Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yes, little one, Mija, miss Lady Zoe. You were six weeks old and you had a kitty come by every day to walk you. What a special girl you are.

Now we’re down to 4-6 outings per day as you’re eleven and will need more as you grow older. I’m up to the challenge. You’ve gone through a lot, crossing the country more than once. You’re a great car dog, Zoe, only awakening at freeway ramps and stop lights.

I have to bring you in for a heartworm test and to get your nails trimmed because the dremel tool your dad bought scares me and I think I’ll hurt you with it.

In addition, I have decided that anything our vet wants to do with you will involve me. I’ve always been the “tech” during nail trims and bloodwork so why not now. You do not want to let your pack leader go. If our vet doesn’t agree we’ll find another vet. You passed your first Senior Panel with honors. We need to stick together good puppy! If I have to go in the back with a mask and gloves I’ll do so.

Even if we go back to 8X walks per day it’s OK with me. I’ll still lift you to bed every night and to the car when it’s OK to transport you. I will always feed you the best food and sometimes when a shred of cheese hits the floor you can eat it.

You’re our girl, Zoe. I’ll be with you no matter what. I promise, Dee

I believe that without failure one cannot achieve success. Lose that ball game, wreck your souffle, get a broken heart. Rise above it.

My first was the EZ-Bake Oven. Pretzels was the first packet they wanted me to make at age six and put through the 120 watt light bulb cooker. It was so sticky I threw it out and spent five minutes getting the goo off my hands. Now I make pizza dough every week with Italian 00 flour and it is gorgeous, easy to work with as was my last mix with 2/3 AP flour and 1/3 whole wheat.

Inspiration. I made a chicken chili for my family years ago and had bought a pepper plant at the farmers’ market that day so decided to use 1/3 of what the recipe suggested. It was a Thai chile plant. The chili was inedible. I added everything but the kitchen sink to it and it was not ready to eat.

Now, due to my familiarity with Texas, its chili and Lady Bird Johnson from a recipe in 1962 for 5,000 at the Ranch in Pedernalaes, TX including JFK, I’ve my riff on her chili with pure spices and scorched chiles and not just powders. My Swedish neighbor taught me how to make meatballs, so I taught him how to make Texas chili.

Way back my cousin visited and I wanted to cook a chicken. I placed it in a small apartment stove and it browned on the outside, then the pilot light went off. After cooking time was done I sliced into it and it was raw inside.

He said I was trying to kill him! We re-lit the pilot light and I broke down and sauteed the chicken sauteed the pieces and he enjoyed his meal. Years later, he makes fun of me for the debacle. I can cook a chicken, even spent an inordinate amount of time finding a capon which we had for Christmas dinner. You’ll see my capon blogs as I had a bit of a problem with Whole Foods Market but farmers came to the rescue, as they always do. roastgoose.com will get you a capon. You can even buy it cooked but I prefer to do it myself, and not in a faulty apartment oven!

As cooks, we make mistakes. That makes us better at home or even in a restaurant. I didn’t put enough salt in this. It was undercooked so I had to place it back in the oven. I just saw a retrospective on Dan Barber and he is a revolutionary chef. With French training, his brigade just says “YES” and not Yes, Chef. He makes me want to go back to the earth to teach us that just because when rock-hard avocados arrive from another country, they’re not what we should be eating today.

Unfortunately, where we live now has a very small window for farmers’ markets and I cannot grow a garden from our current home.

Lately I’ve been roasting the heirloom carrots in all colors and they are delicious. Tonight I’ll make a pasta with pesto and a chicken breast, sliced to fill two plates.

The secret is learning, reading, wanting to do your best as a cook especially for family and friends. There are no mistakes, only learning opportunities. Dee

It’s April 21, windy as all get-out and it’s snowing. Someone told my husband that we need three springs to actually have spring weather! I believe him now. Luckily I haven’t cleaned and put away my down coat or gloves yet. Or taken off my snow tires. Just an update. Dee

Every Friday, at the place that was our old restaurant. He’d get the jalapeno burger and I’d have French Onion Soup. Now it’s a flower shop that has 50% off on Fridays.

Today, after he’s been sick all week, I am having simple spring flowers, daffodils and daisies, delivered to him across the country. He’s not coming home as planned and instead is going to take it easy this weekend, rest and sleep and hopefully watch a couple of action movies I never want to see. We trade on movies which is why after I saw The Ring courtesy of a co-worker he got to see Memoirs of a Geisha…….. twice.

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I am not a fashionista. I did make a stop walking (yes, it’s warm enough to walk this week) to the grocery store at a shop. My husband tells me I need clothing. I agree. I bought a really cool black/white cropped shirt that screamed MM. We’re the same age, OK I’m six weeks older but she’s gorgeous and a model. I brought it home and tried it on over my bodysuit and it was so tiny. I gave it to her with the receipt and tag so she could get something smaller. She’s probably a size two.

It fit her perfectly. I took off the tag and crumpled up the receipt and she will wear it. I suggested that with her deft sewing skills she make it a 3/4 sleeve. MM sold me the 1957 Italian Necce sewing machine, the first that ever did a zig zag stitch. It is all metal and gorgeous and I gave it to my mother-in-law, M.

The fashionista model MM told me I had a good eye for fashion. I just don’t wear it (she didn’t say that). And I think I’m cool with First M. She loves all those cams and learning that new old machine. I married her son, then we gave her a super cool sewing machine and she has no-one to sew for now. I may come up with some legacy ideas.

When laid up after knee surgery she did make some hopsack towels, each embroidered with different herbs and their names. I’ve a great iron and keep them pressed and sometimes use them as napkins at the dinner table. Most guests are afraid to touch them because they’re so special. They are special, as is my family, all. Dee

Yes, I’ve an archived photo of a birthday party in our 1965 garage with my dear neighbor and friend Tommy and we were pinning the tail on the donkey for prizes. He died of a brain tumor before age ten and my parents chose not to tell me he was sick. He had six brothers so I found out soon enough.

Now that we are looking into new places to live closer to the job my husband begins in a few days, he bought a map of the USA I received today and have not opened, and pushpins. We’re going to play pin the tail on the US, with online data from census, walkability scores, crime stats, education, housing opportunities and mainly, airport schedules for nonstop flights to cities served. Oh, and the nearest Whole Foods. That works well for me searching neighborhoods once we select a city.

Airport is important so my husband can come home on the weekends to see me and dog Zoe. While so much more information is available now than in donkey times, sometimes it’s too much and sometimes not enough.

Perhaps a casino can set up a game with five airports that fly where we may need to go. We put in ten bucks, pull the lever and figure out where to live. I’m looking at housing and everything is expensive. We have no information as to where other clients he may be serving are located so it’s literally back to…. pin the tail with Tommy, God rest his soul.

His family has an Irish bar in my old hometown. I stopped by perhaps 20 years ago en route to my Aunt’s from the airport to order a soda. I was challenged by the bartender as to who I was. When I told him he put my tooth through my lip dragging me down the street on my bike, and I missed the school trip to the Zoo the next day, he knew I was his kid neighbor.

He then bought me the soda, and told me that his younger brother’s wife just had a son the day before, and named him Tommy. Let’s hope Tommy is on our side on this choice. Raise the pint Tommy never grew up to have to his memory and his family, Dee

I was a tomboy so didn’t dream of weddings and did not have scrapbooks dedicated to that special date. Instead I was encouraged to graduate college and have a life of my own.

Twelve years into marriage I still don’t have what one would call a “wedding album,” just a scrapbook from shots taken from our guests at an elopement. Its cover shows one our favorite dogs, Gus, with a placard of congratulations around his neck. That photo sits by my desk every day to remind me not only of his wonderful life, but of ours.

A week after we met, we had lunch at a sports bar, just burgers. I opined that I never wanted an engagement ring, it just wasn’t fair. And that it’s about a marriage. So many women get carried away and think this is their day and they’re going to cost their parents a fortune for a dress, a band and a party.

We eloped, for many reasons, and our families have forgiven us. Eight of us sneaked into a eucalyptus grove overlooking the Pacific ocean and a dear friend married us with vows he wrote. It is about the marriage and he was married 62 years before passing and his widow and I are still in touch.

My husband told me he’d need to be desperate for me to fall in love with me. I knew the moment he took my hand on our first date and helped me out of his car. Of course I didn’t tell him that it was love. It was up to him to figure it out.

As a wife of over 12 years I have strong opinions and so does he. We just work things out. I know when things are about to happen, most of the time, and am there for the glory or to pick up the pieces. That’s what best friends do for each other. That, my dear readers, is what life is about.

I think of Etta James singing “At Last.” My love is here to stay. He’ll be home on Friday. I need a menu and to clean up this place and even show him I know how to put a new battery in my old computer. Do you have a dime to unlock the plate?

He’s the electronics guy and late night dog walker. I do everything else. From Just The Wife, Dee