First Frost

We had our first hard frost last night.

Sitting at breakfast, I could see that the mums on the back deck were frosted. Grabbing the camera, I went outside to inspect.

Indeed, the mums had been etched in frost.

So had the marigolds that have stood guard over the garden all summer.

As well as the blanket flowers that the bees were still hovering in just last weekend.

I just finished reading The Outermost House by Henry Beston. Beston wrote about living in a small, primitive cottage on the easternmost portion of Cape Cod before roads or any development had come to that part of the cape. The book, published in 1929, captures his full year of observations about the landscape, the weather, the oceans, and the seasons. He gently encourages the reader to honor and love the earth and to take part in the "tremendous ritual" of the seasons.

As I glance out the window at the morning sun, I understand what he meant. The frost is melting, the sky is brightening, and the tremendous ritual of autumn is well underway.

Shorts

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I had pending posts that I hoped to bring to the light of day soon. Well, several weeks later, they are still in my head and not down on paper. Recently I realized the best thing to do would put these thoughts down in the form of shorts and clear my mental mailbox for more writing.

Short #1: Blown Away (Again) To Oz
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the MGM "The Wizard of Oz." You know, that one. As part of the 75th anniversary observances, MGM released a 3D/IMAX version of the film to be shown in IMAX theatres for one week only in mid-September.

Of course I bought tickets. While not a huge fan of 3D films (they are a pain to watch when you wear glasses), I was not about to miss out on seeing my all-time favorite film on a really big, BIG screen.

I was not disappointed. Watching the film in 3D and that big, I saw details I had never seen before. (I didn't know the Scarecrow carried a gun when they went hunting the Wicked Witch.)  Warren, for his part, finally got the full impact of the "Over the Rainbow" sequence with Judy Garland.

It was "The Wizard of Oz" as I have never seen it before and will never see it again.

As we drove home that night and hashed over the film, I was hit with a sudden pang remembering a high school classmate, Geoff. Geoff and I shared a fascination with "The Wizard of Oz" back when you only saw it on television once a year and before videos came along (in short, a long, long time ago). We would write each other letters with new observations about the movie; I particularly remember my calling attention to the shoe polish glossy hair on the male citizens of the Emerald City.

Geoff died in a plane crash over seventeen years ago, so he wasn't around for this 75th anniversary release. I thought of him that night: how he would have enjoyed the film, how he would have loved all the new details that popped to life in the 3D/IMAX format.

I am quite sure Geoff would have been blown away to Oz, just like I was.

Short #2: A Wedding
Stephanie got married in mid-September.

I have known Stephanie since she was in second grade. She has always been one of my special girls. And now she was getting married.

When Ben and Alise got married, I had a brief teary moment at the start of the wedding, then finished the occasion dry-eyed. It was not for lack of love or emotion; I think I was so happy to see them together that the joy I was feeling crowded out any further tears.

Seeing Stephanie marry was an entirely different event. I had a lump in my throat from the moment I walked into the church, and the tears spilled when I saw Stephanie—beautiful, glowing Stephanie—float down the aisle on the arm of her father.

I wore the same outfit to Stephanie's wedding that I was married in five years ago. For the record, the skirt of the ensemble also saw duty at Ben's wedding, so it is my official wedding skirt. I hope my wearing it is a good omen for Stephanie and Jason's wedding: I certainly feel that way about Ben and Alise's wedding and my own. 

All brides are beautiful on their wedding day. This one certainly was. 

Short #3: Sourdough
As of late, I have been living in the land of sourdough. As I had surmised, the glop of "Amish Friendship Bread" turned out to be a decent starter. Over the past four weeks, I have been experimenting and getting comfortable with making bread from a starter instead of yeast.

No surprise, there was (still is, for that matter) a learning curve. No surprise, it turns out working with starter is far easier and less exacting than I had feared. It was about the second week of baking when a basic truth hit me. This method has been around for centuries. It has to be simple to have survived so long. Stop hyperventilating over the process.

It was not unlike my learning experience with growing a garden. The first year I fussed and worried over my plants, even while I knew in my head that the seeds would grow without my overanxious ministrations. Four years later, I am considerably more unwound and relaxed.

So it has become with baking with starter, albeit in a much shorter time frame. Recently I accidentally reversed the order of the steps in preparing the dough. I did not panic; I did not throw out the dough and resume feeding the starter for a new batch. I instead shrugged and told Warren that it would probably turn out fine. And it did.

I have had a lot of other obligations and concerns on my plate as of late, from far-flung children to nearby elderly relatives to my own handful of issues. Making bread from starter is a long process, but very little of that time actively involves me. There is something peaceful in that rhythm, knowing that the starter and, eventually, the dough, can work away independent of me.

The act of baking bread is timeless. And with my newfound pastime, I step even deeper into that timelessness. Like Thoreau, I am "a-fishing" in the stream, ever conscious of the current sliding away, but away that eternity remains.

The Bees Are Still Lingering

Fall is deepening around here. Most days are crisp, most nights are chill. We may have a frost this week, there may even be a little snow. Yesterday it rained for several hours, a cold, chilling autumnal rain.

Today, however, is bright and sunny. This morning I pulled up the tomato stakes in the garden and started the pre-winter cleanup. I managed to snag a few tomatoes; I picked half a dozen peppers that will be turned into relish shortly.

And I watched the bees.

I have started planting native perennials and the blanket flowers (Gaillardia) did amazingly well in the back of the garden. We may move them in the spring, but I have enjoyed their bright colors against the white wall of the garage this year.

Apparently the bees have enjoyed them also. While I worked nearby on the tomatoes, several of them plied their trade in pollen.

I wrote about the bees earlier this summer, when the zucchini blossoms and rudbeckia drew them to our yard. It is good to see them, knowing that they will soon be gone.

E. B. White, in his introduction to his wife Katherine's work, Onward and Upward in the Garden, wrote of watching her plan and direct the planting of her spring garden in the late fall. He captured her as "oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection."

I feel the same way about the bees as I watch them wrap up the season. I am already planning on the spring, already anticipating the resurrection.

Long-Distance Grandmother

The Symphony opened its 35th season last night in a most spectacular fashion, but that is not what this post is about. Saturday was also the semi-annual book sale at our local library. Warren had dropped me off there on his way to open up the concert hall for the soloist to practice. After picking up a reserved book, I wandered back to the bookmobile garage, which was serving as the bookstore for the sale.

The Amazing Ramona

I bought three children's books with Ramona in mind, adding to the collection at home. As I sat in the sun and waited to Warren to swing back around for me, I wondered about the books I had just purchased and when to send them out west. If I bought all the children's books that caught my eye, I would be bankrupt. If I shipped all of the children's books I already have, Ben and Alise would have to jettison furniture to make room for them.

It has been eight months since we have held Ramona: that baby is long gone. We have been Skyping regularly as of late, and I marvel at the child Ramona has become. She blows kisses (smacking her hand to her lips and shouting "mmm-WAH!"), flails a hand (sometimes two) in hello or goodbye, and occasionally leans in startlingly close ("My, what BIG eyes you have, Ramona!") while bustling in and out of the camera range. It is always highly entertaining.

It's not the same as being there, wonderful as modern technology is. I hope that when we are finally all together again, Ramona will recognize our voices and make the connection between Grandma April and Grandpa Warren on the computer screen and Grandma April and Grandpa Warren in real life.

Alise's mother Mona (aka Grandma Mona) is a frequent visitor to Portland and is headed back there for Halloween. I'm grateful Mona is in Portland so often. She provides parenting (and mothering) to Ben and Alise and deeply devoted grandmothering (i.e., adoration) to Ramona. But I'd be less than honest if I said I wasn't a wee bit envious of her frequent trips.

It's hard to be a long-distance grandmother. As I pick books to send out, I sigh, wishing I could settle Ramona on my lap and we could turn the pages together. I just sent out a footed sleeper printed with dinosaurs and I want to be the one tucking her toes into the footies and zipping it up to her chin.

The last time we Skyped, Ben and I talked about the blocks. These are the wooden building blocks Ben and Sam played with, including the same ones my brothers and I played with and some of the same ones that my  mother played with when she was little. Ramona will be the fourth generation to play with these blocks and I know it is time to pack some up and ship them out. But it's hard: I want to see Ramona play with the blocks at my house.

In the spring or early summer, my Portland three will be coming east for a visit. There is a lot of family here who have not met Ramona, and many who have not seen Ben and Alise for many years (seven come this Christmas, but who's counting?). Do I need to add that I am looking forward eagerly to that visit?

Between now and then, it is a long, slow walk to the future. I know there will be more books; there is already a growing stack in the closet for Christmas. And the candy corn socks at the grocery today? (I went in for fruit and dish soap, really.) Well, they are already in a sealed envelope with Ramona's name and address on it.

And I will be living on furious waves and a big "mmm-WAH!" tossed to the sky, waiting for the future.

Trust Me, They Are Pulling Our Leg

My friend Cecelia, whom I absolutely love (and who blogs here and is one of the bravest bloggers I know) put the bag on my desk a little over two weeks ago. It was a gallon size plastic bag with some pale glop in it. Alongside the bag of glop was a sheet of instructions to make "Amish Friendship Bread."

You know what I am talking about. These recipes have been circulating for decades. My beloved late mother-in-law, Ellen, had one tucked away in her cookbook with a note that it came from Betty Meyers next door. Somewhere in my long ago past, I was even on the receiving end of one of these recipes. I was unsuccessful back then: my glop turned rancid and moldy.

The whole friendship glop thing is not unlike a chain letter. You feed the batter, you nurture the batter, then you beef it up and pour off cup portions of it to give to friends.

It never stops.

All the same, I was intrigued. What Cecelia gave me was about a cup of potential sourdough starter. I have always been interested in baking with starters, but never went beyond envying people who baked with them. Given my extremely limited and highly unsuccessful experience with glop in the past, I never tried my hand at a starter.

So here I was, with glop from someone I truly, truly like, which meant I couldn't just toss it away. And it was starter. So I squeezed it and fed it and nurtured it just like the instructions called for. By the miracle of fermentation, the glop actually did what it was supposed to do. It developed bubbles and froth and had a nice tangy odor when I opened the bag.

Today was "make more glop to give to people and bake the bread with the remaining glop" day. I just popped the "bread" into the oven. I have a large bowl of starter, which I may just be selfish and keep for myself.  We'll see.

But here's my take on the "Amish Friendship Bread" recipe. Somewhere there are a group of Amish women laughing their heads off.

I don't know why the recipe calls for starter, except to make middle class white women (who I imagine are the only ones who ever, ever make this stuff) feel they are baking something authentic and earthy. They may be communing with their Little House on the Prairie alter egos (and who among us doesn't do that?) but trust me, this is not a recipe that needs starter. There are more than enough ingredients (eggs, baking powder, baking soda) to make it rise on its own without the starter.  

But I digress. The real reason this recipe is still making the rounds is that "Amish Friendship Bread" is a sugar fest from the word go. Even cutting back on the sugar, there is more than enough in the dough (especially after you add one LARGE box on instant pudding) to stun a horse. And that was before I sprinkled the cinnamon sugar combo on the top. As it bakes, I can smell the sugar rising through the house. While traditional Amish baked goods do call for a lot of sugar (because this is a community that does everything manually and they need the calories), I doubt there is an Amish woman anywhere in this country who ran to the general store in her little community and popped a large box of instant pudding into her basket so she could make this little treat.

I won't be making "Amish Friendship Bread" again. But I DO have a lot of starter now and see no reason it cannot be used for real bread. And I'm willing to be the butt of the joke in the meantime. Because I know darn well that somewhere out there is a whole bunch of Amish women laughing their heads off at us all. "Oh, ja, that's what we bake all the time," they assure us, waiting until we turn the corner before clutching one another in gales of laughter.

The 400th Post

I knew I was approaching this milestone in blogging and had been turning over topics in my head. I wanted my 400th post to be something truly worthy of the status. So here it is:

I walked home today from work.

I know, I know. You are reading this thinking "that's it? That's April's 400th post? She walked home today from work?"

Let me explain.

It's been a long time since I have walked home from work. More than a month. Almost two months. First I had a blood vessel behind the knee cap break, which caused great pain and made walking impossible. Just as I was recovering from that, the whole Aunt Ginger crisis started. Five days walking and sitting at the hospital set my knee recovery back almost to the beginning, making walking painful and walking almost any distance impossible again.

But finally we are on more solid ground. Ginger has been home for a week and is making good progress. My schedule (daily/work/home/community) is starting to fit again. And my knee has finally (I think, I hope) healed.

So I walked home late morning, under a brilliantly blue autumn sky. All the way home I thought about how wonderful it felt to walk again, how much I had missed walking, how grateful I am that I am able to walk.

I have two posts in the wings: one on weddings, one on "The Wizard of Oz." They will appear (all in due time, of course).

After all, I walked home today from work. And that has made all the difference.

Getting Away

Back in August, I started the following post:

Canning is a messy business. Over the weekend I canned a batch of salsa, only seven pints, and by the time I finished, there were dirty dishtowels everywhere. Everywhere. In the sink, on the table, on the stove. By the time I had washed and dried bowls and cutting board and knives, there were even more towels.

How did Ma Ingalls do it?

We know Ma canned, because Laura refers to her doing so in The Long Winter. So if Ma was canning at the homestead shanty at De Smet, we are not talking a big room. We are not talking about a family that had a lot of towels either.

My good friend Margo and I often dissect the Little House saga with painstaking precision. Where did Ma go the bathroom? And now this all consuming question: how did Ma can?

I am not planning on a lot of canning this year. My heart is not in it and, other than the salsa, I am not sure I want to lay up treasures in my earthly pantry.

That's as far as I got.

My writing got set aside for lots of reasons. A concert cancellation lead to Warren being able to leave town for a week and we made tentative plans for a long overdue break. Aunt Ginger unexpectedly went into the hospital for the better part of the last week of August, an adventure that started at 8 p.m.on Monday and segued into rehab at a nursing facility at 4:00 p.m. the following Friday. Our vacation plans tottered and threatened to all with the medical crisis, but once Ginger was safely ensconced in the nursing home, I felt I could leave town with impunity.

So we fled. Fled to Cape Hatteras and the gift of a cottage at the ocean. Fled to a week of no office, no Symphony, no hospital, no much of anything. Oh, we did a little bit of going out and looking: Monticello on the way to the cape, the Wright Brothers National Monument when we got there, but for the most part we kept quiet and stayed home. The ocean was a short walk over a dune and we both spent time walking or just sitting and listening.

The cape is two weeks behind us and I am still playing catchup. (But I'm closer, really I am.) The great news is that Aunt Ginger was released today from the nursing home and is now back home in her own comfort zone. She lives a block away from me, so now she is a short stroll away instead of driving across town.

It's good to be writing again. I did write some while I was gone, but not blogging posts. It's good to be back, but because I am still catching up, I am finishing this post with my September Myeloma Beacon column:

I once read an article in which the author described her habit of working herself into an illness requiring hospitalization about every two years. She did this routinely until a doctor finally pointed out to her that scheduling a vacation every so often would be a more cost-effective, healthier practice. The author, who had been eschewing vacations as a waste of time, became a convert.

I read that article decades ago. I read it back in the pre-computer, pre-cell phone, pre-tablet, pre-plugged in 24/7/365 era. Today, a similar article would have to start with the precept, “disconnect.” While I agreed with the author’s conclusion, I too have been guilty of not taking time for myself but instead pushing myself to the point of dropping.

Not this year. The first week of September, I took an unplugged, “health first” vacation. It was made possible by the generous loan of an ocean cottage by a very good friend and an unexpected opening in my hus­band’s too tight schedule. A last-minute medical crisis of a family member managed to resolve to the point I felt I could leave town without worrying too much. So the first day of September, we were on the road to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Living with myeloma, I never forget the reality of having a chronic, terminal cancer. Every time something new and different emerges (the latest being veins that spontaneously break), I flinch. I try to spend my days not dwelling on it, but the truth is that myeloma is never far from my mind.

But for the vacation, it was, at least much of the time. There is a timeless quality to the ocean, an eternal pattern in the waves. Sitting on the beach and watching them roll in, I could shove myeloma to the far corner of my mind.

To my surprise, my awareness of the cancer was strongest the first time we walked up over the dune and dropped down onto the shore. I stood for the longest time just watching the waves, closing my eyes to listen to the surf. Then I turned to my husband.

“I didn’t realize until just now how much I was afraid I would never see the ocean again,” I told him, my voice hoarse with emotion. I sensed a weight lifting from me as I took in the sounds, the smells, the sights. I stored them up greedily, hoarding them for when the surf is too faint and distant to sense.

Prior to our leaving on the trip, my husband asked me what I wanted to do while we were on vacation. My answer came quickly.

“Sit on the beach, listen to the waves, and do nothing.”

Okay, we did a little more than that. We toured Monticello en route to the ocean, and we ventured away from the cottage a few other times as well. And we did watch some old movies (old, old movies: “Giant” (1956) was the newest of the lot) on television. But a lot of the vacation was spent reading and resting and watching the waves.

The great naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “[a] man may stand [at the shore] and put all America behind him.” He was writing of Cape Cod, which he walked the length of more than once in his lifetime. I was considerably farther south, but my sentiments were one with Thoreau’s.

On Cape Hatteras, I could stand facing the ocean and put all America, as well as all of my myeloma, behind me.

And I did.