Rating: Edible

Good morning!


Last night we ate at Coco's because Ben had our car all day and we could not go to the supermarket.  If all these people didn't have to have such peculiar diets,  I could well have made a good supper at home without another market visit.  And it would have been better than Coco's fare.


Edible is the lowest positive rating, for restaurants, for me.  Edible applies to a lot of my own cookery, may I say?   So  I am not being stuck-up.  It's just that. Edible. Above edible, we can have good, very good, and delicious.  When we ate the Thai dinner, it could have been delicious but it was not, quite.  It was good--fresh foods, prettily presented.  The tastes were little pallid, I thought.  So--good.


The very good rating applies in my memory to individual dishes I have made or eaten out, rather than to a place or a meal as a whole. I have not had a meal which tasted uniform on the rating system, even Chez Panisse.  There was a lot I did not fall for in my meal there, even the dessert.  It was all very good but not all delicious. It's easy to make a delicious dessert, for example.  Not easy to make a delicious meat course: too many shifting elements go toward the whole; it has to be balanced carefully.  Not easy for me to make a good salad, especially now, for some reason.  Too much water on  the greens? That is probably my big flaw.  In a restaurant, too much sugar in the dressing, especially in these days when the Old Devil Sugar has entered menus big time.  But my dressings tend to be watery a lot of the time. 


I used to make the perfect dressing every day. I tore my own romaine and tossed out the hard white stuff. Then I followed the advice of the cookbook writer George Bradshaw:  add the olive oil first, just a little bit. Toss until every leaf is coated and it takes quite a while if you just use a little oil. At that time we could still buy Spice Islands Tarragon White Wine Vinegar which they no longer produce for some reason.  I'd sprinkle a little of that onto the salad and toss some more, and last would add salt and pepper and toss and serve.  Sometimes I'd add a little dry mustard to it, but never never sugar. My kids loved it and Ben has recently asked me about it trying to identify the elusive anise-like hint of just the right amount of tarragon.


I think that the vogue for Indochinese cuisines has made the sugary taste popular.  My mother always told me that the Chinese cooks used sugar as a taste enhancer, and they have gone overboard in the USA for sure.  


My sister no. 2 used to make the best Texas-flavored salads I ever ate. She used iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, green bell pepper rings,  onion rings, and a dressing of (not olive) oil, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper.  Perfect served icy-cold,  at midday dinner on a hot Texas day.  Doesn't sound any beyond edible, does it? But it was. I guess you just had to be there.  YAZZYBEL

What a Funny Summer

Good morning my friends.  


Here we are still in Concord.  Ben is healing. Today he goes for a bandage change and more PT.  Friday he goes to the surgeon to have the stitches removed. Still has to wear the (hot, hot) splint for some weeks more.  After the doctor has made a pronouncement, we'll see about going home.  But we have already stayed until another holiday's due to come up.  We hung around Texas through the Memorial Day holiday.  Now we are hanging around Northern CA through the Fourth of July. Maybe.


When we go home, we'll try driving east by Tahoe and going south on the 15.  It will be more interesting than the 5 and Central Los Angeles again.


Yesterday we went to Kaiser North and received satisfaction. We met with a young doctor, a beautiful petite young woman from...who knows? Some place where dark young women who are supposed to be more oppressed than Americans somehow manage to study and become physicians.  She was most intelligent and alert, a good thinker.  You could see her visibly sorting out the conflicting and confusing array of facts shot her way by Theodore and me simultaneously.  But she got us down to the lab and to the right tests. Now we just have to wait for some kind of message from Above (don't know whether Above is north or south) and see what's going on with him.


We have found a good thrift shop, Annie's Attic, which is an offshoot of Hospice of Contra Costa County.  Lots of nice stuffe at bargain prices.  Yesterday Theodore got a machine, one of those green metal things that you roll around on the ground to spread seeds or fertilzer.  He definitely thought it was worth cramming into the car.  I bought a bunch of books, good paperbacks that will keep me busy till we go. Poor Anna Karenina.  She just can't compete with the thriller mentality.


I also bought 2 lamps, one to partially lighten Benjamin's gloomy domain, and one to take home for the piano. I always need more light at the piano.  Benjamin does not need light, because if it's nice he is outside and if it is stormy he is looking at the television.  I asked him today for an envelope because I need to send Daniel's orthodontia payment to Cedar Rapids, but no envelope appeared. I think the younger generation do not need envelopes because they do all their financial stuff online and all their personal correspondence as well.  Ben also has Skype, which is wonderful because he talks to his friend Shashi in Orange County and there is Shashi's adorable little daughter Keily talking to him too, and singing her little nursery songs and just being cute. Right there in the window in front of you.  Lovely.


Today Benjamin has our car because he has to go to the PT again this morning for a long session. So we are taking the day to wash his sheets and towels and personal clothing....Then, tonight, perhaps that means we'll eat out.  Maybe Thai, again. I really like it because it tastes so pleasant and is about 90% fruits and vegetables disguised as a main dish.  So healthful.....Hasta manyana, my dears. YAZZYBEL

Sunday Yet Again

Good morning~We are still here in Concord.


Sometimes it's difficult to find time to get onto the computer. Especially someone else's computer.


We ate lunch yesterday at the Hometown Buffet, which is a kind of cafeteria with stations...you can get a Southern menu, a Mexican menu, an Italian menu, a cold buffet, a "grill" station (which means hot dogs et cetera, but there is someone there to grill it I guess), and a regular USA menu which includes mashed potatoes, carrots, and all that stuff plus "chicken fried steak," which bears no resemblance to either chicken or steak though it is fried. I think I'll tell you how my grandmother made chicken fried steak later in this post, just to balance the bad with the good in this world.  I only saw one fish dish, which were the world's tiniest filets of delicate flesh swimming in a damp sauce....looked as if they had ransacked the Bay Area's fishbowls to make it.  After you have eaten all you wish of the foregoing, you can go to the dessert station, which gives you the best thing about Hometown Buffet: tiny portions already made up, of puddings, pies, cakes, brownies, --you name it.  Also you can have squeeze ice cream in several flavors, plus chocolate sauce, plus nuts...My rating for all this is: Edible.  Edible is the lowest of the positive ratings in my book.  You can eat it and some of it is tasty. None of it rates as good.  However, for a bachelor like Ben, it's good because you can get a ton of salad, and an assortment of vegetables scattered over the stations, along with whatever entree you decide upon.  It's hard to get vegetables in an ordinary restaurant, for sure.


We are lingering at Benjamin's house because his car broke down Thursday afternoon.  So far, it is not diagnosed.  Like Theo with Kaiser.  So we wait.


Kaiser has been trying to call us from SoCal but now 
Theo is in a pet and won't call back.  Otherwise, we are not doing much. We are very familiar with the supermarkets in the area. We have gone to a few thrift shops, but have bought little.  Did buy two lamps for this very dim house, which Ben can toss after we go.


Poor little Anna K lies neglected on a table in the bedroom, while I have been reading Bad Luck and Misfortune, a revenge thriller by Chris somebody. It was very very readable. I have decided that vengeance is one of the most human satisfactions.  And our Creator asks us to forego it!  Frustrating, to say the least.


Let us get to Granny's Chicken-Fried Steak.  If I have told this before, please forgive me.


Take one or two large round steaks.  Trim them of fat and gristle, please. Cut them into pieces about the size you'd like to see on your plate. Get out the family ball-peen hammer and set to work. You want a nice resiliant strong surface, because this is exacting. You begin hammering at one end and keep going to the other, and then you go back and get all the little plump  bits where your hammer missed before. Try not to bash completely through the tissue, but really get close to doing that.


As you finish hammering each piece, throw it into a bowl of ice-water.  After a time, take the pieces out, dry them, and dip them into a large bowl of flour, salt and pepper. Lay them out to await the frying.


Get a big iron skillet, and put in at least one inch of good fat.  Do you know that Spectrum makes a very nice snow white coconut shortening that fries things up very nice?  Heat this fat to---350, I think it is...or till your test crumb of meat bubbles up convincingly. Put in the pieces of fat, not too crowded in the pan.  Crisp them up, turning when needed. Lay them out on a platter covered with brown paper.  Serve, and serve and serve till they are gone, saving one nice piece for yourself or else you'll never get any.  Oh my.  Talk about delicious. Talk about nourishing.  Best steak in the world.


Today we are going to SF...hoorah.  And right now I am going to get a cup of Keurig coffee in Ben's kitchen.  A costly machine that turns out a nice cup of Joe. Love, YAZZYBEL

Stranger and stranger

Good morning!


Here we are in suddenly cooler Concord.  Good sleeping weather.


Yesterday we dealt with the complexities of Kaiser Health System. North is North, it appears, and South is South, and never the twain shall meet.  We are waiting now for confirmation from the South that Theodore does indeed need certain lab procedures, so there we are in a holding pattern.


As we drove up day before yesterday, and confirmed yesterday driving around Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek and Concord, there is still something wrong with our car.  Something in the front gives out squeaks and groans and clunks as we steer along. So today we go to the Shell where Ben takes his car, to see what they can do to confabulate our trip.


In the meantime, I am dealing with a stranger's kitchen, and the stranger has RULES.  He has one skillet ( I have six or seven.) (Not counting the iron skillet, which I can scarcely lift any more...but that's another matter.) This costly skillet is non stick and cannot be scrubbed out with a handy stainless steel scrubber which I use on all my clean, lightweight Revere Wear.  And stuff sticks to it all the time.  


There is a new dishwasher which has more little electronic things on it than you can imagine. And a new refrigerator which is fairly normal. Seemingly.  I pointed high on an unused section of the cabinet to where Theo reached to unearth a couple of plastic plates. Good. They will do for the two of us.  Ben's two-ton very pretty Chinese made pottery can stay on the shelf except for dinner. And if we go to a Goodwill, and I see a large light-weight skillet, will I get it. You bet.


There are no saucepans that I can find. A couple of Danish enamel steel casseroles that I gave to Ben when he moved here will have to serve us as saucepans.  We do like his stainless steel cutlery which is huge and heavy to go with those two-ton dishes.  I am functioning as well as possible with these unfamiliar tools.  Last night we had turkey burgers on dilly bread, Moroccan salad of cukes and the usual accompaniments, string beans and artichokes from his garden on a plate with seasoned olive oil, more tomatoes and lettuce for the burgers, and corn on the cob which I cooked for seven min. in the microwave wrapped in wet paper towels (good)..and for dessert, diet raspberry jello with raspberries which do seem to add an alien touch of nature to such a chemical dessert.


I need to get dressed because we are going to the Shell to see what is wrong with the car. (Do we really want to know?) Hasta cuando, YAZZYBEL

Wednesday

Good morning!


Yesterday we spent the day driving up the 5 to Concord. So, greetings from the Bay Area! That's a misnomer though. It's really, greetings from the Sacramento Delta, for that's our weather here in Concord.  It was 100 degrees yesterday coming up through the Central Valley, well, over the Grapevine...and about the same here I guess. Ben's garden is doing fine. His artichokes are huge. We will have some for dinner.


It's bright, beautiful and bushy-tailed up here.  I see little sign of the fabled depression anywhere. I have the feeling that it's a private, secret, personal kind of depression where folks are keeping up a happy face as they struggle against a swamping economy...Lord preserve us.


We have errands to do this morning so guess I'd better get onto them.  I am glad we came. Ben can use a little help although he does not feel too bad thankx to the medicine they gave him for pain. We'll try to organize a few things, do a little garden work, and prepare some food before we take off.  We'll be here perhaps a week unless he sends us packing.  Hasta manana...YAZZZYBEL

Monday, Already

Dear Readers,

Good day!  Again, it's after lunch --or, rather, during lunch. I am eating deli coleslaw mixed with deli potato salad.

Another busy and baffling day yesterday. Son Ben called in the late afternoon (we'd been out grocery shopping) from the ER in Walnut Creek. He'd been out in his yard putting together one of those little sheds you get at the home stores...and severely cut the inside of his wrist. Fortunately his friend Huey was with him, and he drove him to the ER. Benjamin got first aid and lay patiently waiting for the surgeon to come at nine p.m. to join back his wrist tendons. Gadfrey!  So we waited until this morning and he called from the hospital. Operation accomplished, and he is waiting for the word from above to find out what his restrictions will be. He does not want us to come. (Who could blame him?) But this is what happens when one does not have a girl friend handy who would like to be maid, cook, nursie, and coddler all in one. Perhaps he does. Perhaps that's why he does not want us to come. The main point is that we are in limbo until he calls us and a decision is made as to whether we can go tomorrow or not...the car is being redded up at the Christian Arabs' station nearby. I am half packed already; Theo will be when his laundry is done. Rosie has been called and can come feed the cat for a while. Or her husband, who "sits," can come. We shall see.

Today I am brooding over Kunstler's blog, Clusterfuck Nation.   He wrote today about a man who immolated himself on the courthouse steps in New Hampshire last week.  This man was and had been for many years embroiled in the nasty business of domestic violence and state takeover of the children.  I read the fifteen page suicide note that he sent to the local newspaper, and found it lucid and rational for the most part.  He was far  too rational a person to have been pursued to the point of suicide--or was he? He said not a word against his wife, except to point out that she was forced to go  along against him so as not to have the kids taken away from her, too.  If true, this is horrifying. I certainly believe it can be true. Go to http://www.sentinelsource.com/ and look for the story...it is there. 

The man theme of K's blog today was men, manhood, and the lost of manhood for American men. I tend to agree with him.

Kunstler goes from there to marriage for gay men, which he's against, for more rational reasons than one sometimes hears.  He thinks that legal union should be enough...I do too.  After all, legal union is all that our country offers to any of us.

My mother told me, once, and I don't know how it came up but it made sense to me then and it makes sense to me now: A marriage is made between the man and woman who contract for it. The government can only make it legal.  The church can only bless it.

Think about it. Kunstler thinks that advocates for gay marriage are promoting adifferent agenda entirely...and I also pretty  much agree with this too...the different idea is that homosexual marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage, or even better.  I don't think those two things belong in the same ball game, frankly.  As an Episcopalian, I can agree with my church's humane view of co-habitation and commitment for EVERYONE...call it marriage or whatever.  But push me too far into the equal but better game and I get nervous. YAZZYBEL

Saturday Already

Good morning....

I did not write yesterday because I could not find the poem I meant to put in to polish off the Friday posting. I did not look very hard, because I was busy all day. Little accomplished.

So often this blog goes more unembellished than  it might be, because I cannot find a poem, a photograph, or a drawing,  that would go so well with it. "Organization is the key to success," was one of my father's maxims which I might well have profitted from if I'd learned it.

Another of my father's maxims was, "Always fly first class."  I can only give a wry smile in response to that one.  I have flown first class, and do love the luxury of it. Compared to the squeezing and cramping of regular class, it's great.  But I don't drink much and don't have a great yen to eat food while flying, so other than for the space I can't really appreciate it enough. My companion the last time I flew first class was a young man who was returning from Minneapolis where he had made a Christmas visit to his ex-wife and young children. He was a home building contractor who had "made a shit-load of money," as he gracefully put it. Now in the depths of the recession, some  years later, I wonder if he is still as complacent about his status and if he still flies first class.  Perhaps he's come out smelling like a rose.

The good news from here this week is that the neurologist who examined Theodore on Thursday said that he didn't find signs of Alzheimer's (though there were memory problems.)  He said that there was some Parkinson's perhaps and offered L-Dopa, but did not press for it.  But when asked to name as many animals as he could in one minute, Theo said, "Cat, dog, rat...," and then ran out of steam.  "Think of the zoo," said the doctor, and Theo got out, "Camel, bear....," and I said, "Desert," and he said,"Lizard....," so there was definitely a problem with gathering his wits....Otherwise he discoursed in a sane and witty manner, much like the kid who's been coughing for a week but would not produce one little sound for the doctor if his life depended on it, and the doctor could not say there was anything terribly wrong with him. The doctor did not say he could not drive.  So now we can drive off for another vacation. Yahoo. YAZZYBEL

Shining

Good morning! I got up at four-thirty by mistake this morning. That is, I awoke refreshed, and, looking at my watch thought that it was five-thirty.  Up betimes, and --wrong!  I knew that I was wrong when I went out to get the paper; there was a preturnatural stillness and darkness over all the earth, I mean, Fairway Court. Well, I'll take a nap this afternoon if I need to.  I find that a cup of coffee, or a glass of iced coffee, works well at midday to keep me from being too snoozy in the afternoon.

Let's go back to 1959.  Theodore and I lived in the best place I have ever lived in, well--perhaps second best--no, third best--anyway, it was an apartment on LeConte Street in Berkeley only millimeters from the campus.  The apartment was tall, and was built of brick and concrete, a large and imposing structure.  Our apartment was on the second floor, up a narrow and turning stairway. There was an apartment above us on the third floor, and every morning at two a.m. a woman came in and walked about on the hardwood floors with her high heels for about an hour before settling down to sleep. We complained a lot about that, but Mason Macduffie, the agents, did little.

The apartment had a tiny living room that was barely liveable but it had a fireplace, and a huge huge many-paned glass window that opened onto LeConte street. That place is still there and it amuses me to think that someone still lives there, now fifty one years later. There was a miniscule eating area and a very very tiny kitchen in which I managed to turn out plenty of eating in the Temple Tradition (more about the Temple Tradition later)...

There was a small bedroom which held our double bed and a dresser and not much more, and a dull windowless little bathroom.  Out in the hall, if you climbed the stairs you came out on the roof, which had a magnificent view of San Francisco for you to look at as you hung out the washing.  I wrote a great poem about that, and if I find it, I'll put it in tomorrow.  I really need to know where all that old stuff is....

Anyway, that November of 1959, we were blessed with a number of guests.  I remember a visits from three different women we'd known: Hortense, my old friend from Laredo; Irene, a really nice girl from Colorado U., and Petty, an older lady from Brownsville who came with her son Jimmy one evening in late November. We had a wonderful time, talking and laughing.  Petty later told my mother that I had looked beautiful that night, that my face was actually shining.  Shining with light, that is.  I've been told that another time as well, when I was in a friend's wedding--I took it that it was because I was wearing an orchid colored dress.

But that night in November, I was wearing my usual brown wool outfit because I 'd been in San Francisco that morning.  And my face shone.  I never talk about this because it is presumptuous if anything ever was. But I am writing this for my grandchildren who may inherit the gene, who knows? And I want them to know that it is real.

You know, perhaps, that Abraham's mother was said to have shone when she was pregnant with Abraham.  And you may have heard, perhaps, that the Annanaki (Zechariah Szitchen's extraterrestrials who came down to earth and tampered with the genetics here- about)..the Annanaki shone.  I shone that night, when I was pregnant with Alexander. That puts quite a burden on him, I know.  Nutty? Now hear this.

A Jewish gentleman who was quite taken with me once ventured to interpret the meaning of my name. Lon-gor-ya.  He said that in Hebrew, the word means "shining whelp of Yahweh."  Whoa.

A different Jewish gentleman told me that it could not be so, because the name of Y**h was not ever to be mentioned, and no Jewish person could ever bear such a name.  I didn't ask him then how come I shone? Of course this was twenty-odd years later and I knew nothing about shining and Yahweh and Annanaki then, in 1959.

I don't shine all the time, and in fact, only those two times have been mentioned to me in all my lifetime. But I believe they were real.  I may have shone at other times when nobody saw me or recognized what was happening, for all we know.

What a nutty thing to write about.  I probably wouldn't have mentioned it, dear readers, if I hadn't arisen at four thirty a.m. in the quiet, secret, dark. I will mention that Alexander, born nine months after that November night when I didn't yet know I was pregnant, was the darlingest, most remarkable little baby ever born....YAZZYBEL

Thinking at Night

Good day!

I listen to a little radio all night long, most nights.  I guess I do it mostly to stop myself from thinking. Thinking leads to memory, often, and as often as not, memory leads to regrets.

But this night, (morning, really), I lay awake and thought about San Francisco.  In the summer of 1959, Theo and I came home to California after six or seven months in Mexico.  We'd agreed that he would be going back to school in Berkeley to get his master's, and that I'd teach.

He did enroll in school, and I did interview in the Bay Area until I got a job in Oakland teaching third grade.  All that fall, he studied and went to school, and I went to work, throughout the week. On Saturdays he studied with a friend, and I got on the BART (its then-equivalent) and rode over the Bay, not under it, to San Francisco, where I got off and walked to Union Square. In my hands were a number of pieces of piano music, and the first thing I did was to go into the
Alameda Theater, a huge, hollow, echoing multiple space, and rent the use of a piano for an hour's time each Saturday morning.  I'd sit all alone at a piano in a small room, and practice my pieces by Ravel and Debussy, a feat I 'd been missing for over a year and was now to enjoy again.  Two ladies who were in charge of the place loved my playing and were impressed. Was I preparing a concert? It amazes me that I was that "good," that people would really have thought that I was some kind of pro.

After I'd played for a time, I went out onto Union Square. There were a myriad of first class stores to go into and explore then...the two Magnins, and then to Podesta Valdocci's flower shop, and the pet shop down that little lane....among others.  There were two delicatessens there near each other, David's and Solomon's, and I always chose Solomon's as it was smaller...I ate a simple bowl of chicken soup with a kreplach, or a nice sandwich of chopped liver, still my favorite "Jewish" food.

Then I roamed more until it was time to go home. The White House, the City of Paris--huge department stores with a wealth of goods I 'd scarcely before imagined.  I'll never forget the ribbon counter alone at the City of Paris...what wealth indeed.  I marched into the White House and asked for three yards of handkerchief linen and marched out with it in my arms. Nowadays, you'd have to find a clerk who knew the word "linen", and then"handkerchief linen...," if you were lucky.  And you'd have to be very lucky to even find a fabric department anyway.

I've often been sorry that I didn't walk more, all over San Francisco, on those days. I could easily have done it, for I could walk miles then.  But,t hen, I had all that music with me...and I had to do that...and as I now realize, I was dressed in a rather stiff formal little suit-dress of light brown wool plaid, stockings and the appropriate undergarments, and high heels. I was in the City, after all!!!  Nowadays, I would be in pants, good walking shoes, and a strong but light windbreakers, and I would be walking everywhere--if I were in my twenties again, or even thirties, forties, fifties or sixties!!  I think of the clothes we wore then--stockings and not even pantyhose at that--they had not been invented.  The next year at the very Sather Gate near which we resided there was to take place the beginnings of a social transformation the likes of which we could not have imagined at that time.  But I got pregnant that fall of 1959, and woke up in December with a persistent "morning sickness" which left me no more time for rambling  around in San Francisco or elsewhere.  And by the summer of 1960, Alexander came upon the scene and there was no more time nor space in my heart for anyone but my family and my new baby. YAZZYBEL

Monday Amendment April 13, 2011

It's still Monday morning; the Geek Squad cannot come out till next Sunday and they say to shut down my computer till then...so, it is adios temporarily to my throngs of followers...YAZZYBEL

Monday, and the Book Club Looms--in three weeks

Good morning...this will be a hurried post, as last night my computer suddenly started making a frightening roaring sound as of that of a racing engine. It stopped, but shortly did it again. I turned off the computer! A phone call to Ben informed me that it was probably the fan to the power (board?) of the computer. That means a phone call to the Geeks I guess because I have no other recourse.  Anyway, I am writing fast before the roaring starts again.

The book club are reading Anna Karenina. Finally, an old chestnut.  I 've read Anna Karenina a couple of times before,  I read it the way I read War and Peace in high school...going from love scene to love scene. In my mind, Pierre and Levin are kind of mixed up, although Kitty seems a little less loveable than Natasha...I remember Princess Mary and Prince Andrew's story appealed to me too in War and Peace. Since then, of course, I have seen both stories a number of times in cinema and television versions.
Those stories are different to me from the novel experiences.  But the computer is revving up again and I have no time to go into the books at any length for I fear a blow-up.

All I can say is that, when I opened up the book and dove into the confusion and emotional lives of the hapless Stiva and Dolly, and met again the Scherbatzkys taking their aristocratic recreation at the skating rink, and grimly tackled Levin's love and his feelings about his feelings--home again! That is what I love about Tolstoy. Home again!  And Anna and Vronsky havent even come into the picture yet. 

I have ordered the new translation and shall compare at least a little of the two to see whether or not it was worth all that work.

That's me in the car up there on our vacation. I thought I'd look apprehensive but I just look tired! Now I must close before the computer starts roiling again.   YAZZYBEL

Sunday, Good Day

Good morning!

Back at church today.  The first things that greeted my eyes were the gorgeous red brocade hangings of Pentecost.  This reminded me that I'd entirely forgotten my plan of yesterday afternoon to wear red today; instead I was garbed in turquoise and white.  It's the custom in these years to wear red on Pentecost, and some congregations really  observe that. Hardly anyone at St Paul's had on red in any degree, so I was in the majority though I'd intended otherwise.

We had a wonderful guest preacher, The Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr., minister emeritus of The Riverside Church in NYC.  He started up with a fairly small musical voice but developed it as he went along. He has a great speaking style.  The thrust of his speaking today (he also spoke at the Borum) was the need for Spiritual Renewal in our country.  He left us with no solutions to our national dilemmas pertaining to debt, entitlements, and spending, but gave us much to think upon.

His amusing analogy was of the speaking-up of Balaam's Ass, who was used by God, when there was no one else to speak up, to have His say.  We are in the position of Balaam's Ass.  We are the only ones who will be speaking, so speak up.

A beautiful exhibition from two artists of the congregation, Ken Gary and Kirby Kendrick, is currently on display on the walls of the sanctuary.  Their theme is, Spirituality of the American Southwest. Both painters are excellent. Kendrick's paintings are vibrant and alive, and made me realize that those mud-colored mesas and rocks that Theo and I just drove through are actually of the colors of crimson and gold.
Ken Gary's works are based on the cultures of Hopi and Navajo (and probably others) and are very lucent with a true spirit of the place. I loved both.

As I viewed the paintings, Martin Green, the organist, played a wonderful suite by Buxtehude in C Major, consisting of a Chaconne, Fugue, and something else.  Buxtehude goes along just fine with the spirit of the American Southwest, something that would pleasantly surprise him, I am sure.  Hasta mañana, YAZZYBEL

Saturday Sum-Up

Good day!

It's late. Went to Kaiser to pick up some medicine, went to the grocery, came home, finished up some chicken-corn-tortilla soup, and we ate.

The weather in our yard, as was appropriate to people used to traveling in TX-NM-AZ weather, was bright and sunny, and the sky was blue. The flowers were blooming and they do look better in sunlight.  Suddenly, however, perhaps on Monday, the sky got grey, the air got cold, and June Gloom set in with a thump.  We were cold in bed that night in spite of a puffer and a thin quilt, so I had to scurry around to find another warm comforter.  Ended up taking the one off the guest bed, as I remembered that in the optimism of early spring Theo had sprung up about a ten foot ladder to put a couple of comforters up in the garage. Now he is not to spring up any ladders, say I. And me--? Am I crazy? We're going to end up going to Ross Dress Por Mas when winter comes, I know.
And buy more comforters.

Sisters no's. 3 and 5 and their spouses are about to jump into the same car and ride all the way to Asheville NC  to visit no. 4 who has not been mentioned yet in this blog. I wish them well, and a safe and pleasant journey.

Tomorrow I go to church to be greeted with pleasant surprise by all those who hadn't quite noticed that I was gone.  I shall have tales to tell.  Hasta mañana to all. YAZZYBEL

Back Here at Home

Good morning!!

All the way home as Theodore drove along, I played a game in my mind, entertaining myself with moving furniture about in my house.  It was kind of like one of those puzzles where you have labeled parts, and you have to put them in a certain order, within a framework, by moving them about and getting Part Z to Space A  and all the other parts in order in between. I never could do those puzzles very well, but I managed to do it this time by putting the dining table on the patio, and eliminating the computer entirely. Hmmm...actually I have been wanting to put the computer on the workbench in the garage, so it would be OK.  But Theodore, though he almost never goes to the bench to do things any more, is against that idea. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter, he says. Good, say I.  I wouldn't spend so much wasted time out there.

 Anyway, the dining table outside, then the computer table becomes a mini-dining table at the end of the kitchen.

The grand piano and the antique settee change places, putting the settee along the wall as one enters the living room, and the grand piano on the long wall on the entry area from the patio.(Nearly in the kitchen.)  There's an electrical outlet in the ceiling there and I could hang my chandelier over the grand piano, in the style of the once famous Liberace. Tacky but fabulous.

The new 42 or 45 inch digital TV will be hung over the fireplace. Tacky again, but done frequently by the biggest designers in House Beautiful.  There's no denying the American thirst for TV no matter what.

The wicker chair will cuddle up to the sofa for a viewing cluster, sofa being directly in front of the TV/fireplace.  The old handcarved Louis XVI armchairs will have to accomodate us by appearing as chairs for dining.

The turntable Drexel games table that we got at the Goodwill for $24.00 will take the place of the computer table.  The green wicker tables will move away from the living room entirely and go to the guest room as bedside tables.

The long parsons type table that's taking all that space in the little guest room will come out to go--somewhere.  We got that at the GW too and didnt pay much so it's a small loss if we give it back.

HOWEVER, Theodore has received referrals for tests regarding his impaired motor skills/thinking processes, and I am once again postponing action to defer to the expenses that may be prompted by the diagnosis that may be put upon him by Kaiser....It is frustrating to be postponing action, and it is very liberating to be doing things that one's planned for.  I must deal with my inaction. Hasta mañana, my amigos. YAZZYBEL

Flowers of Arizona and Texas

Good Morning!!

Today I am going to write about flowers we saw on our trip.  And two new plants I got to bring home with me.

As we drove through Arizona, coming and going, the saguaros were blooming mightily.  I love the saguaro blossoms.  There's a kind of compound bloom that crowns the top of the plant and the top of each arm. I tend to think of them as a kind of water-lily up on top of each one but they are not like that at all. There are multiple flowers in a roughly circular pattern. The flowers are white in color, and very visible. I think I'll look on the web for a picture to put in here.There ya go.  Now, more of a closeup:

Are they not lovely?

A neat thing about the color of those flowers, and they do have a greeny-creamy tint to the white of them, is that there are two other plants blooming at the same time with the same color of flowers: the yucca, which sends up huge stands of blossom: and the matilija poppy which was all along the roads of AZ and NM: and the three plants all tone in, to a haunting picture of loveliness, in Arizona.

In Texas, we were past the big wildflower season, although we were in the Hill Country where Ladybird sowed so many seeds.  We saw, along the roads, lots of purple thistles of my childhood: And of course there were the ubiquitous "sunflowers" too:

When we got to Brownsville, we scoured my sister's yard for baby chili pequines, which I have always found. I like to replenish my CA stock every few years because they get too woody and kind of kick the bucket. We could not find any! But she gave me a handsome cultivar, Emperor's Candlestick, which we put into a plastic bag and brought home safely:
And I surely hope this thrives in the cold California air....
And last, but not least, sister no.3 was closing her AZ home for the summer when we crashed in upon them on our way home, and gave me the croton that graced her front hall (under a gro-light). It should not need a gro-light in my kitchen so will try to keep it going. I love crotons; used to hate them as a kid as I hated all colored-leaf plants. Kids have funny ideas sometimes: plants are supposed to be green.

There is not room to do more than mention the many lovely blooming cacti we saw along the way...I have no photos of any of this as I lost my camera and found it in time to take picture only of dismal motel room in Van Horn, TX,lol. Picture not included today!

Hasta mañana!  YAZZYBEL

Food of Texas

Good morning!

I'm going to talk about public food, bought food, restaurant food, fast food today. I cannot compare home food because all my sisters and brothers in law are phenomenal cooks (or eaters), so don't want to get into that.

We decided that we'd eat Whataburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner whenever we could find them, for we have no Whataburgers in California.  However, alas, I don't think that Whataburgers are what they were. 

But this brings me to a little-discussed point: even with chains, the actual quality of the food still depends on the individual stand itself. Its management, the training, the help, the cook, the actually cook of that day, still have great influence on what you're going to get to eat.

I think I'll just talk about three shrimp dishes today. I love shrimp but rarely eat it because Theodore doesn't like it (so too much trouble to make it at home for just me), and don't eat it out because I don't trust the restaurants to buy good shrimp and cook them well.

In San Antonio in a tiny Mexican cafe called Mi Ranchito Alegre, I decided to order Nachos con Camaron .  Wow, how delicious they were, and how well prepared.  They used medium sized shrimp and cut them in one or two pieces. These pieces were grilled or pan fried with flavorings.  For the base, they used the restaurant chips, not Fritos of course.  So, there was a base of fried tortilla pieces, the shrimp pieces, a sauce of tomato, chile, onions, chopped. And over all there was real cheese sprinkled and melted. This dish was unbelieveably delicious. I was very surprised at how good it was. Every part of it was prepared with care, and the result showed it.

Next, at the Vermilion in Brownsville, Texas (my home town) we had lunch with my sister's college pals, profs from the University of Texas (a jovial bunch) and a few  wives.  I ordered the shrimp cocktail, but this was no placid cup with a few shrimp hanging over the edge, filled with cocktail sauce. It was a platter with at least two dozen medium large cold shrimp and at least one avocado's worth of perfect cubes, swimming in a cold sauce that was a combination of the American and Mexican tastes, a bit sweet and a bit picante and just perfect.  I gobbled up the whole thing and expected to feel too full, but --there was something about this Texas food I ate--I ate much more than usual and many fried things, but gained not an ounce in two weeks.

The third good shrimp dish was on the way home somewhere near San Antonio.  We went to a Dairy Queen. We have now decided that DQ's burgers are better than Whataburgers. This DQ, like several others where we stopped, was operated by smiling, kind and friendly young people who seemed to be just naturally happy to be working and serving us food.

I ordered the "Shrimp in a Basket," something I'd ordinarily never approach in any kind of eatery that offered it.  It was perfect. It was served with french fries that were also quite perfect though I am not a french fry aficionada.  There were about fifteen good sized shrimp, tails on, breaded, perfectly fried. They were sizzlin' hot, served with a little container of Ken's Steak House Seafood Cocktail Sauce. It was cold and perfect. The shrimp were hot and perfect. I even complimented the chef upon leaving, asking to what extent he participated in putting the shrimp together. The girl said they come already prepared, and, "He fries 'em up."  Frying them up is not as easy as one might think. Temperature, timing, serving...all are important. He did a good job.

Over in Texas, everyone is still buying and eating Gulf Shrimp.  There's no doubt that the ones in Brownsville, the cold ones, were Gulf Shrimp.  Harder to tell with the others, especially the DQ ones. But--GOOD, GOOD.

That's all for today. Today is Wednesday and you know what that means--music, music, music. No. 2 gave me a new piece in Brownsville: Milhaud's Suite Francaise. so we shall play it today. SLOWLY.

Hasta mañana! YAZZYBEL