December Reading List

Ten books read this month which makes the total books for 2020 one hundred and two. 

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver had been on my 'to read' list for so long I had forgotten to look for it. It was no longer on the new books shelves. I plucked it out of the stacks and am so glad I did. I had also forgotten what a wonderful writer she is. The book goes back and forth between two families who live/d in the same house but 140 years apart. 

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett is the prequel to his The Pillars of the Earth, which I bought years ago and have never read. But after reading and enjoying this prequel, I'm going to dig out my copy of Pillars and finally read it.

Still reading my way through Jodi Picoult books. I only have four or five left which include her YA books. Handle With Care is about a child born with osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease) and how it affects the family.

Songs of the Humpback Whale is more about a dysfunctional family than it is about whales.

Think Twice is my last Lisa Scottoline book until she comes out with a new one. I have really enjoyed her Rosato & Associates series as well as her stand alone novels. 

I liked Unsheltered so much that it sent me back to Barbara Kingsolver's books and I discovered one I had missed reading. The Lacuna is about a young man with a Mexican mother and Anglo father. His mother moves back to Mexico, taking him with her. Fate takes him into the realm of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as Lev (Leon) Trotsky. I am so glad I didn't miss reading this book which came out in 2009. 

Small Wonder is a collection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver. For me,not quite as entertaining as her novels, but still interesting.

My library books were due back Tuesday which was the day of our big snowstorm, so I called in and renewed them. That left me without a book to read which sent me to my own shelves and another book by Barbara Kingsolver - one I first read in 1997 (I know because my Half Price Books receipt was still in it) - The Bean Trees.  Rereading it is a reminder that I should reread more of the books I saved, because they were favorites. And it is almost like reading them for the first time.

Tansy Undercrypt is an author I have come to admire through her daily facebook posts of microfiction. She can tell amazing stories in just of few lines. So when she announced the publishment of Wondrous Whatsit, The Microfictions, Volume I, I ordered a copy. Most are only one page in length with a few trailing onto a second page. The shortest is only two sentences. 

Small Towns, Dark Places was Tansy Undercrypt's first published collection which came out in 2012. My daughter was already a big fan and gifted me a copy. I read it and reported to Kari that the stories were "a bit too dark for me". It has languished on my book shelves ever since. 

But I decided to read it again now with a new respect for this self-proclaimed purveyor of doom and whimsy and can report this time how much I liked and appreciated those stories from the Tractor Triangle - the "Bermuda Triangle in the Midwest, an area that stretches from Unseemly Lake, Minnesota to Endless Travails, Iowa, on to Misfortune, Wisconsin and back again."

Happy reading in the New Year.

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

In other words, I'm not sorry to see this year coming to an end. I do have reasonable hope that the new year will eventually see the coronavirus under control. But I accept that I'll be wearing a mask and taking precautions for many more months. Nuff said.

Our forecast yesterday was for heavy snow and we got it.

The snow was coming down so fast and hard you could hardly see the trees across the pond.

HD still went out for his morning walk. He had just pulled up his face shield before I took this photo through the window.

Once the snow ended in the afternoon, he went out and started clearing off the deck.

We were supposed to get between 5-8" and received 7". Freezing rain was also forecast and luckily we did not get any of that.

December's Full Cold Moon arrived at 8:28 p.m. last evening, but I didn't take pictures of it, tangled in tree branches, until early this morning.

Long Night Moon is another name for December's full moon and perhaps more apt this year as it was near the Winter Solstice.

I greet the winter solstice happily not because it marks the beginning of Winter but because it marks the return of light. 

"We are nearer to Spring

than we were in September;

I heard a bird sing

 in the dark of December."

     (Oliver Herford)

An Early Morning Festivus Walk

I was surprised this morning when I got up (5:30) and saw that it was 52° out. I wasn't looking forward to walking on the treadmill and I knew there was to be a front coming through with the wind changing to the Northwest and blustering at 30-40+ miles per hour. "What if I went outside to walk right now?" I left a note for HD in case he got up and wondered where I was, grabbed Stix and went out - prudently taking I.D. and my cell phone, of course.

It was dark out, but my kind of dark - eerie, spooky with silhouetted bare branches. 

 The red lights atop the Creston water tower added their own mysteriousness.

As do the blue lights on this RV. I presume these are Christmas lights. From a high of fourteen RV's here this summer, we are down to five. These are the homes of the people constructing the wind turbines North and West of town. One of the guys still here has Oregon license plates on his pickup. Everytime I see them, I get homesick to see my Portland daughter. Thank goodness for facetime.

Almost to the end of my mile and there is just a hint of purple preceding the sunrise off to the southeast.

There aren't a lot of Christmas lights this year. Neighbors across the street have outlined their carport and deck in lights.

As has the homeowner next to them. I like the white lights better than colored ones. These make me think of Chinese lanterns.

I had been back inside about 45 minutes when the front came through. The wind was strong enough to make me think of this summer's derecho. Temps have been falling rapidly. I'm glad I got outside when I did. It's so much more interesting than walking on a treadmill. 

Facebook memories remind me of past Festivus lunches with visits from children and grandchildren. I am so looking forward to being able to do that again. Next year?

We did have a Festivus Eve zoom meeting with our NYC kids last night which was a lot of fun.

And Chirstmas pictures of the great-grands are starting to show up like this of Brynley with Santa, but it's just not the same. Next year, next year, next year - my mantra and fondest wish.

Idioms, Adages and Merisms?

In the book I am currently reading, the term lock, stock and barrel  was used by the protaganist. I didn't have any trouble understanding the meaning, it is one I've heard my whole life, along with the whole shebang. They both mean all, everthing. 

Obviously lock, stock and barrel refer to the parts of a gun, but when and why did it come to mean total, all, everything?

Wiki tells me the term is a merism predominately used in the United Kingdom and North America. It was first recorded in the letters of Sir Walter Scott in 1817, in the linee the High-landman's gun, she wants lock, stock and barrel to put her into repair."

The term has been used to describe the selling of a business - the buyer receiving the lock on the door, the stock of goods on the shelves and the barrel of pickles, i.e. all, everything. Even, perhaps, in some bills of sale, the good will of customers. Although I've always thought that depended upon how well the new owner got along with those customers.

So I did learn the origin of the term but I also learned a new word, merism - a figure of speech by which something is referred to by a conventional phrase that enumerates several of its constituents or traits. You know, like hook, line and sinker or lock, stock and barrel - all, total, everything. 

Those merisms I'll remember, but the word itself? I doubt it. 😏

Connections - It's A Small World

"Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. It connects you with others." (Susan Sontag)

I don't know what it is about realizing those "it's a small world" connections that delights me so, but they do. I've written about some of them before - the young woman who was doing the year end audit of the books where I worked in Des Moines and after visiting awhile discovering that her mother was a former classmate.

Or the time we stopped for an ice cream cone on our way to Oregon to visit my daughter and heard someone blasting my stepson's CD, and Bud telling him that was his son he was listening to which resulted in an amusing small world story stretching from coast to coast.

I almost missed a connection yesterday because I wasn't paying attention. I had the radio on low in the background while I was on the computer. I usually listen to the station in Murray because it plays such a variety of music. There was a catchy, country folk song that I didn't recognize, but I finally caught the words, "black Iowa dirt" in the refrain and that did get my attention.

Hmm, I wonder who is singing a country folk song about Iowa? So I Googled "Black Iowa Dirt lyrics" and got several returns. I read a nice article about the song's writer, singer, guitar player - a farmer in Southeast Iowa - before going back to read another of the returns that caught my eye...

...caught my eye because it mentioned a name I recognized - the moniker of one of my stepson's fellow performers. When I read that link, it mentioned one of his songs on which the Black Iowa Dirt singer had sung the refrain from his own song.

I messaged my stepson to tell him about it and ask if he knew the B-I-D singer. He replied that indeed he did know him and that all three were longtime friends from their Iowa City days. 

Six degrees of separation has become the norm for explaining how we are all just six, or fewer, social connections away from one another. Maybe that's why I am so enchanted with making connections - realizing the thrill, having the fun, of chasing down a lead; paying attention and being inquisitive. 😊

Impossible Coconut Custard Pie

Earlier this month when I posted about the secret Apple Cream Pie, I mentioned looking through all Mom's pie recipes and keeping out two that I would be making.

One of which was the recipe for Impossible Coconut Custard Pie which I made yesterday. I compared Mom's handwritten recipe to one with the same name that I found online and used parts of both. The online version called for less sugar than Mom's recipe and I'm glad I did use less because even so, the pie is very sweet. 

Online recipe: 1/2 C Bisquick; 3/4 C Sugar; 4 Eggs; 2 C Milk; 1 C Flaked Coconut; 1 tsp Vanilla; 1 Tbsp Softened Butter.

Combine all ingredients, pour into a 9" buttered pie pan. Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes until custard sets. Like magic, it layers nto crust, custard and coconut topping.

The 'crust' of my pie was almost nonexistent, but that didn't diminish my eating pleasure. I love both coconut and custard, so this is a win-win recipe for me.

Mom's recipe: 3 Eggs;1/4 C Butter; 1/2 C Flour; 1/2 tsp Baking Powder; 1 C Sugar; 1/4 tsp Salt; 1 tsp Vanilla; 2 C Milk; 1 C Coconut. Put all ingredients in blender. Blend until mixed and smooth. Pour into a buttered pie place. Bake 1 hour at 350°.

Next time I will get out my blender and try Mom's recipe - though I'll probably reduce the amount of sugar.

I've mentioned many times what an excellent cook/baker my mother was. I suppose one of the reasons I like custard as well as I do is because we had plenty of eggs and milk/cream on the farm. Custard was something she could whip up for dessert. It was also something easy to eat if we were ill.

And of course I loved eating my custard out of those dainty little custard cups. 

Another Year Gone

 

Fall Song

      By Mary Oliver

"Another year gone, leaving everywhere

its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

 the uneaten fruits crumbling damply

in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island 

of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except  underfoot, moldering

in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds

and the wandering of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure

painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing

to stay - how everything lives, shifting

                                           from one bright vision to another, forever

                                           in these momentary pastures."

Planting A Tree In Ireland

 

A few days ago this ad popped up on my Facebook page. I don't know how they determine what ads I *need* to see, but I wasn't unhappy about seeing this one. I had already had a tree planted in Ireland to celebrate someone in my family, though I'm not certain it was through Irish Central.

More than thirty years ago I was a regular subscriber to Ireland of the Welcomes magazine. It arrived in my mailbox six times a year and as soon as it did, I read each issue entirely - including the ads - which is how I learned I could have a tree planted in Ireland. 

It was a few months before my brother Ron's 50th birthday. I had been trying to think of something significant I could give him. How neat would it be to have a tree planted in Ireland in celebration of his 50th? Maybe he would even take a trip to Ireland and find his tree. I sent my check, they sent my certificate. I put it in a safe place until his birthday.

Time passed. A week or so before his birthday I went to get his certificate and couldn't find it! It wasn't where I though I remembered putting it. I hunted everywhere but could not find it. So I wrote in his birthday card explaining that I had had a tree planted in Ireland in his name and was sure I would find the certificate which I would give him when I did. 

Five years later we moved. I thought it might show up in the sorting, discarding, packing then. It didn't. Thirteen years after that, we moved again - really sorting, discarding, selling, downsizing. "Wouldn't it be funny if that cerificate turned up now after all these years"?, I thought. It didn't. It has become something of a family joke.

I thought about contacting Irish Heritage Tree to see if their records went back thirty+ years and, if so, could I get a replacement certificate? But that's probably a long shot.

Ron isn't on the internet, so he doesn't see my blog posts. Maybe I'll print this one and mail it to him. "See dear brother, this is what your 50th Birthday Certificate would have looked like."

A Snow Which Belongs

Yes, we had an 'early' snow in October. Yes, the month of November was one of the tenth warmest on record. Yes, we need moisture.

So, the snow which began last evening and is still lightly coming down, is not only welcome, it feels timely. The Solstice nears - the beginning of Winter.

                                     Snow-flakes

               By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,

     Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

     Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

          Silent, and soft, and slow,

          Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

     Suddenly shape in some divine expresssion,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

     In the white countenance confession,

          The troubled sky reveals

          The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

     Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

     Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

          Now whispered and revealed

          To wood and field.

Bonus Days of December

 

Did Tuesday's sunset foretell yesterday's unseasonable weather? (Red sky at night, sailors' delight.)

I thought last month's birthday walk at Green Valley Lake would be the last of the year, but yesterday was even nicer because there was no wind.

There was also no birdsong and I miss that. But I like the sycamore's stark white against the azure of sky and lake, the tawny grasses, the solitude of deserted paths.

Last year when I discovered a patch of bittersweet, I planned to go back this fall for a snippet. I did look for it once in October, but couldn't find it. Had I wrongly remembered the spot? No, there it was, with just a bit of orange still showing. .....next year maybe.....?

There may not have been birdsong, but there was lots of honking. Lots of geese........

Lots and lots and lots of geese.

I do not tolerate cold weather. It was a great bonus to be walking at the lake in December.

Forty Years After I Became A Grandmother...

...I'm gonna be a great-great-grandmother. I already knew I was going to be great-grandma again in 2021, so last evening when I learned through Facebook that there is another great-grandbaby expected next year, I didn't think much beyond Congratulations! to the grandmother.

This morning I woke up realizing that if my granddaughter-in-law is going to be a grandmother, that means I will be a great-great-grandmother - by way of a step-great-granddaughter I have yet to meet.

There is nothing new about blended families and step-children, but family trees can become hard to build with the inclusion of all the branches.

My first two step-great-grandchildren are eldest granddaughter Katrina's stepsons, Michael and Nicholas. They have been part of our family since they were very young. 

Michael recently graduated from Army basic training and Nicholas is in high school. 

Michael and Nicholas were nine and six when my first two direct lineage great-grandsons were born in 2009 - Katrina's son Rodney and Brock's son Ridge.

I could further muddy the waters by explaining Brock and Katrina are half-siblings and Brock's sons are also half-siblings, as are my own children. 

But to cut through lengthy explanations, Brock became step-father to Brianna and Mariah (now 18 and 20) when he and Jennifer married about three years ago.

And Jen became step-mom to Brock's three boys, Sawyer (7), Ridge (11), and Jack (6).

Imagine having your two girls almost raised and then taking on three young boys!

Brianna (striped shirt) is a senior this year. I've only met her a couple times. Her sister Mariah (in hat), I've never met, but technically, will be great-great-grandmother to her baby. I just hope that once the pandemic is less a disruption of our lives I get to meet Mariah and her baby. 

Jumping on the (Pie) Bandwagon

First - I am not one to jump on the bandwagon. (Someone who suddenly gets involved in an activity because it is likely to succeed or become popular.) I much prefer going my own way, doing my own thing.

Second - I have never cared about cooking or baking, butchering or candlestick making. I will make a cake or brownies from a box mix and, even though I prefer pie, I rarely make one.

Third - My Mom excelled in the kitchen. She loved trying new recipes. And she tried teaching me to make pie crust. It wasn't her fault I didn't care enough to keep practicing until I succeeded. I've made more pies in the last few years since discovering Pillsbury Pie Crusts - usually pumpkin pie because that is Bud's favorite. I can't remember ever making an apple pie even when we lived on the acreage where there were several apple trees. I made apple crisps, but pie? 

I always read the Post Secret Sunday Secrets. Three weeks ago, I saw the above secret recipe posted and for some reason copied it down, thinking I might make it someday.

Last week I had apples on my shopping list, the Galas I keep on hand, and decided to go ahead and get three Granny Smiths, too. And pie crusts just in case.

"Someday" was yesterday. I made the Apple Cream Pie, which apparently thousands of other Post Secret and Reddit followers have also been making, thus my 'jumping on the bandwagon' reference. It reminded me of Mom's Custard Rhubarb Pie so I went to her recipe box and dug out her pie recipes. Sure enough, it is very similar. 

I also looked through her apple pie recipes and pulled two - one for English Apple Pie and one for Different Apple Pie which calls for sprinkling Red Hots over the top of the pie. This one I remember her making.

But the two recipes I kept out, and will probably be making soon, were Impossible Coconut Custard Pie because I love coconut pie and like custard pie, so this should be a win, win. The other, Grandma Smith's Cream Pie, which is the pie a family member always brought for Thanksgiving and Christmas and which we all fought over for a piece. Carla soon began bringing two pies and I think I remember one year one of them being her 'gift' for the "The Game" we always played instead of buying gifts for one another. Pretty sure brother Ron found a way to end up with the pie.

When I cut my pie yesterday afternoon, I asked Bud if he wanted to try it. Remember he is not a big fan of pie, except pumpkin, and at first, demurred, actually saying, "I'm not a fan of apple pie." "Do you want to try a bite?" I asked. He decided to try a piece after I said I would finish it if he didn't like it. Let's just say he asked me this morning, "Are we having another piece of pie for lunch today?" This pie really is very good, but a tad too sweet for me. Next time I will cut the sugar amount to 1-1/4 cup. 

I noticed many of the others posting about making this pie are referring to it as "Petty Pie" trying to shame the 'petty, vindictive aunts' even further, I assume. 

I think it should be called simply My Grandma's Apple Gream Pie so, in time, everyone will forget where the recipe orignally came from and will remember and honor all the grandmothers who made the pies and passed on the recipes. 💗

November Reading List

 The count creeps up - nine books read this month.

The Lightkeeper by Susan Wiggs is one of her earlier books and does not compare to the books she writes now.

All The Devils Are Here by Louise Penny is her 16th novel in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. The setting for this book is Paris, a departure from familiar Three Pines and Canada. The Gamaches are visiting their children and grandchildren as well as Gamache's godfather. When the godfather is killed in a hit and run accident, Gamache knows it was deliberate and sets out to prove the man was murdered.

Soon the whole family is involved in intrigue. Penny is a master mystery writer and this is one of her best books yet. Of course I say that about all her books. 

a family of strangers by Emilie Richards begins with one sister asking another for help when she becomes a suspect in a murder and ends with the unravelling of a family because of the secrets it kept. 

The Searcher is Tana French's latest novel and my favorite of her's so far, also my #1 read this month. I love books set in Ireland and this one really, really makes me wish I could go back there again. French is my new 'Adopted Author' at the local library, so I won't miss any of her books from now on.

The Book Of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate - I hadn't read Wingate for several years, but could not resist the cover of her latest offering. This is an interesting, well-written novel told in alternating time periods of post-Civil War South and present time in the same small town. 

Dead Ringer is #8 in Lisa Scottoline's 'Rosato & Associates' series and the first of her's I've read since July. I've been reading my way through all these. I really like all the smart, funny, fallible women of this law firm.

Divine Right's Trip by Gurney Norman is sub-titled 'ANovel of the Counterculture' and was sent to me by my son Douglas. The story of Divine Right, who goes by D.R., and his hippy-painted, 1963 VW microbus named Urge, first appeared in somewhat different form in the 1971 The Last Whole Earth Catalog, which is where Doug and I first read it. We were both big fans of the catalog and huge fans of Divine Right and Urge. I was not even aware there was a more complete book until Doug sent it to me for my birthday. Reading it brought back memories of a time in our lives when we were very close.

The Silent Wife is the latest (#10) in Karin Slaughter's 'Will Trent' series. I used to think Kathy Reichs' books were so good because of the forensics investigation, but Slaughter's is so much better and she is a better writer, in my opinion. Book #10 takes us back eight years to some of Jeffrey Tolliver's cases and a, possibly, wrong conviction. It appears a serial killer is still out there and forensics proves it. 

Killer Smile is Lisa Scottoline's next 'Rosato & Associates' book (#9) and features my favorite associate of the all female firm, Mary DiNunzio. For the first time ever, this South Philly Italian-American, goes way out of her comfort zone, all the way to Montana, to research the 1942 death of an Italian immigrant interned there during WWII, even though his American-born son was serving in the Army. While there, Mary learned "If you can't be brave, be determined. And you'll end up in the same place." Good advice. 

I found this copy of The Last Whole Earth Catalog listed on eBay for $49.99. I remember our's being in a much more used shape.

I think it went with Doug when he moved to his own place. Later I found another copy at a garage sale for two or three dollars. I don't know what eventually happened to that copy.

It would be interesting to read one of these again. 

A paragraph from An Afterward at the end of Norman's book gives you an idea of what The Last Whole Earth Catalog was and how Divine Right's Trip was a part of it.

"Divine Right's Trip originally appeared in tiny segments threaded through Stewart Brand's The Last Whole Earth Catalog, that hugely successful (National Book Award, sales of almost two million, etc.) California-based mail-order supermarket of the counterculture, one segment of DRT in the lower right-hand corner of every right-hand page, amidst a cornucopia of survivalist gear, handtools, Moog synthesizers, environmentalist hectoring, geodisic dome blueprints, psychedelic desiderata, tie-dye cook books, VW repair manuals, anarchistic social manifestoes ... all the myriad toys, trappings, and indispensables of what was called, in the hippest argot of the day, the Alternative Lifestyle."