Inch Twelve: This Week

Not many words this week. Because a picture indeed is worth a thousand of them. Probably more.

Ramona and her parents are here this week. But we all know who the star of the show is.

Inch Eleven: Sixes and Sevens

Our house is all at sixes and sevens.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

Until late Tuesday night, the living room and study were bare to the sub-flooring. The furniture is out in the hallway and jimmied into other rooms. We are replacing the original carpet (which just turned 50 this spring) and the new carpet got laid on Tuesday. Jeff, the installer, was there when I left for work that morning and there when I came home late from legal clinic at 9:00 p.m. The carpet is in, but most of the furniture is still out in the hall.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

In addition to taking out the carpet, Warren also painted both rooms this past week with the paint we bought two years ago for that very purpose. We bought it so long ago that we'd forgotten the colors. Fortunately, we still liked them. And fortunately, they go well with the new carpet.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

All of the first floor windows are bare. The ancient drapes hit the trash. Armed with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, I took down the vertical blinds in the kitchen as well.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

All of the walls are bare and the paintings and pictures are stacked in the bedroom that Ben, Alise, and Ramona will be using. In fact, lots of things are stacked in the bedroom that Ben, Alise, and Ramona are using. The artwork is dusty and needs to be wiped down well before going back on the walls. Well, to be honest, everything in the house needs to be wiped down well. We have decided not to put the artwork back up until the week after next.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

There were boxes stacked in the other spare bedroom to be taken up to the attic. Those boxes went up on Sunday and the box of blocks and the box of marble blocks came down. I still need to wipe the dust off of those boxes. Now there are other boxes jamming the second bedroom and we will deal with those later. Like in June. The large case of resonators is now under our bed.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

In emptying the study and living room, I was forcefully reminded of just how much stuff we live with every day. Most of it is Warren's stuff, including some furniture going back three and four generations. But some of it is my stuff too. Seeing and moving so much of our stuff makes me want to get rid of more stuff. Even the china—the set my uncle sent back from post-war Japan to his younger sisters, my mom and my aunt Ginger—is stuff. Right now the china is taking up a third of the kitchen table.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

It is early in the week still and my punch list to get me to Saturday is deceptively short. I know, though, that each item represents an expenditure of time and effort. After all, there's all that stuff.

Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

It will get done. And there will be new stuff come Saturday: toys and books and a stroller and the stuff of a young family.

Because Ben, Alise, and Ramona arrive on Saturday.

Inch Ten: Apron Up!

I recently read a post of Facebook about aprons. The gist of the post was about how women of a certain generation always wore them.

Both of my grandmothers were of that certain generation.

Grandma Nelson

Grandma Nelson, my dad's mother, always wore an apron when I was growing up. The only exceptions were when she was on her way into town (to the grocery, to church) or outside doing the dirty work a farm requires. Even after they sold the farm and moved to the outskirts of a small village, she'd often be in her apron. When we showed up for Sunday dinner, she'd be in the kitchen, sheathed in an apron, frying chicken and checking the beans. I even remember her in other kitchens, especially those of her sisters, with an apron on. Look back, I now wonder. Did she bring her own? Did she borrow one?

Grandma Skatzes, my mom's mother, wore an apron every single day from the time she got dressed in the morning to the time she went to bed. Oh, there are a few photos of her without an apron on special days—holidays, certain birthdays—but those are rare. And even in those photos, I suspect my aunt Ginger snatched off my grandmother's apron at the last minute for a "nice" photo.

I am an apron person myself, a habit I got into years ago after spotting more than one work outfit stepping into the kitchen and starting to cook. Now I reach for an apron automatically. On days when I am busy at home, I may wear the apron much of the day until I finally look down and realize I am still wearing it.

I have two aprons that are my go-to aprons. There's the blue United Way one, with spacious pockets. It hits me mid-thigh. There is a longer one, almost to my knees, no pockets, but striped with colorful lines. The striped one is 38 years old, a relic of the year at college when I worked in the campus coffee shop, the C Shop.

I have another apron that I keep hanging, but rarely put on. The cloth is faded purple flowers, with pistachio green trim. It has some stains on it. These are old stains. It has pockets, smaller than my blue apron, but big enough. It barely covers my hips, but that may be because of its origin, as its original owner was much smaller.

Grandma Skatzes

That apron was one of the last existing aprons belonging to my Grandma Skatzes. It is handmade, most likely sewn by my mother, who gave it to me after my grandmother died.

Grandma Skatzes has been dead 36 years, Grandma Nelson 32 years. All those aproned sisters of Grandma Nelson are gone too. My mother only occasionally wore aprons, usually hostess aprons that tied around the waist and were worn more for style than anything. My aunt Ginger never wore aprons either.

But there must be an apron gene there somewhere that skipped a generation and landed on me.

I have been known to say "Apron up!" to friends. And sometimes I say it under my breath when I get ready to bake.

My grandmothers would have been pleased.

Inch Nine: Travels

Friday late afternoon found me dodging cars on the I-270 outer belt, en route to Port Columbus. I was not flying anywhere; Warren was flying back home after a two-day conference in Manhattan.

This was the first trip to New York he's made in recent years without me. My friend Katrina moved to Houston soon after our doll-sorting escapade in 2012, and so New York no longer holds the same appeal it once did. Warren and I had talked about my going along, but the thought of my seeing the Metropolitan Art Museum or walking around the city while Warren attended his sessions paled without Katrina.

I beat the plane by some 20 minutes. That was a bonus. I got to watch a family, four adults and one wriggling, perhaps about 10 years old, anxious girl wait for Tyler, coming home on leave. They had balloons and signs and the little girl kept waving an American flag impatiently. When Tyler finally appeared, the little girl let out a delighted shriek. Others in the area, seeing a  young man in military fatigues being covered by hugs and kisses, started clapping, one man even standing up from his fast food meal in the food court to applaud. Tyler turned bright red.

Warren's plane came in at the most distant gate from where we were allowed to wait, so I had plenty of time to watch arriving travelers stream my way. Some were met with hugs and kisses and thumps on the back. Others strode by intent on reaching a car or a shuttle, their eyes focused on a faraway point. Finally, I saw Warren at about the same time he saw me. We waved and I smiled: a familiar face, a well-loved face, my husband's face.

There is an ineffable sweetness to homecomings. The visitors from afar have arrived, the son or daughter or parent or spouse have returned, the circle is complete.

Two weeks from today I will back at Port Columbus, waiting for a different traveler to arrive. This one will be curly headed and walking, although she had little hair and was not even crawling the last time we met. This one will be accompanied by two adults, both of whom are dear to me and one of whom I have known all of his life. And this one will be coming home to Grandma April's house for a whole week.

Inch Eight: This Year's Garden

We are two days into May and the weather continues to be gray and wet and cold. The Olentangy is running swift and high, what with all the recent rains.

The only garden around here right now is in the percussion room (a room others of you would describe as a family room) on the folding table set up before the sliding glass door. Table lamps provide the heat and despite the gray gloom, seedlings have sprouted.

This is my sixth summer in this house, my sixth year of gardening. And oh, what changes time brings!

In years past, I have had an odd assortment of gardens, my reach always exceeding my grasp. There have been pumpkins and broccoli, zucchini and peppers, and tomatoes always, everywhere.

An observation: There are only two of us living here. And one of us does not like tomatoes.

In years past, I have marked August and even September with canning and freezing and drying and processing the goods of the garden, filling the freezer with bags of this and that, filling the shelves with relishes and salsa and tomatoes.

In years past, there have been so many tomatoes that even with giving them away, I could not keep up with the flow and so lost a sizable portion every year to rot. Somehow I could not fathom, in the cold spring when I started the seedlings, that eighteen tomato plants were too many for a household of two, especially when one of us does not like tomatoes.

This year will be different.

Blame the cold weather, blame the harsh winter, blame my erratic energy levels, blame the Revlimid, but I started the seedlings late this year. I did not start eighteen, twenty, thirty tomato plants. I started (deep breath) six. Six. I started some peppers (a few). There will be a basil patch for the bees again, although I will probably raid it once or twice to make (and freeze) some pesto for a winter meal or two.

This year will be different.

I am not canning this year, an announcement which startled a friend into saying, "Not even tomatoes?" No, not even tomatoes. I want to spend the summer watching the bees in the basil, not standing over a steaming canner.

The PF bloggers out there—the Compacters, the frugal writers—often touch on the topic of living within one's means. While Warren and I do a solid job of living within and often below our means, it strikes me that I have never made the garden live within its means. I don't mean as a monetary proposition. Trust me, I am not growing $64 tomatoes. But to the extent that I plant far beyond the needs of our household and the needs of other households, to the extent that some of the garden goes to waste despite my best efforts, the garden lives far beyond its means. And to the extent that the garden can and will rob my energy, my time, and my ability to keep up, the garden is an extravagant old rake.

No more. I'm cutting it off, suspending its allowance, canceling the trust fund.

This year will be different.

Inch Seven: Dandelions

Wednesday, I took a walk.

Not just any old walk, mind you. No, Wednesday I walked home from the office, a distance of about four blocks. It was the first time I'd done that since sometime in 2013.

I'm not even sure when the last time was. There was the behind-the-knee injury in July, then my relapse  started in the fall, limiting my range and energy. Fall was followed by a horrific winter and then a long, chill early spring.

But it is warmer now. And my strength is slowly building as treatment continues. So I walked home.

This wasn't my first walk of 2014. But it was the first walk home, the first walk where I made it to the front door from the office under my own steam. 

I noticed a couple of things right away, walking home. I'm a lot slower, for one thing. And I noticed I was breathing harder on the slight inclines.

It's been a long layoff.

But I noticed some other things too.

Violets.

And tulips opening.

And of course, daffodils.

Trees in full bloom.

And some not yet opened.

And dandelions.

Lots of dandelions.

Warren and I have very different opinions about dandelions. He sees them as the enemy and strives mightily to eradicate every last one of them every summer.

I love dandelions. I love their bold yellow faces. I love to see them splashed across a yard. For me, dandelions are the signature flower of a child's bouquet, always picked too short and held too tightly in a grubby small hand. Stuck in a juice glass or a jelly jar, they never last the night. My children brought dandelion bouquets to me when they were little; my brothers and I brought them to our mother when we were little.

I shared my sentiment with Warren, exclaiming over the dandelion patches I'd seen walking home and how the sight of dandelions lifted my spirits.

"They're fine in everyone else's yards," he said. "Just not mine."

We'll see. Ramona arrives in about four weeks. I think she needs the inexpressible joy of picking a dandelion bouquet and carrying it tightfisted to those she loves.

Inch Six: Cake

Warren and I have birthdays eight days apart tin April. For the last several years, I have baked Warren a birthday cake from scratch, always the same recipe. The cake of the day is found in my battered 1990 Fannie Farmer Cookbook (13th edition), page 570. In Fannie Farmer, it is called "Lady Baltimore cake,"as its origins may have been in a tearoom of the same name in Charleston, South Carolina. A true Lady Baltimore cake has a center filling of chopped pecans, figs, and dates. I use the recipe only for the creamy white layers of cake it turns out.

When Warren's birthday rolled around earlier this month, I again turned to the Lady Baltimore recipe and soon had two eight inch pans in the oven. I joined them together with the Seven-Minute Frosting (a boiled frosting) found on page 602. Feeling particularly plush, I slathered the cake heavily, finishing off the top with a decorative swirl. Proud of my handiwork, I put a photo of it on Facebook.

A week before Warren's birthday, I had put a photo of a long-ago birthday of my own. (I have written about the scene before in this blog.) A Facebook friend saw the photo and commented: "Your family sure does like cake. Is that the same family recipe you just made for your hubby?"

I burst out laughing when I read that comment. Oh, no, no, no. To my knowledge, my mother has never baked a cake from scratch my entire lifetime. I'm not sure if she ever has during her entire lifetime, even though you would think somewhere growing up she might have tried one. A very young bride in the 1950s, Mom thoroughly embraced modern conveniences in the kitchen, especially boxed mixes of all kinds. Even the icing came out of a box. (You mixed the contents with hot water "until smooth.") She was very much in step with her friends, with many other housewives across the country, and with her era.

It is only in looking back that I finally realize why Mom was no help the year I took 4-H Cooking and had to bake a scratch cake for judging. That morning, I must have baked four or five cakes before one turned out decent enough to take. Mom stood by while I struggled but could offer no insight: this was totally alien territory to her.

I spent a good part of my youth, starting at a very, very early age, rejecting the paths my mother kept pointing out for me. She was a good seamstress and sewed many of my clothes. In contrast, I refused to learn and am still a poor sewer with severely limited skills. After her children were mostly grown, Mom did needlepoint and plastic canvas crafts. I didn't and don't. She wanted desperately for me to pierce my ears in 8th grade; to this day, I still do not have holes in my ears. If she was for it, I was against it, and vice versa.

So small wonder that when my interest in baking awoke, I baked with a vengeance. Lemon tarts, breads, pies, cookies, cakes—all from scratch, all step by step. Baking was something that came easily to me and that I could do without interference or competition from my mother. And to her credit, Mom has never suggested, even when asked, that she taught me anything about baking. Despite the wrangling we have done over the years, baking is one arena she ceded without protest.

One of the treasures in this house is the 1947 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, the forerunner to the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It was a wedding gift to Warren's parents when they married in 1948. Ellen often made notations in the margin of this cookbook as to the strength and weakness of a recipe. The recipe for what is now the Lady Baltimore cake is called "white or snow cake" in the 1947 volume. There is no marginalia on this recipe and I suspect Ellen never tried this particular recipe, although her notes indicate she tried plenty of other scratch cake recipes.

Ellen died ten years ago on Warren's birthday. She never got to see us as a couple and she and I never had the pleasure of baking together. She would have been very happy with our marriage. And I like to think she would have enjoyed being around when I baked, especially for Warren's birthday. I see her at the table, both Ellen and I holding our breaths as I cut into the cake and serve up the first slice for the birthday boy.