Just The Wife

Posted on October 16, 2015 | 5 comments

I do the cooking around here and am about to start a wonderful stew my husband will love after a week out of state.

Every once in a while I try to imagine a forever home that we could always come back to and would be perfect for us. As we envision it bathrooms would all have hardware behind the walls to allow for easy installation of grab bars and doorways that work. It would be an ADA home with the possibility of installing a wheelchair ramp. I worked with the EPVA years ago and they and architects in NYC opened my eyes to possibilities.

It doesn’t matter how old we are, it’s planning for the future. Guest space upstairs or in a special unit I’m designing that will allow family a separate place with kitchen so we can see each other for family pursuits and allow separate time for sleep and sometimes lunch.

I would want a great kitchen, three bedrooms in a log cabin on a lake somewhere. One bedroom would be my husband’s office, and there would be a cubby right off the kitchen where I could work and hear if anything threatens to boil over on the stove. Of course I’d do all our paperwork from there so would need a way of storing files.

My kitchen is a classic triangle. Island. Galley-inspired as these are the most useful kitchens I’ve known. Frig, stove, oven (s), sink (s). I can get dinner ready a lot faster with my husband at another sink with a mini-frig to hold ice and Dr. Pepper! I’m thinking poured, stained concrete for floors and counters but would need a big gel mat on the floor for my feet as it’s hard and I never wear shoes in the house. Perhaps concrete for a special counter, wood for the floor.

Chest freezer in the heated garage to 40 degrees, garage and freezer, for dog food and other things. Commercial food sealer bags. No immersion circulator. Kitchen storage for my main components, 5Q Kitchenaid with meat grinder. Pasta maker (I’ve never used it). Blender, food processor, hot water heater for tea and oatmeal, toaster. Cubby can hold food and travel books and he has his office and we’re good to go.

A farmhouse sink, perhaps two. Maybe one sandstone? I’m getting ahead of myself. But I’m only the wife. Dee

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In Sickness and in Health

Posted on October 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

My dog is fine. She’s having a great time meeting and greeting and even meeting new pups. She’s 80 in people years, kind of reminds me of my Great Aunt O who lived to 100, or 98, or 104, who knows. She would never tell us. Neither did Zoe. I just put her portfolio in front of me and it told me she was just six weeks old when we got her from the shelter. She’s nearly twelve years now, hip-less and happy.

D downstairs is sick. I just made him some herbal tea and gave him Wellness Formula, which has gotten me out of way more than a common cold. Try double pneumonia.

In sickness and in health, I may have promised my husband, returning tomorrow, that years ago. As he did to me. That’s what we do. Healthily and happily, hoping to enjoy my good food…. Dee

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Home

Posted on October 15, 2015 | 2 comments

Every website has a “home” but we have a home. A real home, not one on a blog or somewhere in cyberspace. We have a home.

Our home does not trick us into “contact us,” it’s just home where you make dinner and breakfast and take out the dog. Hang out in your pj’s and watch old movies.

Home to me is my best friend, my husband, flying in for the weekend and hanging out with me and our dog. I make him great food and we relax and enjoy the company and he gets to sleep in. I’ve got the dog, out, food, bed. I’m awake now, for good as she’s already got my side of the bed. Now that’s home!

Tomorrow I’ve some lovely potatoes to roast. Also a beef Carbonnade with onions, bacon and beer. I’ll look for some nice tomatoes at the market for a salad.

I miss him. It’s only four days this week. Seven months last year, I do miss him but just told him on the phone that I sleep much better when he’s gone! He inadvertently touches the dog, she jumps off the bed, comes over to my side and whines to get up. Me, Otis the Elevator Operator gets up, lifts her back and I get no sleep.

That’s home. Perhaps I’ll try pancakes or corn cakes for breakfast Saturday. Sausages sound good. Or my corn pudding with chorizo, a hit everywhere. I still don’t have menus together for Saturday and Sunday night. We’ll see. After all, we’re home. Re-runs, anyone? Food and movies. Dee

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Rights

Posted on October 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

Some, our forefathers and mothers gave to us, they seem to be taken away daily. Again, by war and terrorism abroad and ashore. Homeland and security don’t belong in the same sentence.

I had the luxury of knowing I’d have an education, career, marriage. Many people do not get what I received in my childhood.

Rights and priveleges. To live is nearly a right. To learn to drive is a privelege that can be taken away any day.

I learned this morning that in Connecticut, insurance capital of the world, one is not allowed to sue for injuries on a home insurance policy without suing a person, not applying to the insurance company.

We thought of moving to NYC once and declined due to moving and living costs. Now that I find our insurers for life, health, home, umbrella, everything will not cover us until we sue someone else, this is a state to be avoided at any cost.

We pay for insurance. We have the right to use insurance as needed, like if some kid throws one of our pumpkins through our living room window on Halloween. I’m not giving you ideas! Just get your costume and be nice at the door. Trick or treat, Dee

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Sitting and Waiting

Posted on October 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

My godmother and aunt died ten years ago. My mother died seven years ago. There is one member of their immediate family to carry on, and she does, day to day.

I’ve told you of a week at hospice with Mom. I want to tell you something else about hospital protocol. The hospice folks were great with Mom. I couldn’t have asked for better care.

When we arrived I was Nathan’s Mom. My indoor cat had gotten out and went to a cat party down the street in my neighbor’s home. He got pneumonia and also had cardiac problems. I brought him in and I was his mom for 13 years since he was five weeks old.

I didn’t know and don’t know how to wipe a laptop except Control C. I stayed up in the lobby all night writing, about him and other things. That laptop was old and not cleaned before giving it away. All I know are the thoughts I had on that uncomfortable bench at four in the morning.

At daylight I was called my name, not Nathan’s Mom. That was a sign that he was headed for euthanasia. A doctor asked to meet me outside to let me cry. But the fact that the hospital no longer called me Nathan’s Mom told me he was no longer an individual, the Burmese cat who never let me get in the last word. Destined for death and I had to make the decision, forthwith.

I held him before, during and after. He sent a peace through my body to let me know he was OK and it was my duty to keep his spirit alive. To this day, I tell people about the wonderful spirit and words he had and how he challenged me every day and I never got in the last word.

Be with your people, your pets, everyone for whom you share a responsibility. Make a casserole for the wife across the street who just lost her husband. Share cookies with the family that just moved in next door.

No-one helped me. I had a network of friends and neighbors and no-one helped me with my mother or my old cat. Luckily my husband was there for Mom, and said at Last Rites “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.” And he has.

All I can say is to hang on, remember the good things. look to friends and family and get through it. And don’t worry about getting in the last word. Nathan taught me that. Dee

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Thank You, WordPress

Posted on October 15, 2015 | 2 comments

I had trouble writing in high school. In college I was popular because of my vintage portable electric typewriter, the original Smith-Corona 1957. I wrote my paper first then the other gals stood in line. And I bought the ribbons!

During college I wrote talent agents and entertainers, read riders et al. Then I worked for government and analyzed legislation. After that, I wrote mission and vision statements and materials for non-profit organizations and wrote bylaws for non-profits where I was a Trustee.

In 2008 my husband said I needed to write. While on Thanksgiving vacation at his family’s home he created an account for me. It is not a traditional account because he’s a software genius but WordPress is my host.

You gave me the courage to speak from my heart and write 500 words in 15 minutes that would have taken days years ago on my Smith-Corona. I’ve traveled the country and bring my heaviest “laptop” ever that now goes for $6 on eBay! My aunt gave it to me, she bought it new, for my high school graduation.

I’d like to think my thoughts are more important than the pencil I used to convey those thoughts. 84,000 hits, not bad for a niche blog. I will not monetize my site nor will I keep from telling readers what I think that day. It could be that no-one stops at the crosswalk I had painted after contentious buy-in from both city and county, or my version of Lady Bird Johnson’s 1962 Pedernales River Chili that she served JFK and 5,000 guests at the Ranch.

Sworn to 1.000 posts I’m shy of 3,000 to retire. Yes, readers and followers are my buddies and friends. I’ve never met PDXKnitterati but we’ve been friends since our first week when we were named “best.”  I wrote about how to eat a Concord grape, that is still my most famous post. She knitted me a hat and introduced me to a singer, Juni Fisher. I hired Juni for a gig for Nanny’s 82nd birthday and she signed two CD’s to PDX. Juni has stayed with us many times since then and I’ve never met PDX.

Thank you for bringing new friends into my life through writing. Dee

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When You Walk Through The Storm

Posted on October 14, 2015 | 1 comment

hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm there’s a golden sky and the sweet silver song of the lark…… you’ll never walk alone.

I met a lovely lady today over pears and plums at the grocery store. She might just be a lovely woman here from the north country with her husband, for the day, or she may be angel here to help me on earth or elsewhere. I think I still have some work to do here. My husband is brilliant and 99.9% able to put down the toilet seat. He is about 2% at putting on a new roll of toilet paper. See? I’ve work to do that includes taxes, bills, contracts, editing class materials, plus our home and dog.

This lady, K, taught me how to judge pears and plums for ripeness and I got a pear and she told me to keep it two days and it would soften. I told her my story of poached pears in ponchos from cooking school. More on that later. I’ll have to make up the recipe as I do not have it from years ago. I do not like to ever give you a recipe I’ve not tried. Especially if I did so years ago and have replicated it or currently given it my own spin.

It was just so wonderful to meet K, as we have similar heritages and tastes. She wore an Hermes scarf. I need to find my Ferragamo’s some day! My husband keeps telling me to get rid of these last boxes and they may include my scarves, our marriage certificate, car titles and essential files. I need to go through each one first, dear, then it’s burn, donate, save or store. Luckily we have storage.

Moving is an art for us. Dad even got me a Florentine office waste basket, it’s leather and folds flat. A good day, Dee

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Monuments Men

Posted on October 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

I wrote this about Ghirlandaio:

***

Please do take the time to see Sta. Croce and the Pazzi Chapel, then cross the bridge behind it and make the walk. Stop at the church halfway up and give some money to the lady who takes care of the feral cats there. Make sure she knows the money is for the gatti, or cats, otherwise she’ll be insulted as if you called her a beggar. She used to bring them great trays of pasta from a local restaurant.

Then I went to cooking school in Tuscany for my birthday one year and went to San Gimignano for an afternoon. 18 of us were on a custom bus and we had one hour to see the town. Two of us ran 20 minutes to Sta. Fina, with earlier Ghirlandiao fresci. Spent 20 minutes there then ran back and made it just in time.

If you don’t have the resources for an art tour of Italy right now (I don’t) please check out Tea With Mussolini, a film with Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Cher. If you’ve been to Florence or San Gimignano you may even recognize the streets as it was filmed beautifully. Yes, Cher, and brilliant as a newly rich American with a heart of gold.

Take care and think about how art changes lives. Then remember that art was all people had before Guttenberg and reading. Think of your reading skills and your children’s and have them appreciate art as well. There is a reason for all those religious stories in painting and sculpture, no matter what religion you follow of if you follow none at all.

***

Hitler stole all the art. We liberated some of it. I don’t like war movies per se but love this one. I can see paintings go by and thanks to Fr. Murphy can identify them in a heartbeat. Our monuments men, at the end of WWII could not save the millions of people who died during this war. They did save our history and culture. Whenever I visit a gallery I question “who owned this painting?” Where did they die? I did visit Dachau, no German wanted to tell me where it was. There were no signs. Only a camp.

The Germans stole lives and culture. Please go visit your local art gallery and find the art that families died for and could never retrieve. Dee

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Favorite Walks

Posted on October 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

Santa Croce to San Miniato al Monte. I’ve walked it alone many times and would love to have my husband join me one day. There are two churches and an ancient cemetery.

I aways brought lira for the cat lady who fed the ferals. She denounced it but I said it was for dei gatti, the cats. It was a trek through the tourist-strewn mini-David viewpoint. No-one walked up the hill. The umbrella tourists, heaven forbid.

“Follow me, never let the umbrella get out of sight.” What kind of exposure, willingness to learn and accept different cultures, does this type of “tourism” allow? Lots of money in lots of pockets and people who want McDonalds at every stop.

Santa Croce is my favorite church in the world. San Miniato al Monte is close, behind Notre Dame and Westminster Cathedral and certain ruins. I haven’t done the walk in at least ten years but if my health is good I’d like to do it again. There’s a simple church with an amazing Annunciation that is worth the walk. The view over Florence is amazing.

Then I walked down and to dinner with family and friends. I did that walk every trip, unbeknownst to others, and hope I can do it again soon. For all the joy Italy, Greece and Scotland have graced me, I say grazie, grazie mille, Dee

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Questions

Posted on October 14, 2015 | 1 comment

What do you look for in choosing a new home? If you’re buying I’d have the best inspector in town check it out for mold, termites, and leakage whether roof or basement, electrical and plumbing before putting in an offer. Chances are the sellers put lipstick on a pig (granite countertops) to fool you into buying a disaster. Especially if it’s a flip.

When people come in to see a home (condo owners and most renters do actually consider it a home) they look for certain things. They may not be the right things, as the nursery is painted purple or there’s a really bad chandelier over the dining table. Those things can be changed.

Buyers in all ways see how the former owners lived and their choices, instead of the rooms and possibilities. Who cares if it’s purple? Check the size of the room and if it works for your family.

Think towards the future. How can my family live here. Is it the right neighborhood, school district for the kids. Is there a park nearby, can I bicycle to work. Will my wife be OK with the neighborhood because even though she works, she’ll have full care of the kids. I might mow the lawn on weekends.

Now let me tell you what I look for. A view. A good place with decent appliances and a kitchen that meets my extensive needs. We took over the “tech center” as my pantry. A good living space, two baths, ours en suite. Guest bedroom/office.

I’d love a basement or garage but that is not to be at present. I looked for a larger and more impressive space and found it wanting.  In my office with the belly of the beast, a printer my husband bought a while ago, I remain your faithful scribe, Dee

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