Talking Heads

Two lunches out this week.  It's too much happiness.

 

Tuesday I had lunch with my friend Ruth.  We always go to a Chinese restaurant, but our usual place has closed and is being turned into a taqueira, so this was our second week at Hunan, which used to be the classiest Chinese place in town.   (Now it has left its classy location and...well...let's say it's not up to old standards.  Our old place had a buffet; this place has a set price lunch plate, heavy on the carbs.  This week I chose lemon chicken.

It looks good.  And the chow mein was tasty, but the crab rangoons (those won-ton like thingies) were dry as a bone and had the consistency of cardboard.  As for the chicken, it tasted "old" to me and I only ate one piece of it.  I brought the whole lunch home for Walt, who thought it tasted ok.

It's fun to meet with Ruth, because she's a theater person and we always talk theater and books, this week no exception.  She doesn't get to as many shows as I go to, so she always lives vicariously through my reports of whatever show I have seen. And she told me about a book she had found at Logos that talked about various kinds of psychiatric diseases and how they were treated in various films.  

Then on Thursday, it was my monthly lunch with my long-time friend Kathy M.  We always meet at the Olive Garden in Sacramento.

We always order the same thing--the soup and salad combo; she has minestrone and I have zuppa de toscana, and we share the salad and the bread sticks.

Kathy and I don't communicate between lunches.  No e-mails, telephone calls or smoke signals.  We just meet for lunch.  We've known each other since the La Leche League days, when we were both nursing our babies and teaching other mothers how to breastfeed their babies. 

Our lunches almost always start with what outrageous political thing has happened, what outrageous thing some politician has said, and our fear that Obaa won't be re-elected (in 2008 we were hoping he would be elected!), and the latest news in the fight for marriage equality (Kathy's son has to live in another country because his partner is not a U.S. citizen and though they have been together for more than 10 years, he can't get permanent residency in this country....a problem which, incidentally, legal same sex marriage in California won't fix.  It can only be fixed at the federal level.

But today there were other things to discuss, like Romney's ridiculous and downright dangerous response in the wake of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Libya, using a tragedy as an opportunity for a political attack against the president.

The amazing thing about the backlash to that ridiculous statement was that other than Ann Coulter, most of the far right reporters condemned it as well. "Romney looked weak today," Peggy Noonan said. "At one point, he had a certain slight grimace on his face when he was taking tough questions from the reporters, and I thought, 'He looks like Richard Nixon.'"

Joe Scarborough was "absolutely flabbergasted" by Romney's response.

Even Bill O'Reilly admitted that "I'm not sure the Governor was correct" in his response.

The Washington Post called it "a discredit to his campaign" and the Los Angeles Times said it was an "outrageous exercise in opportunism." The Boston Globe labeled it "offensive on many other levels" beyond the timing of his remarks. 

Bill Clinton said that Romney is the kind of guy who shoots first and takes aim afterwards.

There are lots of things about a Romney administration that terrify me.  It would be the end of decades of work by gay Americans and women and old people.  Gays can forget ever getting equality in my lifetime if Romney is elected.   Women will lose the right to choose and if he leaves Social Security alone for people my age, my children certainly will never be able to take advantage of it.

But the thing that scares me more than anything else is a man who acts so quickly before having all the facts at hand being given the power to start a nuclear war....and don't think that isn't a very real possibility.

It's great having Kathy to talk about this stuff with, someone who shares my ideas, philosophy, and fears.  Walt doesn't really like to talk politics, but I do get my "fix" with my monthly lunches with Kathy.

Once More Unto the Breach

We're a month late.  It was a year ago, in August, when we signed up for our European cruise.  We missed this year's "early deadline," which was August 31, which would give us a special $600/couple discount for being returning passengers on Viking.  I was wondering if Char had changed her mind about the Ukraine trip that we'd talked about.

But no.  Yesterday the message came.

Still thinking about Footsteps of the Cossacks. Possible dates are April 21
or May 2. Of course those are approximate because I would like to do the
extensions before and after - 2 days in Kiev and 3 days in Istanbul. I was
hoping to call them today and see what is available for those dates. Are you
in. I don't want to go without my favorite traveling companions.

Of course Walt gave her the go-ahead to investigate and by the end of the day, we were checking options to sell our first born (sorry, Jeri) to pay for the trip, which will now begin not in April, but on August 31.

Kiev!  Istsanbul!  How more exotic can we get.  This trip starts in Kiev (they tell us it may take 24 hours to get there, given plane changes), where we have taken the option of spending 3 days there before boarding the ship. We are pretty much on our own with suggestions like "perhaps you'd like to try some typical Ukranian cuisine."  But there is the option of visiting Babi Yar, the site of the worst slaughter of carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union.  In September of 1941, 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation and it is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.  Not exactly a happy way to start our trip, but I would like to visit the memorial there.

We then have two days in Kiev on the ship, exploring things like the UNESCO site, St. Sophia Cathedral and something called the "Monestary of Caves," which is an extensive complex of churches and museums founded by monks in 1051. (Our Ukranian friend Andrij tells me that there is a "reconstructed Golden Gate Bridge" in Kiev.)

This trip sounds more like our previous Russia cruise, where there is lots of cruising and less stopping, which both Char and I are looking forward to.   The Danube-Rhine trip was fun, but it was exhausting to tour a new town every single day.  On this cruise, for example, our second day is just all cruising on the Dnieper River, arriving in Zaporozhye, the ancestral home of the Cossacks.  Here we   have a Cossack horsemanship show, which I am very excited about.  We had signed up for an optional tour to see Czech cowboys in Budapest, but there weren't enough people who wanted to go, so they cancelled the excursion.  But this Cossack show is a regular excursion, so everybody goes.

On the ship we have a Ukranian language lesson, then stop and tour a town founded by Catherine the Great. When we arrive in Sevastopol (a 2-day stop) we will get the chance to see a Black Sea Concert choir (I  always love stuff like that), as well as take a side trip to the ancient Greek city of Chersonese, founded in the 6th century B.C. and considered on of the Seven Wonders of Ukraine. 

We visit Yalta for two days and see where that infamous conference of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill took place and we also visit either the "Nikita Gardens," or the home of Anton Chekov.  We can also choose a wine-tasting excursion, which I can't imagine wine connoisseurs Char, Mike and Walt passing up!

We end the cruise in Odessa for two days, where we see, among other things, the "Potemkin Steps." (From the look of them, I suspect it will take me most of the day to climb to the top!)

Char has already said that she wants to bring a baby carriage (I wonder how many people going to Odessa have made that decision...if you have not seen the movie Potemkin, the story of the 1905 mutiny when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime, you might not have seen that classic scene of the baby carriage careening down the steps).

But things don't end with the cruise.  When most of the other passengers will leave Odesssa to fly home, we will fly, instead, to Istsanbul.   Ordinarily I would not be enthusiastic about extending what is already a 2+ week trip by three more days, but I'm really jazzed about going to Istanbul.  I have heard such wonderful things about Turkey and when will I ever have another chance to see it? 

We stay at a fancy hotel for 3 nights and see such things as the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia and see how much money we can spend at the Grand Bazaar.  

We also get to go to the Topkapi Palace, where I want to search for the dagger that was  stolen in the movie Topkapi one of the few movies that caused me to jump and audibly gasp during one scene.

So there you have it.  August 2013 we are off across the world again.  George, from Viking, called today and Walt made the deposit, with the balance due at the end of the month.

The ship does not have public computers like our other cruises did, but offers ship-wide wi-fi.  Given the iffy connect problems on our previous Russia cruise, I don't know how regular journal-posting is going to be, but I will be writing entries every day, of course, and posting when I have a connection.

A New Chapter

Well, perhaps I started a new chapter in my life today.  We'll see, over the coming months.

A week or so ago, I spent some time with Shelly and Ellen.  Our lives have gone in different directions lately and I hadn't really seen them to visit for more than a year.  Now that they are legally married, while I sign petitions and keep abreast of Marriage Equality issues, somehow the fire has gone out of me to actively work for marriage equality...perhaps because of getting at least two requests for money a day for a long period of time!

Anyway, we had a great visit getting caught up and during our time together. Ellen mentioned that she was in desperate need for help at Community Meals, a project she and Shelly have been deeply involved with for many years.

Davis Community Meals offers a free meal on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and lunch on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Participants often include seniors, low-income and homeless individuals, and families. Everyone is welcome. The meals are prepared and served at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Along with purchased food, ingredients are gleaned from local markets and donated by individuals, groups, businesses, non-profits, and government agencies, including the Yolo County Food Bank. The food is prepared and served by individual community volunteers, religious organizations, school groups, UC Davis and community service groups, and many others.

I gather, though that there is a loyal group of "regulars," women like myself who are "of a certain age" and have free time.  Ellen said that two of the regulars had recently had to quit.  Both were about my mother's age (or older) and it was getting to be too much for them.  She asked if I would like to help.  I said that I would.

I couldn't go that week because of my podiatry appointment, but this was the first Tuesday I was free and I showed up at St. Martin's to help out.

The first problem was finding the place.  St. Martin's is easy to find, but it has a zillion buildings, what with the church, the parish hall, and lots of school buildings, to say nothing of a bunch of tuff sheds to store stuff.   But I did finally find the right building and presented myself to the fairly small kitchen (smalll, given how many people they would be serving in a few hours).

Ellen wasn't there, so I introduced myself and was given my hair net, gloves, and apron and put to the task of slicing eggplant for today's Moussaka.  

The boss lady was very specific about how she wanted her eggplant sliced and in short order I discovered that I was unable to live up to her expectations.  She checked on me several times, told me often what I was doing wrong, and finally switched me to fruit salad.  Apparently there wasn't really anything I could do to screw up cutting fruit.

I was glad of the move because by the time I was given the assignment of fruit salad, Ellen had come and I worked with her and a lovely retired physician who sounded like she might originally be from Germany, or similar country.

I cut fruit for about an hour and a half.  Picked grapes off of bunches, cut canteloupe, plums, and peaches while Ellen and the other woman cut apples, mangoes and pineapple.  It was really fun, talking and laughing with them. We ended up with a vat of fruit salad and by that time, the eggplant had cooked and was being layered in pans with meat for the Moussaka.  All the other jobs seemed to be finished, and I was meeting my friend Ruth for lunch downtown, so I decided to leave, a bit early.  (Ironically, I originally met Ruth many years ago when we were both volunteering at the Homeless Shelter, which is run by the same board that runs Community Meals, so it was like my life was coming full circle).

It's just my first day at Community Meals, but I enjoyed myself and it felt good thinking about other people instead of myself.  I will go back next week and we'll see how long I'll last.  

---

This afternoon, I had a call from my mother.  She was cautiously optimistic and excited and I listened to what she had to say.  She received a letter from the Publishers Sweepstake Commission (which sounds close enough to Publishers Clearing House that I can see how people might be taken in) informing her that they had been trying to reach her by phone, but since they had been unsuccessful, she should call their office so they could tell her the great prize she had won.  Turns out she won something like $22,000 and they were sending her now a check for $7,000 which would pay the taxes on the money she won.   She should deposit the check and then they would be out with photographers to take her picture with her "big win.". She had her stepson talk with the man she was supposed to call and he assured him that this was legitimate and I guess it sounded legitimate to Ed, so they went to the bank and deposited the check. 

While she was talking, bells went off in my head all over the place. For one thing, she is almost never out of her house, so it couldn't be true that they had been trying unsuccessfully to reaching her by phone.  Also, she has an unlisted number that only very few know.  

While I was talking to her, I was Googling "Publishers Sweepstake Commission" and found a whole page (possibly more) of people who had either fallen for the offer and been scammed, or who found out it was a scam before they did anything.  I told my mother she has to go to the bank TOMORROW and tell them what she has done, I sent the web sites to Ed so he could read what I found.   And I will check tomorrow to find out what happened.

It makes me angry that there are so many people out there preying on senior citizens.  And they are so good at it that relatively intelligent people like my mother and her step son would fall for it.  Of course the scammers have only done the set-up and haven't asked her for any money yet, so I'm sure we've caught this in time, but I know there are lots of other people who have fallen for it and lost thousands of dollars they can ill-afford to lose.

The Family Cookbook

We're having Joe Special for dinner tonight.  It's a recipe I first learned from my mother, who liked it when she had it at Original Joe's restaurant in San Francisco.  (I wonder how many "Original Joe"s there are in the country!).  It's very simple.  You brown 1 lb ground beef, onion and garlic (in deference to Walt's hatred of onions, I usually leave those out), then you add 1 package of cooked and well drained chopped spinach (it's best to put it in cloth and wring it out to get as much water as you can out).  When that's all mixed well, pour in 4-6 eggs, beaten and as they cook, add about a cup of Parmesan cheese.

This is my "go to" dinner when I'm uninspired and happen to have both ground beef and spinach in the house.

My mother kept all of her recipes in her one cookbook.  It was a thick book, pages well worn and all those "extra" recipes she collected through the years stuck in among the pages.  And then in her frustrating Virgo way, when she reached a point where she realized she would not be cooking for guests any more, she just threw it away.  It was years before I realized that she no longer had it.

All those things I hoped to recreate some day when I inherited her cookbook will never be recreated because her bookshelf had to be neat and tidy and it never occurred to her that I might like the right of first refusal. It's the same way she threw out my "childhood" when I moved out of the house and she cleaned everything off of all the shelves without asking me first if I wanted to keep anything.   How I would love to have my high school diaries to read today.

I'm a decent cook and I have recipes that I make over and over again, but, unlike my mother, I don't have special recipes that people look forward to my cooking.  My mother made the best pot roast and potato pancakes that, though I have attempted many times, I have never managed to recreate.  And she can't remember ever cooking it now.  The bittersweet chocolate frosting that coated her famous choclate cream role is now just a memory and I have been unable to recreate that either.  My father made incredible calzones that bear no resemblance to any recipe I have been able to find anywhere.

Fortunately I did manage to have my mother make her famous enchiladas so I could copy down what she did, but she was already starting to forget by the time she showed me and they don't taste the way hers did.

I have often thought it would be fun to put together a family cookbook to give to the kids for some gift-giving occasion, but the problem is that if I were to print the things they remember and enjoy and talk about, it would be only a handful of pages long...maybe only clam dip and Mexican won ton.

The closest we have to a family cookbook was the book that Char and I (and others) put together as a fund raiser for Tiny Tots Nursery school.  Char and I headed the project, I think, and decided that what we would do was to use it to put all of our special recipes in it, along with all those donated by others in the school, so that whenever we wanted to make anything, it would all be in "Trifles from Tiny Tots."

My Joe Special is in there, as is Mexican Won Ton.  My herb-flavored Rock Cornish game hens recipe is there, which is a good thing because I don't have a clue where I first found the recipe (a personal favorite of mine) and would never be able to find it again.  Likewise the banana whip recipe, which originally came from a neighbor of my parents in San Francisco could not be made without the Tiny Tots cookbook (puree 6 ripe bananas with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice.   Whip 1 pint of whipping cream stiff, fold into banana mixture and chill.   Serve in 6 sherbet glasses, topped with a dollop of whipped cream and chocolate shavings).

Char's blueberry buckle recipe is there, as are her bourbon balls and her lethal Velvet Hammer punch.  She also added the "stuffing bread" which she invented to use for stuffing a turkey (too long to print the recipe here) and her famous "jello ring" (with embedded cream cheese balls)

The pumpkin pie recipe (which is really just what is on the can of Libby's pumpkin) is credited to both Char and me, which seems only fitting.

Walt's mother added her recipe for beef teriyaki (which I used just last week) and the 7 layer casserole she used to make now and then.

Walt himself included his recipe for Lamb Chops with Beer, which he makes once every year or so.

Even my grandmother's recipe for mayonnaise-cheese appetizers, which is always a huge hit when I serve them, is on the pages of the Tiny Tots cookbook (mix 1 cup Best Foods--or Hellman's--mayonnaise, 1 cup of Parmesan cheese and 1 bunch of chopped scallions.  Refrigerate several hours to blend flavors.  Spread on thinly sliced rounds of French bread, crackers, etc. and broil until lightly browned)

When I posted a picture the other day of Walt eating a spaghetti sandwich, it prompted suggestions from folks on Facebook for other things he could do with leftover spaghetti, one of them was to use it in a fritata.  "What's a fritata?" he asked.  I remember fondly that my mother used to make fritatas for dinner on nights when my father was at work, but wasn't sure I  remembered how she did it.  Fortunately, I got the recipe from her for the Tiny Tots cookbook:

melt butter in a skillet
saute onions and garlic until golden brown
add vegetables (my mother always used thinly sliced zucchini) and cook until softened.
Pour beaten eggs over all and let cook until set.
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, cut in wedges and serve.

Come to think of it, if you add ground beef and substitute spinach for the zucchini and stir instead of letting it set, you'd have what we're having for dinner tonight.  Spaghetti optional.

Maybe I don't need to print a family cookbook after all...I should just find the master for the TT cookbook (which I still HAVE somewhere, by the way) and reprint a new copy for all the kids.

The Soundtrack of Your Life

There are two moments in my life that I remember very clearly for a specific reason.  The first was the death of the wife of the man who owned the little grocery store near our house.  I had known them all of my life (maybe 10 years by that time).  We were coming home from Mass that day and as we passed the store we could see a black wreath on the door and we knew that one of them had died.  So clearly I heard a loud ominous musical chord in my head that was so real I was surprised there wasn't an orchestra in the car with me.

The second moment took place at Peach's house when we were visiting,   I had to have been early teens at the time.  We knew that my Aunt Marge was pregnant and I can still see her standing at the ironing board, cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she announced that she had lost the baby.  Again, a musical chord sounded in my head.

Think how interesting our lives would be if we had a soundtrack playing everywhere we went (our lives would either be interesting or they would haul us away to the loony bin!)

Imagine how dull the battle scenes in Braveheart would have been without music, or the battle scenes in Star Wars.  How would Dorothy have gotten from Munchkin Land to Oz without Follow the Yellow Brick Road?   

Would we still cry if Love Story or Steel Magnolias had no music? And would we tense up as effectively during any scary movie or TV show without eerie music to set the scene for us?

I want to have music to give me a clue what to expect...or to help enhance the mood while I'm experiencing it.  I want John Williams moments in my life.   I want something so wonderful that my emotions will be lifted by the wonderful swelling melodies.

I want Jeri to write quirky, bouncy tunes (which she has already done--but I want more) to accompany my watching the antics of the dogs as they chase each other around the house.

I want country music when I'm sad.  I want to know that other people are enduring trucks that break down and dogs that die and lovers that leave and crops that fail...and yet they survive.

My time in the bookstore has its own soundtrack already, as there is usually classical music from a local FM station playing softly in the background.

I want to drive down the highway with the music of Sideways accompanying me as I make my roadtrip, whether it is short or long, and when one of those big semis pulls up along side me, I want ominous chords to warn me if I should be worried or not.

When hundreds of crows come home from the fields each night and settle into the trees around our house, I want to hear either Alfred Hitchcock soundtracks or National Geographic soundtracks playing so I know whether it's safe to go pick up the paper in the driveway or not.

Unfortunately, most of my life is so plain vanilla that if it were possible to have a music of your life soundtrack, it would probably be elevator music.   

And I'd hate that.

---

What music would I choose for "life is good right now"?  Our TV is back and running without a problem, the 49ers just defeated the Packers for the first time in Green Bay since 1990, and we have a working microwave again.

Ned and Marta came yesterday and worked with Walt at getting the microwave put in.

Given how long they had to hold the oven up while Walt went to get various tools and try to screw in the screws at the top, I am SO glad that I asked Ned to come and help.  I remember when I was several months pregnant with Ned.  We had bought a new refrigerator and Walt had to put something in on the bottom of it.  He tipped the fridge over to have me hold up and said "Here hold this; I'll be right back."  I think I must have balanced the weight of the fridge on Ned's head.   But I think my days of holding up a heavy machine while Walt does whatever he needs to do are behind me.  And those machine cost too much to give in to my pride and chance it!

So thanks, Ned and Marta.  You get gold stars in your crowns this weekend!

Cheers

L'empress, who comments frequently on these entries, wrote an entry in the first year of her journal,  called The Taste of Wine which describes her relationship with alcoholic beverages over her lifetime.  I come from a long line of alcoholics and it's amazing to me that I don't think I have ever discussed this about myself.  I had two aunts who were kind of the Junipero Serra of alcoholic.   Father Junipero Serra traveled up California in the 18th century, establishing Catholic missions wherever he went.  Towns grew up around the missions -- towns like San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, etc.  

My aunts did something similar, after Bill W. had founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  After a lifetime of drinking, they found the light and became sober and wherever they traveled up the state of California, they founded AA groups.

Alcohol was always a part of my growing up.  My father was alcoholic, though I don't ever remember seeing him drunk until his later years.  He may not have actually been alcoholic until his later years, but he was always a drinker.  He was proud of the fact that he never missed work because of drinking (a wonderful self-delusion of a lot of alcoholics).  He gave up alcohol for Lent every year to prove that he could go six weeks without drinking, and then had a gin fizz first thing on Easter morning.  Every night he had his "high ball," a tall squat glass of bourbon over ice.  He would take the first sip loudly.  "Whooop....ahhh."   From the time she was little, my sister would beg for sips and ask for a "whoopah."

Alcohol is the way my mother (who never has more than one drink) entertains.  Come to her house and the first thing she will ask you is "what can I get you to drink?"  I remember times, within the last 10 years, when she would tell me how concerned she was about her priest friend (who dined at her house frequently) because he could barely walk when he left the house and she was so afraid he'd hurt himself when driving drunk.  I would ask her why she served him so much liquor and she was astounded that I would even ask.  "Because he wanted it," she would always reply.  I'm so glad he died before he killed himself or anybody else.

In the 40s and 50s nobody thought anything about giving kids a taste of liquor at home, at least not in my parents' circle of friends.  I was probably in high school before I was served an actual drink.  It was bourbon with ginger ale, heavy on the ginger ale.  But it was to let me be a "big kid" and mix in with the adults.  But this was only for at home.  I don't remember anybody sneaking booze into any of the parties I attended in high school.  I don't think we even thought about it.

College was a whole different ballgame, though. I drank. A lot.  When everybody was turning 21 and legal, my friend Jeri and I were the ones who were the youngest of the group.  Our friend Kathy had a temporary drivers' license which was her ID and when she turned 21, she gave the ID to us when we went out somewhere where liquor would be served.  Jeri and I shared it and I don't remember it ever being questioned.  Jeri, who is much older than I, ceremoniously gave the ID to me when she turned 21.

But most of the drinking was done at parties, where we didn't have to have an ID.  I discovered that I really liked to drink (is it any wonder, with all those alcoholics in my family?)  I developed a real love of rum drinks, which our friend Dick used to make (and still does, actually).  And I especially loved gin.  I would drink gin straight, sometimes out of the bottle.

When Walt was living in a house ("Newman Inn") with several other guys, I was the unofficial housemother, cooking dinner for the guys almost every night.  They called me "Mom" and there was a closet in the kitchen pantry that always had a bottle of gin in it which was known as "Mom's gin." I tippled freely during the day when I was there.

There were things I was definitely not proud of during that period of my life.  I don't remember what upset me the day that I drank so much, Walt found me passed out under a tree in the back yard of Newman Inn.  I always drank too much at parties.  Walt once told me that I could handle 2 drinks, but my problem was that if I had 2 drinks, I thought I could handle more.

When Walt was at boot camp, we had a telephone conversation after I had spent a ton of my own money on his damn car (which hated me) and he bawled me out for being "taken" by some unscrupulous garage guys.  I was so upset after the phone call that I drank a lot.  It happened to be a night when I was supposed to be ushering for a big Kingston Trio concert and I remember almost nothing about that night, other than being so drunk I could barely stand up.  I have no idea how I got home.

When I had my own apartment, I invited my parents to dinner and got so upset at my father that I was sneaking liquor in the kitchen, thinking I was holding things together very welll, but I still remember the tears in my mother's eyes when she told me goodbye.

I wasn't a huge problem drinker, as we got older and started raising our family, though when opportunities to drink presented themselves, I never let them pass by.  One of my big embarrassing moments was returning from a Lamplighters Champagne gala, seeing our babysitter (we were in a co-op and he was a very proper British father) and literally falling up the stairs, peeing myself in front of this guy.  

The older our kids got, the less I drank, but I always had a glass of wine when I got home from work until the day that I was pouring the glass and glanced at David, sitting on the couch watching me, and realized what a terrible lesson I was teaching him (given that he died while driving drunk, I guess that was really true). I stopped having a nightly glass of wine that night.

In later years, after the kids left home, I discovered that whenever I joined Walt with a glass of wine at night, I would be very sleepy and fall asleep watching TV shows that I was looking forward to watching and hated "wasting" an evening.  I drank less and less until I reached a point where I almost never drink.   In fact, I've reached the point where my favorite drink, as I have said here many times, is water.  

It's not a big deal for me.  I drink now and then, but I never drink to excess because I hate feeling out of control--I am more worried about embarrassing myself than I am about having too much alcohol.  I drink more when we are on a cruise ship than I drink the entire year.  I may have a cocktail in the lounge at night and then wine or beer at a meal, though I also often choose water instead of alcohol too.

I remember the second to last Christmas we had with my father.   He was more drunk than I'd ever seen him.  He couldn't remember his grandchildren's names and he stumbled whenever he tried to walk. When I went into the kitchen, I found a tall tumbler filled with bourbon sitting inside a cabinet.  I poured it down the drain.  By the following year, he had given up drinking and the difference was of night and day.  We had the very best time I ever remember having with him, jamming on the piano with the kids.  That was his last Christmas and it's nice to have that to remember as the last one.  How many Christmases were wasted because of his drinking?

If I had to give up liquor for the rest of my life it would not be a huge sacrifice for me.

Crabby Birthday Girl

Friday's birthday party was, as I said, held early, so Jeri could be here to celebrate with all of us.  But actually my mother's real birthday is the 7th (the day this entry is dated, though it is being written the night of the 6th).   I wanted to take her to lunch on her birthday, but she was already booked for that date (some friends from Hospice always get together on each of their birthdays), so I booked her for the day before her birthday.

I made a reservation at the same place where I usually take her, The Spinnaker in Sausalito.

I love this restaurant for many reasons.  It is situated in the tourist town of Sausalito and it juts out into San Francisco Bay so that there is a breathtaking view of the city.  It was nice to sit there and look at the new bridge that is being built...the tall tower will be the new bridge, still being built; the lower towers are the current bridge.

But, of course, the main reason for going to the Spinnaker is for the...crab!

We each ordered a crab louie, as we always do (after we had a vodka tonic first).  This may be the best place to get a crab louie because the crab is fresh, there is tons of it, and it's not "body meat," but huge chunks of claws, the best part of the crab.

My mother took half of her salad home for dinner.  I took half of mine too, but the bottom half (i.e., I ate all the crab and brought the lettuce home for Walt!)

The nice thing about the day was that she was really good mentally.   We chatted a lot about Clinton's amazing speech last night and about the upcoming election.  It was like the mother of old, which I don't get a lot of these days.

After our salad had been taken back to the kitchen to be boxed up for us to take home, we looked over the dessert menu and both decided to have a dessert.

I was torn between cheesecake and cream puffs (sadly, they didn't have creme brulee on the menu this time, which I usually order).  We both decided to try the cream puffs and were definitely not prepared for what we were served.

I don't know if you can get a feeling for the size of this thing, but there are two cream puffs which are bigger than any I have ever seen.  The chocolate is fudgy.  The almonds are toasted.  And in addition to that blob of ice cream that you see, on the OTHER side of the plate is an equal-sized glob of whipped cream.  

The waitress brought my mother's with a candle in it.

It was delicious, but there was no way I could have finished it and I brought one cream puff home for Walt.  My mother finished hers!

I lost count of how many times she told me what a perfect day it had been and thanked me.  Yeah, I know she forgot she'd already said it, but it made me feel good for the expense and for taking her.  We both love The Spinnaker a lot and who knows how many more of these lunches we have left.