Tofurkey calls it a sausage. I call it a brat. But despite the fact that we’ve been eating them for years, when YA went to the store last week, she came home without them because I had written “brats” on the list and the product on the shelf said “sausage”. Sigh.
I grew up without sausage or brats. Bacon and hot dogs were our porks of choice; I don’t know why. I actually had never even heard of a brat until I was married and moved to Milwaukee. By that time I was a vegetarian so never delved too deeply but has always seemed to me that a brat is just a fat hot dog. Go ahead… pile on.
Tofurkey’s Italian sausage is a brat to me, because if it were sausage, in my world it would be smaller and something I might have for breakfast. But according to YA she didn’t put it in the basket because it didn’t say brat. I won’t say we actually argued about this, but it was the first time in a long while that I’ve gotten to roll MY eyes.
The Boy Scout brought the two wreaths over the weekend. Even though I normally don’t do any decorating before Thanksgiving, it seemed silly to just lay them on a table for a few days, so I hung them up. One on the outer front door and one on the back porch inner door.
Then yesterday morning, I spent a few hours picking up, cleaning up, arranging – it had been a while and the downstairs was looking ragged. Our kitchen trashcan is actually on the back porch (thanks to a string of too-smart Irish setters) so I was opening and shutting the door onto the back porch repeatedly – each time I was greeted with a waft of evergreen. It gave me a wonderful feeling every time. My family always did live trees for the holidays. A couple of years ago I flirted with the idea of an artificial tree and decided against it because I thought I would miss the evergreen smell.
I have other favorite smells. Two of them are hard for me to admit; as a vegetarian for almost 50 years, it seems somehow wrong that bacon and tuna are high on my list. They bring back pleasant memories from when I was younger, not from the taste of these things but the experiences surrounding them. Of course, warm bread smell is hard to beat as well. Wasband and I once ate an entire loaf in two hours – the first loaf out of our new bread machine. And chocolate chip cookies.
Husband and I finally had time last weekend to see to the garden to trim the irises, peonies, and day lilies, roll up the soaker hoses to store them in the basement, and take down the bean poles and tomato cages. It has been very cold at night here, with lows of 20°F.
Despite the cold, the spinach and chard have thrived over the past few weeks. Our next door neighbors, whose children help us in our garden, love chard. I only grow it to make a couple of Italian pie of greens each summer, and freeze some for pies in the winter. We always have more than we need, and the neighbors take the fresh chard we gladly give them to extended family gatherings where they cook it up and sprinkle it with vinegar. It is their family delicacy.
I thought I had picked the last bit of chard a couple of weeks ago, but during our garden clean up I noticed that the remaining chard had grown some pretty big leaves. I asked the neighbor if he could use some more, and he and the children came over and clipped the chard to the ground for one last autumn feast.
Husband visits a couple of our Lutheran congregation members who reside in an assisted living community to bring them communion. There is always an exchange of their homemade pickles and slices of pie for our pesto sauce and pastries. Simple gifts that mean so much.
What are the simple gifts that are precious for you to give and to get? Have any of your pets brought you “gifts”?
Even though the last thing I really need in my life is another dessert cookbook, I could not resist Frosted by Bernice Beren. It presents some more complicated techniques than the usual sweets cookbook but in a way that made it seem like I could take them on.
But you know my rule. The cookbook shelves are full – if a new cookbook comes in, something has to go. This has been easier in the past but it took me a few days to finally choose. I have a handful of cookbooks that I have never used (not even once) but because they are cookbooks from my travels, they have always been protected by the “something has to go” rule. For many years I would pick up a cookbook while on trips but most of them have just sat on the shelf for all these years as a testament to where I’ve been. The Hawaii cookbook is a case in point. It wasn’t very expensive and had a pretty little cover, but I’ve never made one darn thing out of it. Hawaiian food isn’t one of my favorites and this particular little cookbook is mostly meat and fish recipes.
When selecting a “to-go” cookbook in the past I’ve always felt like I shouldn’t oust a travel cookbook. Having them felt like a statement. But last week when trying to decide I realized that nobody stands back there in the breakfast room reading through all these titles. I’m not making a statement to anybody but myself. And I certainly don’t need an unused cookbook to do that. Even if I don’t remember where I’ve been, I actually have a world map (in the very same room) with push pins of all the places I’ve visited around the globe! (This is not the first time I’ve had a revelation about keeping books around for the statement I think they make, but the first time I’ve applied it to my cookbook collection)
So the Hawaii cookbook is going to a new home in my friend’s Little Library. I expect some of the other travel cookbooks will also make an exit one of these days, although ScandinavianCooking (from my Baltic cruise) and The Africa Café (from my first trip to Capetown) will stay, since I have used them repeatedly!
Anything you’re hanging onto because of a statement it makes?
My van was in the shop last week for new brake pads. My office building is a mile down the same road as the dealership, so it should have been a straight shot for the driver of the courtesy car to get me and take me back to the dealership to retrieve the van when it was finished. There has been extensive construction work on the road, however, so he had to take me the winding, back way through a new housing development behind my work and the dealership.
The driver was younger, a mid-30’s guy who doubles as a mechanic, and he told me that he grew up in an older section of houses also right behind my work. He even pointed out his parents’ home. He remembered when the area of the new development was just tree shelter belts and bare plains. He reminisced with great wistfulness about the trees that were no longer there and all the “forts” he and the kids in the neighborhood would make among the trees and how they would raid the other forts and all the fun they had.
This put in mind all the forts my cousins and I would try to erect in and around the trees in the groves on their farms, trying to nail boards together to make structures and how exciting it was to sit in them. (Here, they are shelter belts. In Minnesota, they are groves).
Children love forts, even if they consist of blankets thrown over the sides of end tables. I remember my mother throwing a blanket over the sides of my crib, and how oddly satisfying that was. I couldn’t have been more than 3. Our children, too, loved blanket forts, and any small enclosure they could erect and escape into. We even had a book about innovative ways to make forts.
What are your memories of forts? Why do you think children like forts? Did you or anyone you know ever have a tree house? Any good tree climbing stories?
I love Halloween. Admittedly I love lots of holidays and special occasions. (I sent cards to a few people on National Eat a Peach Day this year.)
We used to decorate a lot more but the current terrorist tabby and devil dog make indoor décor a little difficult. For many years YA and had ghosts playing ring-a-round the rosy out front and some years we’ve had spider webs adorning the front evergreen. I always do a cornstalk and usually a few days before Halloween, I get pumpkins (if I get them sooner, the squirrels just eat them).
Then on the night of Halloween I put out my luminaries. I made these when YA was little (and I couldn’t afford to buy décor). Mandarin orange tin cans painted orange and then stamped with pumpkins and black cats and eerie clouds – then I punched holes in them with a hammer and nail. (I filled them with water and frozen them first – made it much easier to punch the holes.)
I love seeing trick-or-treaters and when YA was little, we used to have quite a number. As the years went by, it’s gotten less and less. From what I’ve read, this is common everywhere, not just my street. Of course, pandemic threw a monkey wrench into trick-or-treating. Last year I put candies into little bags with orange ribbon 3 weeks before Halloween, wore a mask and held the bowl out as far as I could. I only have to do this three times; only four trick-or-treaters last year. It was very sad.
When I saw the “Candy Map” app on a Nextdoor thread, I asked YA about it. You put your address in indicating you’ll be open for business on Halloween night so all the little zombies and princesses can find you. I don’t know if it will bring more costumes to the door but we decided to give it a try. I went ahead and filled little bags again this year – I did twelve. I’d love it if I have to quickly fill more bags but even if I give out twelve, it will be three times more than last year.
Husband and I have been fortunate in the longevity of our appliances. Until this summer, everything seemed to be fine. Then, the 15 year old washing machine began to make a very loud noise during the spin cycle. By loud, I mean that conversations could not be held until the spin cycle was completed. (Our laundry area is on the main floor of our house.) It sounded as though a B52 was coming in for a landing. The repair guy told us that our repairs would cost $500 to replace the bearing in the drum. A new washer would cost about $900.
We will buy a new washer this weekend. It is time. I wonder, though, how many more washers I will have in my lifetime. The only one I am interested in is connected to Bluetooth. Whatever for? That is strange!
How have your appliances held up? What have you had the best and worst luck with? Any good repair stories? When have you lost your bearings?
Over the weekend, Husband saw that the last warm days were upon us, and cooler weather is ahead. He got the idea that he wanted to move his reading chair from beside the window to a more sheltered spot, in the dining room. And he was, with good reason, not fond of a temporary move I’d made while he was in rehab when I needed a desk for all kinds of medical paperwork – I had dragged little desk into the archway, partially blocking traffic flow.
Now, I’ve written before how I love to re-arrange the furniture. This was very unusual for Husband to initiate, and for me to follow, but it actually worked this time! If you’ve done this before, you know there is no way to move just one piece of furniture. We spent most of Sunday afternoon and eve pulling things out, dusting and cleaning, trying one position and giving it up for another. ALL KINDS OF FUN. We realized at one point that the TV, located near the computer, had to stay put if we wanted to continue watching via streaming. But when we were done, every other stick of furniture in the living and dining rooms had found a new home.
I wish I had a “Before” photo, complete with the renegade desk. But these “After” photos are the end result, with which we are well pleased.
What motivates you to make (any kind of) a change? If you live with others, who instigates a change in your surroundings? What would you most like to change about your dwelling space?
We had three inches of rain in the past week, and Husband decided he could safely fire up his smoker/grill to smoke a couple of pork butts we had in the freezer. There has been a burn ban all summer due to extraordinary drought, so this was the first time since May he has been able to grill outside.
The butts smoked beautifully all day in pecan and hickory chips, and by dark they were done. Husband used a very large carving fork to remove them from the smoker. He brought the butts inside the kitchen. The fork disappeared somewhere between the grill area outside and the house. We have searched high and low in the garage, the smoker/grill, the garbage, and the shrubs surrounding the grill area, to no avail. Husband, who is part Scots and believes in ghosts, thinks there was Divine intervention and this was a joke played on us by the supernatural.
I reported earlier this year on the Trail that I thought I saw my late father’s ghost in the hallway one night. He loved playing jokes on people, and I could see him hiding the carving fork somewhere ridiculous for us to find later. I am pretty sure the fork will turn up one of these days and we will say “Oh yes, I forgot I went here after the pork was inside!” Until then I will scold my dad and tell him to reveal where the carving fork is.
What have you lost? Which of your ancestors would love to play a joke on you? What do you think they would do?
I paid no attention to home decor in the early years of my marriage. We were grad students living on sketchy incomes. Our furniture—sagging, mismatched and threadbare—came as gifts from our parents. Moreover, my former wife dominated all decorating decisions. When I ventured to suggest something that might make our home attractive, she was amused that the spouse with lousy taste was offering advice to the spouse with good taste.
Then, rather suddenly, the marriage ended. Within a few weeks I lost my father, my job and my wife. Everything about my life changed almost overnight, with my address being virtually the only thing that stayed the same. When my erstwife suggested I was now free to sell the home and move anywhere on earth, I panicked. Like a man who has suffered a shipwreck and now clings to floating parts of his old boat, I needed security. I needed my home to be constant and comforting.
But there was a problem. The upstairs of my home had become a place where I did not belong. I lived in the basement, rarely venturing upstairs where everything reflected the taste of my former wife. That began to bother me. After dithering for half a year, I decided to take on the challenge of changing everything about the appearance of the upstairs of my bungalow. I had to make my home a place where I would not feel like a trespasser.
Home decor, something I had ignored all my life, became an obsession. Although I had never bought furniture, now I haunted furniture stores and consulted catalogs. Having never bought a lamp, I bought seven, all with stained glass shades. I gave away the art that my erstwife had put up and replaced it with original art, a big tapestry and a triptych. I collected fine art pottery and a handsome Mission clock to promote a turn-of-the-century look. I bought six rugs, including two hand-tied Bokhara orientals from Pakistan. I changed the color of every wall of every room. I installed new sconces, chandeliers and light switches. I studied the Arts and Crafts movement in American domestic architecture, and educated myself about the fascinating home design movement that produced the bungalow. My home had been built in 1925, and now I honored that by filling it with lovely objects from the early 20th century.
Reclaiming my home took about four years. I understand that the way I accomplished it was unusual, but I had been put in unusual circumstances. It was the perfect project for a divorced gentleman who was not as young as he once had been. Buying Chinese knockoffs of Tiffany lamps was healthier than other ways I might have processed the divorce. When I was done, virtually nothing was the same. It was all different and it was all me. The upstairs became a place that made me smile, a place where I could—finally—feel “at home.”
Have you ever taken a serious interest in the look of your home? Are you fond of any particular style of domestic architecture (Colonial, modern, Gothic revival, Arts and Crafts, etc)? Or, like most people, are you happy with an eclectic approach?
