MARCIHENNA.COM

Lost in Translation

2009-12-14T00:02:00Z

We are safe and warm inside our Canadian hotel room, listening to Il Divo perform on my husband's i-phone. We came to the Quebec Provence on the wings of free-mileage wrought tickets on Continental and hotel rates on Fairmont properties that cost no more than a stay at a Holiday Inn Express. We began our Canadian experience at Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and then moved on to Le Manoir Richelieu in the Charlevoix region, just two hours upward along the St. Lawrence River. We'd been dreaming of this trip for two years, since the first time we were here in December of 2007. There's no better place to get in the Christmas spirit if you are snow-deprived visitors from Central Texas.
    Upon arrival, we registered at the Le Manoir Richelieu desk and immediately set about making arrangements for a sleigh ride we'd dreamily thought about for two years. After much interaction between the Fairmont front desk and ourselves, we were told that reservations had been made for a sleigh ride just thirty minutes from here in the Saint-Hilarion area.
    We'd heard that the temperatures would be below zero Fahrenheit and that fresh snowfall was a near certainty. We dressed in three layers, four counting our coats, shoved toe and hand-warmers into our boots and gloves and headed toward our destination.  Arriving at a log cabin (without running water) we find that there are no sleighs in sight. Only dogs. Acres of dogs kept in large wiry pens on stilts, underneath of which are chicken feathers and blood.   We tell a dog-handler that we are there for a sleigh ride. "Oui'," he says, smiling, "We are taking you on a big, big sleigh ride. We all go together. Excuse me, my English is not so good."
    "It's okay," we say, "Neither is our French."
    We are taken inside the cabin where we are told we should put on extra clothing: waterproof ski pants, ski mittens and their scarfs as our apparel is inadequate. Then we pay our fare and are led outside into the frozen winter wonderland of pine trees, hills and beau coup snow.
    It is all too soon abundantly apparent that there is no Santa's sleigh coming to fetch us-- that we are about to become dog mushers (my husband, anyway). I am sized up visually  and immediately assigned to the lowly bed of the sleigh, while my spouse is sent to first-class dog-musher position. He is motioned to stand behind me and to face the full brunt of the arctic-like wind. We are given a thirty second lesson in dog-mushing and are off to the races, but not before a broken leash is replaced on the left hind dog.
    Each sled has a team of six dogs, who on a good day,might actually get along well with one another. Ours started fighting before we left. One was ousted by the handler and replaced by a chummier husky.
    No sooner do we leave than the same leash breaks on the left hind dog. Each dog wears a harness and is attached to the main center apparatus by a shoulder and hind leash. The hind leash helps to steer the sled, keeping it in the tracks. Our sled, due to the broken leash, keeps veering to the right, nearly wiping us into oblivion in the forests and streams. We are off the track as much as we are on it. The dogs are exchanging snaps, barks and sniffs. One alpha Malamute sits upon and squashes his Husky teammate when he grows irritated at him.
    Today melts down into a fabulous, single snowflake memory. Something we'll never forget. A moment frozen in time that is exquisitely perfect and beautiful. It has become a much better plan than we'd had in the beginning. We had already been for a sleigh ride on the previous trip. This was something way beyond that.
    We can only imagine what it must be like to compete in the Iditarod. The grit and determination. The solitude. Preventing the dogs from fighting one another. Keeping them and yourself fed and warm against the unfathomable cold. All united in a common effort. To reach the end alive, safe from grizzlies, and possibly arrive a winner. In my view, if you arrive alive, you have won!

Marci's Hatch Green Chile-Cheese Grits Recipe/Hatch Chile Festival

2009-09-03T16:40:00Z

I am way behind in blogging due to the fact that I've been up to my eyelashes in other things-among them cooking for friends and family. I'm including a recipe I hope you'll enjoy.

If you're not otherwise occupied, you might want to head out for Hatch, New Mexico for its annual Labor Day Chile Festival. Hatch is a small town with about 2,000 inhabitants, except for during the Chile Festival when the population explodes to about 30,000. That might seem like a lot of ruckus over a mean green/red pod, but, after all, the Hatch Chile is the king of all peppers.   This year, the festival begins on September 5th and goes through the 6th. Vendors roast green chile all along the streets, or you might just like to hang out in the parking lot talking to other chilephiles. They've got a horseshoe tournament, the Chile Festival Parade, the coronation of the Chile Queen, music by Queen Priscilla Banuelos, a chile toss contest, a chile eating contest, and a watermelon eating contest you might seriously want to compete in if your mouth is on fire. You can listen to the Las Cruces High School Mariachis and see the Darrell Hawkins Rope and Bullwhip Show or participate in a fiddling contest.
    It is very important to know a thing or two about peppers before you inflict them on your dinner guests. I once nearly annihilated three men, two of them family members by serving stuffed poblano peppers along with enchiladas for dinner. One spent all night writhing on the bathroom floor while taking various homemade concoctions in a futile attempt to put out the fire in his belly. Two others headed straight for the bathroom during dinner, and made me wonder whether I should call 911 right away. Pitiful moaning (and worse) issued from the room and made me vow right then and there to NEVER serve another poblano to anyone.
     Having said all that, I feel that I can safely recommend the following recipe. To my knowledge, no one has died from having eaten it, although anything is possible. Most folks really seem to enjoy this one, and it is something you can cook without setting your hands on fire by having to handle the peppers, themselves.

                                                         Marci's Green Chile-Cheese Grits

9 oz. Velveeta Cheese
6 cups cooked grits
7 oz. can of diced mild green chiles
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 tsp. Lawry's garlic salt or to taste
1-2 cups crushed Kellogg'sCorn Flakes (amount depending upon type of baking dish to be used)

Cut cheese into easily melted pieces. Add cheese to hot grits and stir. Whip eggs and milk until blended and stir into cheese and grits mixture, along with garlic salt and butter. Stir well. Pour mixture into a greased baking dish. Put Corn Flakes into a Ziplock plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Sprinkle crushed Corn Flakes over grits and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes (until it sets). This side dish should serve about 8-10 people. (Feel free to add a little more cheese if desired.)

I often serve this as an accompaniment to baked Cornish Game hens drizzled with a tangy orange barbecue sauce. If you add steamed asparagus or green beans as another side, you'll have a colorful and hopefully delicious meal.

If you try this, let me know what you think!

North to Alaska!

2009-06-10T18:11:00Z

The daily high temperatures in Austin are currently in the upper nineties. Like vapors of bad juju, heat radiates upward from the asphalt and takes my breath away. Our black, Chow mix dog has gone into hiding under the porch, and won't reappear until October unless he is pulled out by a John Deere tractor. Even our gray ground squirrels listlessly lie on their backs with their tongues hanging out.
     It's too hot to go barefoot. This doesn't suit our seventeen-month-old grandson, who is generally opposed to shoes. Summer just doesn't seem to be his season. Whenever we take him to play in his plastic wading pool, he quickly bails out. We try to entice him to stay, but nothing works. He makes a run for the back door and knocks on the glass until we take him back inside. He'd rather play upstairs in the bathtub with a fleet of florescent orange toy boats. After all, it is cooler inside and there are fewer bugs.
    Each year, it is about this time in June when I'm struck with a serious case of Alaska fever. It takes all of my inner strength to refrain from bolting for the airport. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Visions of deliciously cool days spent in a far away place where wearing a sweater is required?
    Just thinking about Alaska is better than eating an entire banana split covered with nuts. If you have been there, then you understand. Pristine lakes and rivers surrounded by Douglas fir trees, punctuated by the occasional log cabin or grazing moose. Ubiquitous snow-capped mountains teeming with Dall Sheep, gray wolves, and grizzly bear. Along the Inside Passage, blue thundering glaciers surrounded by packages of floating ice somehow remind me of a perpetual Christmas. Further inland, Denali National Park has scenery so exquisitely beautiful that the human brain can't absorb it. One must see it over and over again to fully digest its magnificence--an argument I soon plan to present to my fabulous husband.
    Like the clouds that ice the great cake of Mt. McKinley, Alaska has yet another penultimate attribute for which I am truly grateful. I've been told that not even in its jillions of acres slithers one single SNAKE! If so, it must truly be a paradise trimmed by a garland of perfection. Neither animal nor bird is to be missed. Bald eagles circle overhead while folks with good voices might feel prompted to sing, America the Beautiful. That wouldn't be me or anyone else in my gene pool, of course.
    I can visualize myself napping on a bearskin that blankets a frozen bed in the Ice Hotel of Chena Hot Springs. This is above Fairbanks, and I am eons away from a Texas summer. I am surrounded by a giant ice chess set and wild Maurice Sendak animals in a Lewis Carroll-like collage. They are the artistry of a world champion, chainsaw-bearing sculptor. These carvings are all rather surreal, but comfortable in an elementary sort of way. My cell phone won't work inside an ice palace, which makes me so happy. The rooms have a frozen Popsicle quietude that can come no other way. Finally, I am cool and will wait patiently until my black Chow telepathically gives me the o.k. sign to return home. You might have to get a tractor and a rope to drag me out.

The Age of Aquarius

2009-05-03T11:25:00Z

We are in Santa Fe, New Mexico scanning the horizons for dark clouds. We've been promised scattered thunderstorms and lower temperatures. A cool breeze has swept over the Sangre de Cristos and onto the high dessert valley, but there is no rain. When we first bought a home here, drought was rampant. Dead juniper and pinon dotted the countryside--all victims of beetles that had feasted upon them in their weakened state. Local lawsuits erupted over water usage. People began to wonder whether rain would ever fall again or if we'd somehow been ushered into a permanent dry as dirt era.
    I am reminded of 1969, when we lived in San Angelo during similar dust bowl years. For our birthdays, my sister and I had received two plastic, polka-dotted umbrellas from our grandparents. Unfortunately, as the year dragged on we'd had no occasion to use them. Although it was the Age of Aquarius, the Edward's Plateau was dry as a bone. Pray for Rain billboards sprang up all over town. No outdoor watering was allowed. When folks finished their evening baths, buckets were filled from dirty tubs and dumped onto fledgling flowerbeds. Our scraggly lawn turned brown prematurely and receded. Dirt puffs billowed from our sneakers whenever we played kickball in the front yard.  Chalky footprints decorated everyone's hardwood floors. Dirt collected on the insides of windowsills, and heat radiated off asphalt and concrete like ghostly vapors and haints.
    Lake Nasworthy, (home to the local boat club) shrank into a mosquito infested, stinking pond. It was renamed Lake Nasty Water by the locals. San Angelo even received notice from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, when it received the Fickle Finger Award for having three dams and absolutely no water. Near panic swept through the city and surrounding farm and ranch land.  As children, we began to fear that rain would never come and that we would eventually turn into dried up stick men like the ones teachers used in the classroom.
    One afternoon, the four of us kids were indoors and were most assuredly driving our parents crazy. My father suggested that we go outdoors and do a rain dance. We had no idea of what this was but had seen Navajo Indians perform in Santa Fe. We soon threw our bodies into what we thought must be exactly what a rain dance looked like. In the afternoons, we danced after coming home from school and then again after our homework was done. By nightfall, we were human dirt clods--frosted with sweat, soil and fatigue.  After a few days of this, we began to lose hope. Was no one up there paying attention to our efforts? Shouldn't clouds just naturally be attracted to our homage?
    Just as our despair was getting the best of us, cumulonimbus appeared in the west. We sat on the back steps, mesmerized by them. Like grade school weathermen, we'd run inside the house, reporting late-breaking cloud updates to our parents.   Then a miracle happened. Raindrops began to fall upon the dirt and dotted our arms and faces. We dashed inside for our plastic, pastel umbrellas and then danced gleefully in the rain.  Our backyard soon turned into mud soup. Like children stirring chocolate batter, we'd felt as if we'd had a hand in it somehow. It was as if our rain dance recipe had somehow contributed to a savory outcome.   Later, when lightening drove us indoors we watched it from our beds. Savoring the musty smell of rain and the sweetness of victory, we eventually quieted down and fell into a relieved sleep. We had joyfully arrived at the Age of Aquarius.

Like Cream from a Pitcher

2009-04-08T19:42:00Z

If you are enjoying my blogs, I'd like to ask you to pass them along to your friends.  Anyone is invited to subscribe by going to www.marcihenna.com, entering an e-mail address and clicking the subscribe button.

Words have value, and are sometimes spoken at a great price. In 1964, when I was in the first or second grade, my sister and I went to visit our grandparents on their ranch in the Hill Country. It was summertime and heat radiated through the afternoon air as if from an open oven door. Peacocks hid underneath the shade of live oak trees. Half Sheepdog, half poodle mix pups napped underneath the ranch truck or in the shade of a cottonwood. Red rosebushes lined the flower beds and climbed on white lattice trellises up the west side of the yellow-bricked, gingerbread trimmed house. Fuschia crepe myrtles, blue snap dragons, green bells of Ireland, hens and chicks cacti, pecan trees and one lone mimosa punctuated a yard nearly overtaken by lush carpet grass. The yard was my grandmother's artwork, her refuge and saving grace. These bits of beauty were tender mercies during times that may not have felt all that merciful.
    One afternoon, my grandmother emerged from the house wearing striped peddle pushers and a cotton blouse. She carried a satchel of clothing in one arm and her black vinyl purse in another. She said we were going visiting, and would be spending the night.   You see, she had promised my grandfather's widowed sister that she would not make her go to a nursing home should the need arise.  She lived a few miles away on her ranch and was completely alone. Earlier that year, she had laced up her work boots, put on her bonnet and gone out to feed the chickens. After gathering the eggs and dumping out a bucket of maize, she'd had a severe stroke. Unable to move, she'd laid on the ground for two days before my grandmother had found her and gotten help. After she was released from the hospital, unable to walk, talk or communicate in any way, my grandmother took care of her. My great aunt remained in her own home while my grandmother spent nights and weekends with her, allowing the hired caregiver to go home.
    In the evening, we watched Dr. Kildare and curiously observed our expressionless great aunt propped back in an easy chair. We listened to the sounds of cicadas and of clucking hens as my grandmother shooed them inside the chicken house to roost for the night.  Grasshoppers thumped at the window screens and brown moths encircled the naked light bulb swinging from a cord in the living room. Smells from the evening's dinner of fried chicken or pork chops, or venison sausage hovered in the rock house while my sister and I strung old wooden thread spools and ancient buttons into works of post-toddler art. All the while, beads of sweat and face powder dotted our grandmother's upper lip as she worked without ceasing. Each evening, she bathed her sister-in-law, tended to her sometimes unpleasant physical needs, and brushed her hair with an antique silver brush. She spoke tenderly to her patient, never knowing whether anything was understood. She continued to care for her sister-in-law until a second stroke took her life a year or two later. She had made a promise and kept it regardless of the cost to herself. Our grandmother continued to care for many others, rarely looking up from her work. In 1993, she went to bed one cold December night and passed away as easily as sweet cream pouring from a pitcher. It was only fair for her to have gone ahead in such a gentle, peaceful way. I think she surely must have asked for it to be just so.  A spoken word has great value.

Snakes Alive!

2009-03-22T20:52:00Z

O.K. folks, I'm telling the following true story at the request of my good friend and fellow writer, Linda Amey, who heard it years ago. Thanks, Linda, for listening to a good many tales during the past twenty-one years.

They're everywhere, just waiting like ticking, rattling bombs. Coiled in a live oak treetop, underneath the hood of the red Chevy ranch truck, on the other side of the screened back door, and perhaps even underneath our four-poster bed. I could say, "No problem. They don't bother me. I grew up on a ranch and ate boot leather and nails for breakfast. My only toy was a rattler's tail. I walked twelve miles to school each morning, pushing a tractor with one hand and turning the pages of Zane Grey novels with the other...." I could say all that, but it would be a lie.
    Here's the truth. I'm very fearful of snakes. Just seeing those cheap plaster rattler ashtrays in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a few days ago, made me shudder. Even if a rattler coils on an Animal Planet television show fifteen feet from where I'm sitting on my living room sofa, I feel as if I might need to lie down with a cold rag on my forehead.
    A few years ago, I went to see my folks on the family ranch that lies between Johnson City and Fredericksburg. The ranch has been in the family since the 1800's, and is flanked by the Pedernales River, tons of limestone, Indian mounds, persimmon, cedar and live oak, and bluebonnets in the spring. It also has rattlers, cottonmouths, and a few jillion racers, chicken snakes, grass snakes and even occasional king snakes. There are sink holes and caves that I won't go near on the ranch, because...you guessed it, they serve as convention centers for vipers. This spring day, I drove past the one-hundred-year-old fence that ran between my grandparents' house and my parents' pasture. I stopped to open the gate that kept the heifers and bull in the North pasture, and afterward saw the biggest, meanest looking rattler I had ever seen. It appeared to be crossing the road just ahead of me, so I put my Tahoe into gear and charged. But not before I quickly changed into a red cape---well at least in my mind. I had to save my family from a fate worse than death. Mighty Mouse to the rescue! I ran over the rattler, backed up and ran over it again. I repeated the action at least fifty times. Finally, after about fifteen minutes and five gallons of gas, I was satisfied it was dead.
    "Take that--you serpent of the evil empire, you creature of doom. You are no match for Mighty Mouse!" These were tough words, but my knees were knocking. Shaking, I finally barreled on toward my parents' home.    Breathless, I ran inside the front door of the two-story rock Walton's family styled house and found my mother cooking venison sausage in the kitchen.
    Hearing my footsteps, she turned around to face me.  My face read like a Stephen King novel causing hers to blanche. She must have wondered whether a family member had suddenly died, or worse, whether H.E.B. had gone out-of-business, or even worse, whether a family member had died inside of H.E.B., causing it to go out-of-business.
     "Oh my gosh, Mom. I just killed the biggest, meanest rattler I've ever seen!"
     "Really?" she said.  "Where was it ?
     "On this side of the gate by the barn."
     "Oh that...We killed that snake yesterday!

Timing is Everything, Especially in South America.

2009-03-06T20:27:00Z

There is a rhythm to the universe, even if it doesn't seem to be in tandem with our own. Often, it is far better than we could ever have imagined.

For years, I'd been trying to take my husband to South America for his birthday. What started as a flurry of planning a year in advance of his 60th, added up to nothing by Jan. 10th. One thing after another, kept us from going--for years. And then, by the time we were within days of his 63rd birthday, a miracle happened. On New Year's Eve, I got a whim to try ONE MORE TIME. Suddenly, like pieces to a puzzle, everything snapped into place. By Jan. 2nd, we were en route to Santiago, Chile and a 16 day cruise aboard Silver Sea's Silver Cloud. I can only think that there is a strange perfection to the universe, and that maybe, just maybe we're not meant to plan out every moment of our lives in advance. Maybe the message is that we have to live in the moment and embrace whatever it brings our way.   It's not always that easy, is it? But, this time, it was an incredible gift.

Jan. 7th: Puerto Montt, one of our first ports of call, is located about 42 degrees south by Reloncavi Sound and is the capital of Llanquihue Province and the Los Lagos Region. It is a German settlement and looks as if immigrants built it to remind them of the old country whenever possible. German gingerbread buildings, pastries and wurst, are everywhere we look. The German language sprinkled with Spanish permeates the streets of the city and is embedded in the hearts and DNA of the townsfolk.

This is the older part of the city that reminds us of when the government took less and the citizens got to keep more . Today's Chilean homes are small, brightly colored boxes that appear as if they'd been stamped by a giant cookie-cutter factory. Many of the people in Chile are poor, and yet not. Most of them, except those living in the ghettos of the larger cities, have something that passes for a house. Oh, it may resemble a playhouse compared to homes in developed nations. It provides, though, a place to lie down, to cook dinner, and shelter from the rain in an area that receives it more than 325 days per year.    It isn't much, and yet it is everything.

At five p.m., we are sitting on the veranda of our suite (on the starboard side of the ship) gazing at mariner blue, school bus yellow and angry-orange fishing boats in the harbor. Seagulls hover over them, hoping for handouts, while a small motor boat whizzes by, filled only with ten-year-old boys. On the hill in front of us is a mammoth white cross made of steel trusses and anchored into place by Goliath guide wires. We have seen giant hillside crosses in every city in Chile so far.

The weather has been damp and gloomy all day. Shivering, I go inside to grab a jacket. It is sixty degrees outside with sixty percent humidity. In the distance are mountains flanked at the bottom by beached fishing boats and at the top by billowy clouds. In the suite next door, a young Russian couple cranks up the Rap Techno music (is that a real category?) while the ship's engines begin to surge and we depart for Puerto Chaccobuco.

Finally, the sun comes out and reflects off the water, turning it into a sea of silver. The white clouds remain in the distance, and I'm wondering whether this moment, repeated at some point in the past, is how the ship got its name? Silver below.  Billowy clouds above. Silver Cloud.

The All-Day Southern Buffet.

2009-02-26T21:43:00Z

In the South, we digest life through the use of food. We punctuate major life events with a giant smorgasbord exclamation point! We celebrate births with pastel petit fours and ice cream punch at showers. In honor of graduations, we host barbecues in the backyard or high tea at the Ritz. We take our guests out for meals in fancy steak houses.  Waiters wearing hip haircuts and cushy shoes serve us perfectly-cooked filet mignon. Then comes the side dishes of garlic mashed potatoes and whole steamed asparagus drizzled with lemon and butter. At weddings, we feed our guests plates of roast pork tenderloin, new potatoes and French mini green beans tied up like a bouquet to make them memorably appropriate.

After funerals, we do not know what to do to make things better so we just take food. King Ranch Chicken Casserole. A cheese tray filled with Gouda, Jarlsberg, Parmesan, and Brie. Rum cakes and plates of double-fudge brownies. We feed the bereft, even when they don't feel like eating. We'll feed their guests, in that case.  The action of taking food becomes a balm for the spirit--theirs and ours.

Feeding people makes me feel better somehow.   If someone has lost a spouse or a parent, I may not be able to take the pain away, but I can let them know they are not alone. I can invite them to the table and let them just "be" in a safe place.

Our freezer is nearly always full. It contains the secret ingredients that makes it possible to share joy, conversation, heal broken hearts, and to mark special occasions. How blessed are we by that?

If your family has special customs to mark events by, please post a comment to my blog. I'd love to know.

I just can't help myself.

2009-02-18T20:41:00Z

I have a parenting tip that I think should get me at least five minutes on Oprah! There's a lot I don't know about parenting, even after raising a number of children. This works, though, and beats arguing hands down.

Our youngest daughter was born to shop. My mistake. Due to the extreme heat in Austin's summers, I took our one-month-old in her stroller through Barton Creek Mall. We didn't necessarily buy anything; we just browsed. What I have learned is this: if you take a baby girl to the mall, it will imprint on her. She will begin to dream of Juicy Couture handbags in fifteen colors or Jimmy Choo Stiletto heels before she is old enough to eat table food. Take your infant to a public library or Barnes and Noble, but don't take her to the mall. If it is too late for you, as it is for me, then apply this remedy generously.

One afternoon, we were in Charlotte Russe and our teenage daughter was especially spellbound by shopping opportunities. Despite the fact that it was homework and dinner time, I COULD NOT get her out of the store. The gansta rap music that vibrated in the background was getting on my nerves in a big way and I felt like the prisoner of a bad dream. Then I had a vision. I told my teenager that I felt something strange sweeping over me. I started to gyrate and bop and boogie and to do that rap dance called, Raising the Roof. Oh, it pays to be a bad dancer.

"What are you doing, M-o-t-h-e-r?" she asked nervously, throwing the aqua satin blouse back on the rack.

"Just dancing," I replied, now drawing a small crowd.

"You're embarrassing me! Let's go!"

"No, honey . I'm having such a good time."

"I've got to do my homework." Now, she was sweating bullets. "And I've got to study for the TAKS test."

"Well, maybe you're right, " I said. "But, let me finish this dance first."

We were out of the store in under sixty seconds. This technique continued to work every time I uttered the magical phrase, "I feel it coming on and I just can't help myself."

Charleston, where have you been all my life?

2009-02-11T15:07:00Z

This past weekend, we were in Charleston and loved the way history spoke to us at every turn. There were 17th and 18th century homes punctuated by elaborate plaster moldings, outlined in 18-ct. gold and whose drawing rooms dripped chandeliers. They had creaking wooden floors and smelled of ancient oak, old parchment and mold. Signs around town advertised Ghost and Horse-drawn Carriage tours. We did not go on the ghost tours, although the history of long-deceased residents whispered to all who passed through the 1808 neoclassical Nathaniel Russell House. If you closed your eyes and thought about it, you could see women in miles of blue or pink satin floating up the free-flying staircase on their way to the drawing room to needlepoint and gossip over a cup of black South Carolina tea. Downstairs, you could almost hear children dropping spoons on the floor and fussing over finding cabbage and shell beans on their plates. Strains of "I want another drumstick, please ,or Mother, Jenny is touching my arm. Make her quit! ", filter from the family room table where they're being fed their evening meal around 3:30 in the afternoon. Eating early was the custom, probably due to daylight and the necessity of getting chores done before nightfall. The house was splendid in its historical garb, but a tad creepy. You could not bribe me to stay there overnight--not even with a whole bushel of caramel apples.

On Sunday, we attended the 10:30 a.m. service at St. Michael's, the oldest church building in Charleston. We loved it! The worn, squeaky pews were waist-high boxes that had to be locked so their doors would not swing open. George Washington had visited that church. I could almost see him there, removing his tricorn hat and sitting razor straight in the pew. He stares intently at the priest in the raised pulpit, trying to ignore the nobleman snoring in the seat next to him. Yes, even then the Society of the Frozen Chosen was alive and well.

These buildings and others all managed to survive the ravages of war, hurricane, and time. They are revered in the city of Charleston--and like a favorite grandparent, treated kindly lest they suffer injury. It is city bountifully blessed by its historical treasures in a young nation where newness and youth have become an obsession.

Two Chicks Cruising

2009-01-28T18:11:00Z

We have been traveling around South America and I have fallen behind in most everything, especially my blogging. We're back, with tales to tell. But for today, I have something else in mind.

I've been thinking about my grandmother, lately. She passed away just a little over a year ago at the age of 94, and yet is somehow still with me. I often picture the two of us doing what we did for years and that was to get in my Tahoe and go. I'd pick her up at the assisted living facility in Oak Hill and throw her walker into the back of my vehicle. Each visit she'd wanted to do the same thing--go visit the ranch property in Henly where she'd raised her family and spent most of her life. She remarked on every house along the Hill Country ranch road where she lived and spoke about her neighbors with deep appreciation for what they'd meant to her. Then we'd cruise around the newer subdivisions in Henly and say how much things had changed. Eventually, we'd begin the journey back to the center where she currently lived, but hardly ever without stopping at the Sonic in Dripping Springs first. We'd drink coconut cream pie shakes and talk about whatever was on her mind--sometimes angels, heaven, or her children. She'd nearly always comment on how hard it was to give up driving and resulting loss of her independence.

It wasn't until later, when I was writing her eulogy and interviewing her children that I learned just how long she'd been driving. As a child, she'd lived in Dallas At the ripe old age of ten, her parents had bought a car. They didn't, of course, want to drive it themselves. No, they assigned that task to her. This was before the time of age restrictions, mind you, so no laws were broken. I can just picture my ten-year-old grandmother, sitting on a fat Webster's Dictionary with her head barely appearing above the steering wheel. With blocks tied to her Mary Jane's, she was off like a turtle chauffeuring her parents around Dallas. She quit driving in her late 80's, and by that time had been a driver for nearly 80 years. That's a lot of pavement in the rear view mirror.

Her vantage point turned heavenward. She commented on billowy cumulus clouds frequently. It was then that I noticed her deep affection for angels. Angels, you see, can fly. They don't have to give up their freedom when they get older. They travel at the speed of thought, without a walker to steady them, and can visit any old Sonic in the blink of an eye. When she grew too fragile to ride in my Tahoe, they became the best thing she could think about. Better even, than two chicks cruising Hwy. 290 and enjoying a coconut cream pie shake.

All Hail to the Queen of Jet Lag!

2008-12-28T21:15:00Z

There are those of us born to entertain others. I have been accidental entertainment to humanity--often when I am jet-lagged. After crossing the Atlantic or Pacific, my brain turns into blue Jell-o. For the life of me, I do not know how the President gets off Air Force One, steps down the ramp, and gives a brilliant speech about world peace to millions of viewers. There must be something in the gene pool that enables someone to do that. All I can think about when I get off one of those transoceanic flights is whether I am awake enough to navigate through Customs and then find the right restroom--not the men's like last time. Maybe if I'm really lucky, I'll make it to the correct hotel and locate the room that matches the number on my key. I'll try to figure out how to turn on the water faucet and differentiate between which bottle says shampoo and which says mouthwash. Then, assuming I am successful with all of that, I might try to use the hairdryer--but only if I can deduce how to turn it on. If that is too much for me, I'll just sit on the edge of the tub and drip dry.
In the early 1980's, my husband and I flew on Air France to Paris. It was my first trip to Europe, and I was surrounded by a sea of well-heeled car dealers and their wives, most of whom were quite a bit older than myself. I was so anxious about making a good impression--and well, not embarrassing my husband by saying or doing the wrong thing. We were picked up at Charles de Gaulle Airport and delivered to the Intercontinental Hotel via bus. Oh, those wives were dressed to the nines. They were in Channel pantsuits or St. John's knits with pearls. None of them had monkey hair that had become plastered to their scalps during the flight. None of them had spilled an entire cup of coffee down the front of a hot pink outfit. Just me. Only me.
When we were finally tucked inside our room, we took showers and then quickly dressed again for a reception that was about to begin in our honor. I agonized over what to wear, and finally chose a pantsuit. I was quite woozy from sleep deprivation and a little nauseated from the orange juice I'd had on the flight . It took everything I had, but finally, I was ready to go. We left our room, trudged down the hallway and wedged ourselves into the back of the elevator with other car dealers and their wives. I was feeling better, and even a little confident. Oh, how the sin of pride snaps us quickly down to size.
A perfumed, diamond ring covered hand reached over and tapped me on my shoulder. The woman had perfectly coiffed brown hair and wore a navy blue Albert Nipon dinner suit. Peering at me through her Yves St. Laurent glasses, she said, "I don't know how to tell you this....."
"What?" I replied, afraid to know the answer.
She pointed to my feet and burst out laughing. I looked down and saw that a pair of pantyhose from my suitcase had somehow become wedged in my shoe and now trailed the entire length of the elevator floor. I would have bent over, plucked them out and stuffed them in my purse, but there was no room to maneuver. No, I had to wait until everyone in the elevator enjoyed laughing at them for the next twenty floors. What I worried about was this: not only had I schlepped pantyhose across the Intercontinental Hotel, but, horrors, I'd committed yet another fashion faux pas. Anyone could see by the label that these were not been designer stockings. They were L'eggs cheepies, the kind that came from a silver egg at Walmart.

At that moment, any aspirations I'd ever had about running for the office of President of the United States, vanished into a trail of nylon.

In the Garden

2008-12-05T02:34:00Z

I've been tied up with computer problems and now the holidays. I'm sorry to have been so slow with this blog. I've also lost all of your e-mail addresses. If you have time, would you please send them to me? Thanks!--Marci

My grandfather was a crusty rancher who resembled something of John Wayne and Jack Palance. He grew up poor, like most Texans who were born in the late 1800's and early 1900's. His parents were ranchers, and he was the youngest surviving child after a string of others, whose numbers remain in the ether. He quit school in the sixth grade so he could help out at home. Yet, he did not quit learning. Even at an advanced age, he would study books about the solar system or wild west heroes most of us know nothing about. He loved the music of Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, and Ernest T. Ford.
    He could pick up a rattler by its tail and crack it against the ground, killing it before it knew what hit it. He fought the Great Depression without gloves, and lived to tell the tale, though it left its mark upon every financial decision he made afterward and in the slope of his shoulders.
    All these things I know to be true about him, and yet there was a tender side. Whenever my sister and I stayed with our grandparents, we were told to take a nap after a lunch of fried chicken, butternut squash, and blue-ribbon beefsteak tomatoes from the garden. We were never ready to settle down. My grandfather would eventually appear into our room and give us a reprieve. He'd carry us into the kitchen and lift us up onto the counter top, and let us dip our hands into the perpetually full peppermint jar that stood to the left of the stove. We were sworn to secrecy and told to especially not to tell our grandmother, lest she skin him alive. She was five feet tall with her shoes on, and the sweetest woman on the planet. He was six-feet-four, and yet we were somehow convinced that his life hung in the balance. We never told, but, of course she knew and didn't mind one whit.
    Some Sunday afternoons, I'd find him in the living room sitting in the office chair he used to snap across the linoleum floor to change television channels or put on a record, all without standing up. He'd turn on the record player and listen to Ernest T. Ford sing, How Great Thou Art, In the Garden, and Amazing Grace, all the while looking a little sad.
    I didn't understand it at the time, but, now I think I know why he was sad. Sad about the loved ones who'd passed. Sad about all the good times behind him, and that he hadn't recognized them for what they were when they were happening. Sad about the mistakes he'd made. Sad about the things he'd left undone. Just like the rest of us. There are none of us without regret. All have something for which to be grateful.  I loved him in all his crustiness. Beneath that tough exterior was a man with a soft underbelly. He was surely good to me.

Oh the Seasons, they are a Changing.

2008-11-13T17:32:00Z

I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico and am peering outside at barren aspen trees with piles of golden leaves at their bases. To the right are purple plum trees with the occasional stubborn brown leaf still clinging to the branch. To the left is a climbing rose vine that has reached our variegated brown tile roof and is hanging on for dear life. For some reason unknown to me, it is a dusty green, still alive, although its days are surely numbered. Many of the birds have fled south for the winter, yet the animals remain. A gray fox crept across Camino La Tierra the day before last, its eyes shining in our headlights. Mangy coyotes howl in the moonlight and send chills up my spine as they encircle their prey.  Green and brown striped lizards have gone underground, yet I know they are still around, biding time until warmer days come again. The smell of pinon wood burning in fireplaces mingles with fresh cool breezes and floods my senses with delight.
    It is these late fall days and evenings that make us face the fact that winter will be soon upon us. There are arm loads of wood to be brought in for the fireplace.   For my sister in Wisconsin, there will be mountains of snow to shovel and plow. There is gingerbread and rum cake to be made and shared.  A Christmas tree will choose us and we'll fill its branches to the top with decorations, each invoking a special memory of a holiday gone by. The years pass faster, somehow, than they did when I was a child. A year seems to equal a month. A day fades within a couple of hours. Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and quick upon its heels is Christmas.
    I am grateful for so much--a kind and loving husband, four children and going on eight grandchildren, each perfect in his or her own way. I think about the family members who've gone on ahead during the late fall and early winter--my father, his mother and father, and my mother's mother just this past Thanksgiving.  My life has been made far richer for having known them. It is a good time to honor their memories and reflect upon how very blessed I have been.
    Whenever I take the time to be grateful, it seems as if more abundance shows up in delightful ways. A friendly word is spoken by a fellow shopper in Albertsons'. A driver beckons me to move in line ahead of him. Words flow onto a blank page as if written by an unseen hand, making me only the writing instrument, not the creator. Someone drops a casserole by my home for no apparent reason, except that it is a gift. A surprise hug from a friend or a telephone call makes me aware that someone is thinking of me.
    Winter will soon pass away and spring will be born. A wren will once again inhabit her nest outside our window in Austin. I will watch her babies hatch and look forward to the arrival of our eighth grandchild, a girl in April. We will be rejuvenated by that season of rebirth, by the appearance of new generations where old ones have vanished. There is so much to look forward to, so much to celebrate during each season.

Blue Corn Tortilla Soup in Autumn

2008-11-03T23:10:00Z

I come from a long line of women who've spent inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen. My grandmother made her own butter and cheese which came from the cow she milked each morning before seven a.m. She'd carry the bucket of milk into the kitchen and let it cool on the counter while she made baking powder biscuits. By nightfall, she'd have made icebox cookies, and banana pudding or a western cake drizzled with powdered sugar icing. There'd have been bowls of butternut squash, creamed corn, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers soaked in vinegar and oil. She'd have fried chicken or venison sausage and served them on platters that never seemed to run out. All these things she produced in her blue-ribbon winning garden and on her Hill Country ranch. She is stamped in my memory like that, perpetually working to feed us.
    My mother, an even better cook, went to great lengths to make mealtimes an adventure for us. She made homemade sauerbrauten, Challah bread, and pastas from scratch. Everything she touched seemed to turn out beautifully. Mind you, she had four children to raise and not much help from the likes of us.
    Not everything I cook turns out perfectly or is a work of art. Especially in my early years of cooking, some of it was flat-out ugly and laughable. But over the years, I have tried to carry on the tradition of cooking at home, rather than eating out as much as is popular.  Whenever autumn comes around and the air grows cooler, I begin to think about cooking soups. Tonight, we are having Blue Corn Tortillla Soup--one of my recipes. I don't want to cook alone, so why don't we cook together?

BLUE CORN TORTILLA SOUP

(serves 8 or more)

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil
1 large chopped onion
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 - 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes with juice
2 - 32 oz. cartons of vegetable or chicken broth
2 to 3 cups chopped, cooked chicken (optional)
1 - 30 oz. can of white hominy with liquid
1 - 15 oz. can of black beans, drained
1 - 16 oz. bag of frozen okra
1 tsp. white pepper
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro
1 to 2 tsp. salt, depending upon personal tastes
juice of 1 -2 limes
(if you really want this to be spicy, add one 7 oz. can of mild green chiles)

Saute' onions and garlic in olive oil in large soup pot until onions are translucent. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for an hour. (do not use a crock pot as it will not be as flavorful.)

To serve:

Ladle soup in bowls and top with the following:

Blue corn tortilla chips, broken
Diced Avocado
Shredded Colby Jack cheese
a dollop of sour cream, if desired

Fall on the Plaza in Santa Fe

2008-10-25T15:50:00Z

I have been blessed beyond measure by the love of a good family. My father has been gone for years, yet somehow, memories of him are crisper in the fall. In September of 1967, we moved into a small adobe house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, close to downtown and the center of culture and community.  September rolled into October and the aspen trees began to change. Green leaves gave way to gold and seemed to have light coming from within. They shimmered and shook and possessed a rhythm all their own.  The smell of burning pinon wafted across the Plaza and the music of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and LuLu vibrated from open car windows as teenage boys cruised from one block to the next, whistling at chicks in mini skirts and go-go boots.
    That year was a hot one in the Vietnam War, and young people everywhere were starting to rebel. Slogans of No Nam!, Make Luv--Not War!, Peace, Dig it? Drop Out and Tune In, and others began to appear on t-shirts, across vacant buildings, and on bare skin. My father and the four of us kids sat parked in our tan Volkswagen station wagon in front of the Plaza Cafe', listened to Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys sing Different Drum and waited for my mother to come out of a shop.   We were sticky from having eaten sopapillas sopped in honey for dessert at lunch, and had just started to get testy with one another. Soon a creature emerged from the cafe' wearing a tie dyed t-shirt, an unzipped leather jacket and frayed bell-bottomed jeans with peace signs embroidered across the knees. He had hair down to his waist, and a leather headband tied around his forehead.
    "Good gravy! Why does he look like that?" I asked.  At the age of nine, I was horrified. Didn't he know that only girls were supposed to wear their hair that long?
    "That young man is a hippie," replied my father. "He's got something to say by dressing that way and wearing long hair."
    "'Bout what?" I couldn't take my eyes off him as he climbed on his motorcycle.
    "He doesn't like the fact that Americans are fighting in the war." His voice picked up energy when he said that, but I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be for or against what this young man stood for, so I let the subject go and busied myself with trying to clean my messy hands with a Kleenex that stuck to the honey in bits and pieces.
    My father worked for the Social Security Administration and forever kept the same crew-cut hairstyle he'd had from his days as a Marine. He held high standards of behavior for the four of us kids and we assumed that he'd been cast in the same mold as other parents.   It wasn't until much later that I realized how wrong I'd been.  Dad liked to listen to Jimi Hendrix and sing Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz...along with Janis Joplin. When he went to the polls to vote, he'd pick the most liberal candidate on the ballot and tell us why he believed in his choice. He preached about the virtues of a good compost pile, started buck-eye and haw trees from seeds, and made Sun tea to conserve propane. On weekends, he wore worn-out blue jeans and Birkenstock shoes. His hair was too curly and wiry to have been coaxed into other styles, but I suspect he'd liked to have worn it longer. He'd conformed to society in order to provide food and shelter for his family of six, but I now know he had another side. He'd wistfully watched that young hippie roar off on his motorcycle that Saturday afternoon at the Plaza, and had recognized a kindred spirit. I suppose it could be said that there is a little bit of a hippie, a rebel, inside all of us.

Like a Bowl of Cherries.

2008-10-22T20:15:00Z

Years ago, as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, I read a dissertation written by Suzanne K. Langer, called Feeling and Form. Her work drew a broad dividing line between virtual and actual time, and virtual and actual space. It was then that I first understood that time as we know it, either doesn't exist, or is radically different than we've perceived it to be.
    Since then, I've fallen in love with Quantum Physics. I began with Stephen Hawking's articles which appeared in various publications, and then most recently read an exciting work entitled, The Field, by Lynne McTaggart. I studied The Field with a group led by Dr. Lori Barr, creator of www.mindtamers.com. Dr. Barr organized a 7:00 a.m. conference call that met each Wednesday morning, and proved to be a fabulous leader and moderator.  If you have the opportunity to become involved in one of her groups, I recommend her highly.
    In a nutshell, The Field refers to the Zero Point Field of energy that surrounds everything that exists within our universe.   Within the field, time has no meaning, all knowledge that has existed in the past, exists now, or will ever exist is already recorded in the field. Furthermore, every thought anyone has ever had, every action taken, every word ever spoken is recorded in the field for eternity. Scary, isn't it?
    A ground-breaking experiment was conducted in space by Ed Mitchell on the Apollo 14 mission to test "whether human telepathy could be achieved at greater distances than it had" back on earth. After a successful test of transmitting symbols telepathically from space to a human receiver on earth, it was discovered that there was no time-lapse between Mitchell viewing the symbols and the recipient on earth correctly identifying them. In addition, all information within the field is available to all humans without regard to time or space.
    The Zero Point Field is a broad umbrella that gives shelter to throught-provoking phenomena that suggests how healing and sickness become manifest within the body, how it is possible for supernatural occurrences to co-exist with our everyday "normal" realm, and what clairvoyance really is and how the CIA uses it.
    For those of you who love a mind-bending experience, The Field is like cherries jubilee for the brain. Try a bite, you'll like it!

Since You Asked!

2008-10-22T18:59:00Z

Since you've pondered the whereabouts of Nelle Harper Lee following my last blog, I think I may have the answer. She is still living in Monroeville, Alabama. She is eighty-two years old and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom less than one year ago. For years, Ms. Lee split time between her apartment in New York and the home of her sister, Alice, in Monroeville.
    She did not like the limelight thrust upon her by the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and avoided almost all interviews after the initial flurry of publicity around the release of the screenplay adaptation of the novel in 1962. She has remained active within her community and in the Methodist Church, but overall has lived a very private life since the early 1960's.
    Ms. Lee worked on two other projects: a novel entitled, The Long Goodbye,  which she simply filed away and never published, and an also unpublished nonfiction work about an Alabama serial killer, called The Reverend. Other than a few articles published in the 1960's and a letter published in O in July of 1006, Ms. Lee has not published anything further. A point could be made that later efforts at publication may have detracted from the unparalleled standing of Ms. Lee as the preeminent author of one of America's most significant social commentaries and for perhaps setting the finest example in modern day American Literature of pitch-perfect characterization.
    Furthermore, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 was a broad exclamation point which came at the very beginning of her career, and may have helped her to push back from her typewriter far earlier than the rest of us would have liked. Nelle had already proved to herself all she needed to know--and like flan after filet mignon, that must have been enough.

Has Anyone Seen Nelle Harper Lee?

2008-10-19T19:40:00Z

One of my favorite authors has always been Nelle Harper Lee. I love To Kill a Mockingbird--the way some do an heirloom that's been in the family for more years than anyone can recall. I can't remember a time when I didn't know of it.  I think of Ms. Lee every once in a while, and wonder what she's up to. Does she think about writing anymore, or has she simply moved on? Is there anything that bothers her?  I like to think of her as curled up with a good book by her fireside, and that, at her age, she is fearful of nothing.
    It is October and Halloween is coming soon. That brings Boo Radley to mind. He is the sum total of what frightens people, or is at least in the beginning of the story. Much more is ascribed to him by town folk and by the Finch children than belongs to him.
    Lee writes:
        "Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks;
        he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained--if you ate
        an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face;
        what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time."
    Sometimes we allow our fears to become bigger than life. Heaven knows, there's enough in the news to make you fearful, if you weren't before. In this country, decaying fall leaves perpetually swirl on autumn's breath. On dark nights, sounds of footsteps plod unsteadily behind you as you head down the path toward home. Haints, hot steams, and boogie men with jagged scars and knives in their hands, wait and crouch in the bushes everywhere you turn.
    You'll remember that by the end of the story, Boo saves the lives of the Jem and Scout. The very person they'd spent all that time fearing, rescues them from the real boogie man.   Maybe your Boo Radley is really the Robert E. Lee Ewell of today--the crazy economy, illness, or worrisome relationships. But then again, maybe it's just plain old Boo Radley on October windswept, leaf strewn nights.
    There are a few questions I'd like to ask Nelle Harper Lee. About Boo, Jem and Scout, and old Bob Ewell. Has anyone seen her, lately?

How those panic buttons in airplane restrooms work.

2008-10-16T14:52:00Z

We were on a return flight from Europe in 1989, that was really more like a refugee evacuation from a two-week trip with a ninety-three-year-old in a wheel chair, our oldest daughter (who had helped us tremendously), and our eighteen-month-old toddler.
    Our toddler daughter had developed terrible separation anxiety. When we were apart, even an arm's length away, a cataclysmic meltdown would ensue. I could not even go to the restroom on the 747 without her accompanying me. About a third of the way through the flight, I picked her up and took her with me to the restroom at mid-cabin. Together, we barely fit in that tiny space. It took a lot of maneuvering to accomplish anything.  I had to put the toilet seat down, stand our daughter on top of it, and then turn around to wash my hands.
    Did you know that the panic button, when pressed, is virtually silent inside the restroom? Nor did I. But soon after our daughter had pressed it, three flight attendants were beating on the restroom door.
    "Are you able to talk?" shouted an adrenaline-packed male voice.
    "Yes!" My eyes widened in shock. What an odd thing to be asked.
    "Don't worry," he called. "We're going to get you out of there. Are you still conscious?"
    "Yes!" I reached around to pick up my daughter.
    "Don't worry, Madam. We're going to break the door down."
    I unlocked the door and hesitantly opened it. My daughter and I emerged, and I could see the three flight attendants' jaws drop. Then keen disappointment registered on their faces. They had been let down by our healthy emergence. I mean, all that training and effort would go unused, at least on us.
    When I realized what happened, I apologized profusely, and then, half-laughing and half-crying from embarrassment, began the journey up the aisle back to our seats. Every single passenger anywhere around the mid-cabin area had risen up to watch our exit. Some were worried about us, some were disgusted, some were laughing, and some had simply noticed that there was finally, a vacant restroom.