Green Things

The DH and I moved into a new house about a year and a half ago. As part of the deal, our builder threw in the front yard, free of charge (so to speak), but the backyard has been a hill of rocks ever since. And the time has come to turn those rocks into a beautiful, thriving land of green. We waited until we had to, because a green backyard costs a chunk of green, too.

So, here we are, ready to get started, and I find my mind is reeling with possibilities. We have a completely blank canvas, and I can’t stand to make a decision. (We all know how afraid I’ve been of blank canvases lately—just like the blinking cursor on a white page or a bare wall in the front room.) But, the time has come (the Walrus said), and it must be done. And all my plans have to wait anyway. After all, you have to start somewhere, with say, grass. But still, all I can think about is lilacs and blackberries . . . lilacs and blackberries.

It’s great moving into a new area with new homes, but I’ve found that greenery is one thing I’ve missed, and all the fantastic colors that come with it. There are plenty of new manicured spaces around here but none of them have been around very long. So, there are no mature plants. They are all very childish and do childish things: they grow how and as fast as they want, paying no attention to what I ask. =) It will just take time, I know, but I’m a little impatient. I want some shade trees that actually provide shade. Like, now. This summer. “No can do,” the tree says. Such a back-talker.

Well even if I can’t have my meticulous plan, I will be happy to see grass. And roll around in it. And be able to walk from the back porch to the garage barefoot without the pinch of walking on rocks. But I have saved a few dozen of the big ones. I was going to make a walkway with them. I’ve scrapped that idea, but I want to do something with them. I think they will give the backyard a sense of self—to know how far it’s come. And when I’m fighting with my lilac bush to grow this way or that or to bloom or to not die, it will probably be good for me to remember, too.

As the French Do

When my sister was in high school, she played tennis. It was her teenager “thing.” Ya know, it’s what she was into. She read Tennis magazine and had a very defined sock tan line, the kind where it looks like you are wearing socks even when you take your socks off. If she had been a family pet, we would have named her “Socks,” like those Clintons. So, when I got into the ninth grade and found that many of my friends decided to take up tennis (and share that blissful last period together outside), I decided to join in. If my sister could do it, certainly I could learn right? And so, that’s how I found myself on a hard court in the blistering sun getting beat by my tennis star older sister. Apparently, it was harder than I thought. Eventually, I took a few private lessons and learned how to hit the ball where it would sometimes go in, and that was enough to last me through my friends’ tennis phase. (We later discovered study hall, in which we did everything else except study. It was much more suited to our needs and didn’t require running sprints.)

Even though tennis didn’t stick, I always liked watching my sister play, and I especially liked watching the Grand Slams, at least a few of them. Wimbledon was always my favorite. In them olden days, before the advent of Tivo, we had to watch the matches live. For breakfast, we’d have strawberries and cream, the official Wimbledon treat, and watch Steffi Graf pummel some poor unsuspecting opponent with her wicked forehand.
The US Open always proved exciting, and my sister even got to go once when my parents moved to New England for a stint. But, I have to say that the French was never my favorite. Maybe it was the time of year, maybe it was that glowing orange clay that always gave me a headache, or maybe it was just the French, but whatever the reason, that tournament never interested me as much as the others.

I haven’t watched tennis for years. I’m not sure exactly why; it must just be that the sisterly influence isn’t as strong. But since I find myself in front of the television quite often as these snowy/rainy days persist and persist, I noticed the French Open on ESPN2 the other day, and it was such a throw back and a thrill. I think I’m converted once again. I've been reeled in by the strategy of the game and that whoosh-pop, whoosh-pop rhythm.

Some observations:

(1) Once you learn the rules of a sport, you never really forget them. (Well except for maybe a couple, like tiebreaks.) This is not the case, however, with playing. Tennis is not like riding a bike.

(2) When you take a hiatus from a sport, it takes a hiatus from you. Meaning, I don’t know many players on the tour anymore. However, that’s part of the fun, too. It’s been fun the last few days to get to know them, and I already have my favorites.

(3) What is up with women’s tennis clothing these days? Used to be women would wear very pristine, athletic looking clothing. Not something you could show up to a club in. I’m sorry, but I’m actually very distracted from the game when a women is playing in a neon tutu.

(4) Why didn’t I ever like this tournament? The surface slows up the game making the points longer; and all the sliding around and changing direction. It’s very exciting. I should have gotten over that orange a long time ago.

So, if you are interested in giving tennis a try and you’ve never watched it, check out the final next weekend. (Trust me, it seems quiet like golf, but it’s much more interesting. =)

April's Advent

I used to get a card every year on my birthday. Inside was a happy wish and a little poem, usually to do with the month of April. Themes centered around rain and flowers and spring and Easter--renewal--all hand written in a halting script, denoting that whoever took the time to write it also took pains to do so.

I was thinking about my great-grandmother yesterday morning as I was washing dishes. She was a traditional person with traditional manners. She'd had an accident that left her with quivering hands, yet she wouldn't hear of anything else but showing us in and serving us drinks and snacks from a platter. I never saw her wear pants, only dresses. Always dresses. I remember one time helping her in the kitchen to get her snack tray ready, filling each empty compartment with finger foods. She asked me if I liked pickles (which at the time was one of my main food groups), to which I nodded vigorously. She handed me the green, dimpled thing and I took a big bite. The taste that followed was not at all what I expected (I had no idea that there were more than one kind of pickle). But even at seven, I was old enough to understand that it's rude to complain about what you've been given. But my face couldn't tell a lie. She just laughed and said, "I thought you said you liked pickles!"

She was a joy. She had a wonderfully western pioneer name: Elmoyne. I think it's the "oy" sound that makes it. I also have a grandpa named Doyle. ("Oy with the poodles already!") She's passed away now. It'd been a long time since I'd heard from her since her health wasn't great. It's tough to grow old.

I wish I knew where some of those forgotten cards were. In a box somewhere, presumably, or a binder. I wish I could go back and read those cards again as I could use a message of renewal right about now, rebirth, new beginnings. I could use a message painstakingly written by a loving hand, telling me that time passes, but we all go on, we all move forward, and it's okay. And she is. She's alright. And I'll be alright, too.

On Writing and Other Woes

So, I might as well not say, “I’m back, blogging world!” because every time I do, I take another long break for which I feel very sheepish when I try to sit down at the computer again and add to these ramblings of mine. I’m a little embarrassed to be honest.

There’ve been several times in the last six months to a year where I’ve thought of something and said to myself, “I’d love to blog about that!” But do I? No. I think out the beginning of a post in my head, but then I get sidetracked by a million different things and am left with just a wisp of an idea. Then I sit down at the computer and stare at the blinking cursor, blinded by a white page, and nothing emerges. My brain is frozen.

I think part of the reason I’ve been suffering from writer’s block is that my expectations are too high. Now, before you think me vain, let me elaborate. Somehow I’ve tricked myself into thinking that if I don’t have the time to write out a lengthy post—which, let’s face it, I always do—then I have to put off writing at all until I have the time and can devote my full attention. Well, I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen. So…. This blog will be evolving in the future, I’m afraid. In other words, I am now giving myself permission to say, “Anything goes!” We’ll see how long I can keep it up that way.

It’s a funny thing, writing. I love it and I hate it, at the same time. There’s nothing like finishing up the last paragraph of some pestering thought that’s been running through my mind all week. There’s something final about it, something satisfying. Doesn’t it just make you feel good to talk through/write through something that occurs to you? Some opinion that you just want to share, even if no one is listening/reading? (Yes, sometimes I do talk to myself. Does that surprise you? Haha.) I don’t know what it is about that. Maybe I do just like the sound of my own voice. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy a good interchange. But there is something about working out your own ideas about stuff that just makes me feel like I’m doing something good, I’m learning somehow, I’m making leaps and bounds. I’m also saying “something” a lot.

But I hate writing because I often feel as though what I want to say and what I’m actually saying are not completely lining up. Like the ideas in my head are expressed in shapes and colors and pictures, and I have to try to describe them. It never comes across quite right. My brain searches for the right word, and once and awhile it lines up just right, but other times it falls flat. It’s those seasons of flat that really get me down.


And I have to say that living in a world of diapers and bottles and baby talk doesn’t at all help. Sometimes I feel my brain may be disintegrating. As my daughter grows and learns at an alarming rate, I’ll be getting dumber as the days go by. When she reaches sixth grade, we’ll be on an equal playing field, if I’m lucky. So, I guess that’s why I’ve got to keep writing, keep doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles. And let’s face it, turning thirty this month isn’t helping my case. Yes, thirty. Thirty. 3 and Oh. I’m gonna pretend I think it’s great, but really it sort of scares me a little. And in a way, I have come to terms. Age is a number. We’re all gonna die one day. How’s that for optimism?

So, here’s to staying spry! Dear blog, will you, could you do that for me?

P.S. If you'd like to see semi-regular updates on the little one, please email me at cambookclub@gmail.com, and I'll give you permission. As of now, it's private. =)

I Am, I Am

This week I’ve been naughty. I’ve been taking part in another guilty pleasure, besides this one. There’s a series that Showtime produced called The Tudors about (you guessed it) the infamous King Henry the Eighth and his many wives. Well, the series in now being shown on BBC America, some random channel in the 200s that I came across, so I taped them. They weren’t so neatly spliced and edited, but there’s certainly enough to follow. Above all, the experience has allowed me again to thank my lucky stars that I live in a time when frequent disease outbreaks don’t decimate the population within a week, public festivities don’t include beheadings and hangings, and bathing in winter is not a death sentence but rather a matter of basic hygiene.

Of course Henry’s portrayed as an over-sexed, spoiled egomaniac, and certainly this characterization couldn’t have been far from the mark. He’s reincarnated in the body of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, in whose steely stare seems to lie the seat of evil itself. They couldn’t have cast a better Henry. He’s terrifying, childlike, and explosive, all wrapped into one.

I’ve always been fascinated by Elizabeth I, which in turn led me to be interested in her mother Anne Boleyn, the second, unfortunate wife of King Henry. She faced a terrible fate, after waiting so long for the crown and being despised by a people who weren’t yet used to the revolving door that would become the queens throne. To keep them all straight, you’ll remember from your high school history class, the helpful couplet:

Divorced, Beheaded, Died.

Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

Anne was the first to lose her head at the King’s displeasure—well, at least the first of his wives, rather. This dysfunctional family story has been given a lot of attention in the fictional world. I think it captures the imagination because it seems impossible to think how a man could go from loving a woman enough to marry her (although I suppose that’s debatable) to killing her off in just a few short years. And since Anne was the first home-wrecker, she seems to attract most of the attention. Anne was there before Henry’s I-do-I-don’t pattern was established. For all she knew, she was the next and the last wife. I can’t think she could have imagined that she could be cast aside and become one of many.

Years ago, I read The Other Boleyn Girl (it was made into a movie with Scarlett Johansen and Natalie Portman), and it was just okay for me. Anne was accused of treason, adultery, and incest (with her brother George), but who knows if these charges were legitimate. Most seem to think not, but this book made believe as if they were. Which seems interesting since Henry divorced Catherine of Aragon on the argument that since she had been his brother’s wife, their marriage was unlawful. And Henry, with his never ending string of mistresses, had picked out Anne’s sister Mary before he become interested in Anne.

After he disposed of Anne, he was free to wed his next interest, whom he had already started dating right in Anne’s face—Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting. She gave Henry his coveted son (although he would never become a true monarch, dying at the age of 15), but then she died of complications from the pregnancy. Funny . . . the only wife Henry actually wanted to keep, and he couldn’t have her. Although, who can say what would have happened had she been permitted to live, since Henry’s mood seemed to turn on a dime.

And that’s when he really starts running through wives as if they are going out of style. And it seems they were. When the second Anne, of Cleves, was presented to him—a match skillfully and painfully made—he was displeased with her looks and had the marriage annulled as soon as possible. When Henry said he didn’t sleep with her, it was probably the only time it was true. At this point, Henry was also no treat to behold. He’d been injured in several jousting matches, being too proud to admit that he was too old for the sport. Because of his injuries, his legs, Henry’s prized attribute, were literally rotting. Not to mention the fact that he’d taken to drowning his sorrows in the equivalent of Big Macs and KFC for every meal, ballooning himself to massive proportions. Why is it when some men get old and fat and lazy, they think they ought to remain regarded as the 18-year-old versions of themselves? It seems wealth and power can be a combined tonic of a pseudo fountain of youth for some women. Love truly is blind.

Henry took this May-December phenomenon to new heights. His last wife’s parents actually named her after Henry’s first queen, Catherine of Aragon, and she was to be the third C/Katheri(y)ne he married. I wonder if he ever got them mixed up, like children whose names begin with a similar sound.

I must wonder at how these women are portrayed, particularly Anne Boleyn. She’s a headstrong, outspoken, stubborn girl, prone to put in her opinion where it is not warranted, about everything including politics, and to fits of rage and jealousy at her husband’s affairs. She’s careless and spoiled, only pleading for forgiveness when her nature has bested her again, often provoking the wrath of the king. Maybe he would have overlooked all this, but when Anne gave birth to a healthy girl and then couldn’t do the same for her stillborn son, the camel’s back had been broken. There are letters, documents, etc. that can all attest to the truth of these facts.


But I must counter—in a time when idle gossip was taken for fact—can we really be sure of Anne Boleyn’s character? Can we really say anything about her for sure? I suppose we have some evidence, and perhaps she was stubborn by nature, but couldn’t that have been exaggerated? Anne knew of the king’s disposition long before she became his wife. He courted her for six years while she loyally waited for his increasingly difficult divorce to somehow go through. I can’t imagine he was faithful to her all that time, especially when it’s “reported” that they didn’t consummate their relationship until the divorce was imminent. Her own sister was one of his mistresses! And his willingness to spurn a woman to whom he’d been married for over twenty years—that couldn’t have been easy to overlook.

She must have known that Henry’s good graces were thin at best. Would she really have been so careless? Or did the king just get tired of her? Or was he seeing visions of Catherine in those stillbirths that he couldn’t get over? For all we know, Anne could have been obedient and docile, or Henry could have been, being pushed and pulled by his advisors. Can we really say for certain? We’ll most likely never know, but I guess that doesn’t take away the pleasure of supposition. We always want the key to the mystery, to unravel the carefully woven plot. But if we really pulled the curtain and saw the magician’s tricks, I have a feeling the story would probably seem more ordinary than we care to admit. So, I enjoy the scandal, whether it’s imagined or real. Huzzah!

The Real McCo[ok]y

I tried to read Julie & Julia when I heard they were making it into a movie. I got a little past chapter two and gave up. I can’t recall now exactly why I couldn’t stand it, but I remember it had something to do with the author’s spastic personality. When the movie came out, I decided to go see it anyway, even though I hadn’t been that impressed by the book. So, while I didn’t find the “Julie” story line that interesting, I was captivated by the woman who I’d only previously known for her famously high-pitched, sing-song voice. Julie Powell gets all the credit for introducing me to the wonderful world of Julia Child. Last year, my book group read My Life in France, and I really enjoyed Julia’s strong will, her sense of adventure, and her love of full-bodied flavor.

To her credit, the idea of making every single dish in a cookbook, especially one as large as Julia Child’s collection, is quite a task, and one, having completed it, she ought to be very proud of (and of course she is, as we all know). And I must bow to her enthusiasm, as I am incapable of such an undertaking. However, both ladies have inspired me to become a cook—a real cook. Someone who can throw together a nice dinner out of what’s in the fridge in 45 minutes or less and have it actually taste good. And if I can’t get there, I would at least like to be able to follow a recipe, have it turn out, and put a satisfied smile on DH’s face, without having to use any sort of prepackaged necessity. Plus, my goal this year is to be healthier—you know, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, all that nonsense.

So, I’ve made it my goal, in the spirit of Julie & Julia, to cook my way through Weight Watchers All-Time Favorite recipes. Yes, you heard right. It’s certainly not as romantic as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but hey, it’s a start. I won’t be counting points, but I figure that if any company would truly produce a healthy cookbook, it has to be Weight Watchers, right? Plus, the recipes have to be easy for the cooking-impaired, like me, but there’s still enough of a challenge there as well. I’ve made about a half dozen so far . . . some have turned out, others haven’t, but I feel my prospects brightening. I love to eat, so I oughta learn how to cook. Also, has anyone else tasted of the deliciousness that is searing meat before slow cooking?! It’s awesome.

Today, with all the trepidation with which Julie tackled the deboning of a duck, I tried the same, except with a chicken. A very small chicken, but with many bones. And I have to say, I made a terrible mess. Plus, I looked up nothing before attempting to do this from memory. (I took a cooking class back in college, where I learned what a garlic press was, and that there was such a thing as garlic cloves, where the powder comes from. You can just imagine how much I gleaned from the “taking apart a chicken” lesson.) I got started ripping the chicken apart and realized that I had no idea what I was doing.

And can I just say that anyone who eats meat/poultry should have to do this at some time? It was sort of freaking me out to see this mass of pink that vaguely resembled a being. Well, not quite vaguely enough. The wings moved like arms, the legs moved like legs, I kept expecting it to leap out of my sink and run for the door. I’ve cooked a turkey before (ok fine, helped cook), and pulling out the innards for some reason never bothered me. Maybe because they were already neatly packaged in a plastic bag that you just had to pull out. Not so with this mini-chicken. I had to yank out its guts and twist off its neck! Suddenly I understood my sister’s stint with vegetarianism, which she took up because she didn’t like eating something that once had a brain. But, after I took a deep breath and did my duty, I felt like a woman of the west, rustling up some grub for my young ‘uns. But that’s as far as I go—I won’t be killing and plucking my dinner any time soon.

So, I ended up with two chicken breasts, two tenders (although one was somewhat mangled), two wings, two thighs, and two drummettes (nice way to say legs). And I could sigh with relief. That is how I’m used to seeing a chicken. Nice and pre-sliced, resembling nothing in particular. And I cooked it up with some onions and carrots without another thought.

Seven recipes down, 193 to go. I guess the “Julie” storyline was more interesting to me than I thought, since I’m following in her footsteps. Maybe one day even Julia Child’s legacy could be on the horizon. Here’s hoping!

Someday, live lobster?  Hmmm.

P.S. The Crumbles is currently under construction. Please excuse the mess.