.

My cousin Mary is a fabulous planner and when it was eminent that her mother was going to be off to join her father in heaven she started figuring out how best to celebrate her.

Tonight we had cocktails on the terrace where it became apparent that my generation was now the old guard and was in charge. For many years we had a large contingent of our parents and grand parents’ generation around, calling the shots and planning the parties, but sadly there are no grand parents and fewer and fewer parents.

After cocktails we had a lovely dinner in a private room and the Michie cousins got to catch up after what feels likes many years being apart. From dinner we moved to a room at the bar we commandeered and the story telling, laughing and hugging continued. For those Michies who are not here we need to let you know we are planning a reunion that is not a funeral for February of 2022 in Washington, DC.

I know this was a plan that was hatched in a bar, late at night, but we need to follow through on this one and we are missing lots of loved ones. We should not have to have someone die to spend time together.

There is nothing as wonderful as family who has known you all your life and still loves you just the same. Flo was a great cousin, whom I am thrilled to celebrate, but mostly I am glad to be here for her daughters, Mary and Haidee, whom I adore like sisters. Thanks to them for hosting the most fun weekend of my pandemic.

Happy Big Birthday Shay

I don’t know how it happened, but our baby Shay Shay turned 10 today. She has been the favorite family member from the day she came into our world.

As her present to Russ she did not wake him up last night and instead snuggled up with me. She got to come outside and play in the garden with me this morning then she went back to supervising Russ at work.

This afternoon she got to open her presents, two new stuffed toys, a donut and frog that spelled out ten. She took right to the donut and loved jumping to catch it when Russ threw it to her. She may be ten, but she is still agile.

Russ bought her steak for dinner and she knew it was a special day. We hope we have another ten great years with Shay Shay. When Russ and I talk about the possibility of getting another dog we both agree that Shay would not be happy about it, so we continue to pamper her as she demands. But today is her birthday so spoiling is required.

Day 999 of Moving my Parents

Today was the official moving day for my parents. One of the best things about moving two miles down the road is it is a short trip. One of the worst things is there is no sense of urgency to get everything into a truck and be done with it.

The moving crew we used last week came back to take what was supposed to be the last of the furniture so that my parents actually have to live in the new house. Since they are reducing their livable space by 75% they just can’t take everything. So it is hard to decide do I want this chest of drawers or that chest of drawers? Pick just one.

My wonderful, fabulous sister Janet brought three of her best employees who helped with packing and had a truck too. They moved all my mother’s art as well as brought five big pieces of furniture to my house.

My favorite mover was a old guy named Shad who really appreciated art and loved my mom’s work. He wanted a photo with her so he could show his friends he knew a famous artist. He also made friends with my Dad and is going to come fishing at my Dad’s pond.

Living in the new house is going to be painful for a while. The stove is not working because they don’t have the right vent. There are no window treatments. My father’s bed frame is missing the slats so the mattress is not in it. The kitchen cabinets are missing drawers and shelves so there’s is no putting away kitchen stuff. It’s going to be hell for a while.

I estimate we are only about half way through this ordeal. There is all the unpacking to be done. Still lots of stuff at the old house to be moved and all the prep work for the estate sale and holding the estate sale. Then the donating what does not sell and the final clean up. At least 999 more days to go. For tonight I am taking a lot of Advil PM and trying to not think about moving.

God Awful Low Fiber Diet

Someone I know has to have a colonoscopy next week and they need to eat a low fiber diet. When I was asked for ideas for low fiber foods I immediately went back to my childhood in the 60’s. White bread bologna sandwiches, fettuccine Alfredo, eggs Benedict, nothing healthy. Thinking about low fiber foods practically makes my brain want to blow up.

Trying to come up with vegetable centric low fiber meals is almost impossible. Forget fruits, unless it is canned. Yeah, I guess bananas are OK. So maybe a creamy peanut butter and banana sandwich, but that is just another sandwich.

For a person who does not eat meat you have chicken and fish, but still what to go with it? For my friends over 50 what did you eat when you had your low fiber prep week? I’m not sure I am going to be much help to this person.

Happy Birthday to my Dad

Eighty-three we thought he’d never see based on the stories he told us when we were kids. Happy birthday to my dad who has broken all records as far a big living is concerned.

Now he and my mom are about to embark on what I calculate is their 18th house move, if you count some work places my Mom never went to, in their marriage.

Getting ready for a big downsize move is not the best way to spend your birthday, but hell, no one thought my Dad would make it to 83, especially him.

When I was a child he used to start many life lessons with the phrase, “I have to tell you this before I die.” Well now neither of us can remember what those stories were, but he did a great job giving me life’s instructions and getting me to 60.

For now I pray that for his birthday the Internet installers show up on time at his new house. At 83 there is just not a lot you need. Happy birthday Dad.

Nature Is Miraculous

My garden is growing! My squash are a great example. In exactly one month they went from three inch saplings to huge eighteen inch bushes with flowers and squash just days away from harvest size.

None of this is thanks to me, it is all Mother Nature. I helped by making organic compost, which I use as the mulch on the plants. I also make sure everything gets watered if we don’t have rain. My biggest help is I go out and shake the plants everyday to scare away the aphids.

I am worried that the aphids might be getting ahead of me and hurt the plants. I tried to attract lady bugs, but I don’t think it is warm enough for them. So today I planted more marigolds and catnip as they supposedly repel aphids.

My pole beans have gone from seed to ten inch plants, but a few of those plants have a couple of curling leaves and I am yet able to diagnose the issue.

Russ and I have been eating from the garden everyday, enjoying Kale, spinach, lettuce, arugula, cilantro, basil and chives. I am ready for the peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes to start growing fruit, but I know it will be another month before we can reap that bounty.

If you have a child or a grandchild please grow some food with them. It is the best education to understand where food comes from. Nothing tastes better than a vegetable you grow yourself.