Life of Wry

Grateful that most of my days feature a nice, long walk… and most of the time down by the creek. The ducklings and turtles were out in force, but I didn’t get great shots of either. The flowers, on the other hand, were decent subjects. The bees were extremely busy, and I got right down into the weeds with them to get a couple flower shots, but I came away unscathed. Clearly, they were interested in sweet things.

Late afternoon’s a nice time to be at the arb.

I’ve been wanting to make this meatloaf for a few years, ever since I visited Sally and her parents in Mountain Ranch and her mom served this fantastic dish. It’s her standby meatloaf recipe — Bologna style — one she got years ago in a Biba cookbook (Biba Caggiano, the legendary Italian chef from Sacramento who died just about 7 months ago).

I went back into my archives and dug up a few photos from that visit (I’d even written about it here: https://lifeofwry.com/2014/10/19/sixty-two-and-cranking-along/). It was about the time of the Alden’s 62 wedding anniversary.

Here we are consuming said delectable meatloaf:

(And I just need to say, 5 and a half years later, the Aldens are still in their beautiful country home; he’s 95 or so, she’s 91.. struggling with health and aging issues, but still living on their own.)

So I made it and it was just wonderful, but not without challenges along the way.

Here’s the loaf itself (yet to be cooked), made with a combo of turkey and pork (v. beef), and covered in bread crumbs. Inside: fresh torn bread, milk, eggs, parmesan, freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pep. I left out the pancetta only b/c I didn’t have any.

Then you saute chopped onion, carrots, celery and parsley in olive oil:

The meatloaf rests upon this mixture and is baked for about 25 minutes, then wine is added to the pot to deglaze and flavor the veggie bits and baked for another 10 minutes until the wine’s gone. Then a couple of cups of chopped tomatoes are added (canned, she calls for) and baked for another 30 minutes or so.

So…   I’d do some other things to keep this from happening, but other than the not-so-attractive appearance, it was seriously, intensely flavorful and moist. I can’t wait for leftovers.

I managed to smoke up our entire house — like thick black smoke that required the opening of all windows and the running of fans — when I forgot I was sauteeing potatoes in butter (bad me, I was blogging last night’s post and got totally distracted until I became aware of this awful smell and realized I’d left the potatoes unattended…)

Jim and performed burnectomies on each poor spud-half… and netted enough, actually, for two decent servings…

Don’t recommend this last part, but the rest of the dinner was great. #cookshumbleopinion.

Three things dominated my thoughts today (covid-19 was not one of them, shockingly).

John Prine died last night (complications from coronovirus). It’s a really sad loss. I listened to him a lot during a time when I was deep into finding myself — during my first years in Davis, graduating from college, figuring out where I was going with my life, my first real adult years.  It’s a direct association — my bumpy growth, John Prine’s songs.

My boyfriend at the time (1979-ish) Brad, was a disc jockey at KDVS and had the coveted Saturday night time slot. He’d play a lot of great rock and roll from 10 to midnight, then would quiet things down between midnight and 2am and that was John Prine and Bonnie Raitt ballad time (lots of others, too, but those are two I most remember). Often Brad would say something like, “this one’s for you, Pedrohijo” (he called me Pedrohijo) and then, “Angel From Montgomery” might play. It was pretty fun.

John Prine was such a decent human being who wrote compassionately about people in real life. He was a tender poet, he cared about justice, and was a comrade in the fight against the Vietnam war. Because of terrible skin cancer that required removal of a sizable portion of his neck (about 20 years ago), his voice at the end of his life had been completely transformed to something gravely and deep.  Same songs but with a raspy, seasoned elder’s quality. If I’d have been blogging last October, I’d have written about how Jim and I cried through a good portion of his concert at the Mondavi. It was his presence, his familiar songs, his wrenching lyrics, his aging, my aging, the obvious hole in his neck. He’d aged almost cruelly, but had not lost his humanity nor humor.

I can cry easily thinking about it all.

RIP lovely man, thank you for your music.

Whammy #2 was that Bernie Sanders suspended, as they say, his 2020 presidential bid today. Not quite dropped out, since he’s planning to stay on the ballot in the remaining states’ primaries in order to continue to amass delegates in order that he have a legitimate influence on the party platform.  That’s good. He committed to supporting Joe, who he called a decent guy, and underscored that this is a must win election. My feeling is that, by doing it this way, he maintains the enthusiasm of his dedicated base toward a worthwhile goal — all of our goals, regardless of whom we supported at any point in this race. He’ll have ample time to bring his die hard supporters along with the idea that this is about preserving the critical elements of a movement, and Joe will have ample time to integrate some of Bernie’s vision into his campaign. I hope.

All of that said.. I’m sad. I didn’t think Bernie would be able to bring along enough people to beat Trump, but I believe in him. I believe in his vision. I hate where the dems are now with an old establishment guy. Ideologically I hate it. But I think Biden, between the two of them, was going to have the better chance of winning.

I’m sad for the state of the party. State of our politics. State of our future. I believe deep, deep down we are messed up and need a redo. That’s another eleventy hundred posts.

Bernie is the real deal. I believe he’s a very decent, smart man. I hope we see a lot more of him. Here is a photo from when he was in Davis almost 4 years ago. (And remember that crazy story about how, as I waited, among the throngs on a hot spring afternoon over by the Rec Hall, for him to speak, HE and his entourage were parked across the street from OUR house, playing catch with tennis balls on the lawn outside the Senior Center. He did finally arrive to the field outside the Rec Hall and spoke for nearly two rousing, extremely inspiring hours to thousands and thousands of huge fans, of which I was a very enthusiastic one. Voted for him in that primary, proudly.)

And, whammy #3 is Ken Burn’s 10-part documentary on the Vietnam war, which is very much on my mind. Jim and I started the series last week, and watched Part 4 last night. It’s one long, relentless gut punch. I’m absolutely fascinated, and overwhelmed with sadness at the senselessness and losses of war. Many tears during last night’s nearly 2-hour segment.

I was just entering junior high during the part of the story covered last night. While I was certainly aware of the coverage on the nightly news and the many fragments of conversation my republican parents were having about the situation in Vietnam, I wasn’t very knowledgable about what was happening. Over the decades, I got a better sense of what went on, but I’m learning a whole lot more watching this documentary than I ever knew.

In junior high, and maybe into high school, I wore a POW bracelet that honored Everett Alvarez, the first pilot shot down in the war and taken prisoner. (I thought then that I was the only one wearing his bracelet, but that is certainly not the case.) Remember these? I wonder what my parents thought of my wearing one.

Anyway.. these sat in my head all day today..

Reflecting on unsettling eras of the past, longing so desperately for a better, more humane tomorrow.

Eating’s a big part of this thing.

This…

Followed by this….

Followed by this…

You get the idea.

We live in meme rich times.

I’ll try and do a better job of saving my favorite ones, because, wow, there are a lot of funny, creative people out there who are meming it up like nobody’s business (thank god), but here are a recent few that I did save.

(Ok, I guess that was a little more political cartoony.. couldn’t help myself.)

Yeah.. I didn’t take a single picture today.. so memes it is.

Decades ago, when I’d go out for walks (back then they were runs), I’d pass this house on College Park. The house is in the loveliest setting.. sits back from the street, under towering sycamore trees with a traditional sort of front yard… a bit stately, but also comfortable. A meandering path to the front porch, textured white brick exterior, wooden carriage garage doors. Just charming.

And there would always be this older-ish fellow sitting in a chair in the window. His chair angled more toward the room than toward his yard and I could always see that he was reading the paper, or a book, and I could even see he had a mug of something, probably coffee, on the table next to his chair.  He was aglow in the light that illuminated the chair, and the rest of the room was comparatively dark, not creepily so, just a little less illuminated. I could see book shelves and a fireplace — things like that.

I can’t tell you how much I loved this scene. I loved the neighborhood, I loved the house, and I ached to be that guy sitting in the chair reading. It spoke to a sort of calm. Enough time in a day to be quiet, to get lost in a book, or to read up on something interesting or important. It spoke to wisdom, thoughtfulness. It also spoke to leisure and how we choose to use that time.

It was cozy, safe, intelligent even.

I have the hardest, hardest time relaxing enough, being clear enough of conscience, to plunk myself down in a chair and read. Usually, I have things both big and small — mostly small — on my to-do list, and I aim to get those done before I allow myself the liberty to sit and just… read. I’m not going to run through that list because it’s everybody’s list.. it’s the stuff of daily life and keeping oneself and household functioning. And maybe a few oddball things peculiar to my own OCD [smile, please] [sure you have those, too]. It seems like other people don’t have the same issues I have when it comes to finding reading time (aforementioned OCD?), but I am definitely working on this.

I could never count the times I’ve said, usually defensively, to Jim or whoever, “I’m just going to clear the decks, and when I do, I will be settling into [finally] [reading, writing, a particular project, a new best routine].”

I’ll probably never be closer to that point than during this virus-induced forced downtime… and I’m RETIRED, most of my time is downtime. Now’s a good time, amiright? (haven’t used that expression for awhile).

I haven’t cracked any of the books in any of my stacks (but plan to any second). I HAVE, however, listened to more podcasts, HAVE dipped my toes (Jim’s too) into the world of streaming media (in the second season of a 4-season show on Hulu…. SHOCKED I can even put those words together in a sentence…. and will watch Part III of the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary tonight), HAVE begun to cook more — a LOT more (for me) and am interspersing that with baking and truly enjoying it. Those have all been on my to-do list forever and I’m actually doing them.  And.. in the less fun but necessary category, I HAVE kept up a solid exercise routine, and HAVE learned how to clean — really clean — our house. And prolly more stuff too.

So as far as finding leisurely activities to do with all this leisure time, it’s working out reasonable well.

It’s taken real discipline not to set up a jigsaw puzzle because that would completely take me out of the game. I love them like crazy and get blindingly consumed to the exclusion of all else, so it’s a good thing I’m not doing that right now.  Yay for that.

But I do totally plan to be that guy in the window, any time now.

Oh, but here’s my screen shot for the day. Ever since we finished breakfast, I’ve been watching YouTube videos — also a totally new rabbit hole of a way to while away a ton of time — mostly of late night show hosts stuck at home doing their funny bits without audiences and music (which add more to their funniness than you’d ever imagine). Honestly, though, they’re still pretty funny (because: Trump. Material is just so abundant in the days of this clown car presidency). Anyway, this was a very funny conversation:

Time well spent!

‘Tis a very rainy day here in quarantine land. I watched my weather app and picked a time to head out on a walk when I was sure to avoid getting rained on.

I was at the farthest away point — rounding the corner in front of the Davis Art Center — when I thought, huh.. is that a.. raindrop?

It was.

By the time I finished, I was pretty drenched. At one point I thought, well… maybe this can be one of those nice walks in the rain. I was walking south for about a mile and a quarter in a very stiff south wind, and was getting quite pelted.. so it didn’t really feel like one of those soft rains it can be nice to walk in. Anyway… this:

And really, the rain wasn’t that horrible, but this is:

The playgrounds are now closed all over town. Sorry kids. The grownups weren’t able to maintain the 6′ rule so the authorities had to shut the whole thing down. No more family time at the parks. That made me sad.

Holy cow I’m pooped. Know why? I cleaned our house today. Like, the works, top to bottom. Let me just say, it’s been decades since I’ve done basic housecleaning. My total respect to those who do it regularly.

With all that’s going on in this pandemic-wracked world this does not rank — on any scale — but I’m still pooped.

So, with a small glass of port, here’s how I finished the evening.. bobbing blob-like in a hot bath.

That glowing blue light? That’s the blue tooth in the shower nozzle. Listened to The Daily, New York Time’s nightly podcast. Slick, huh?

There was one other thing that happened today that was a whole lot more fun: I got to have a Facetime conversation with this guy.. which, honestly, just made my week.

Here’s the news: His final college quarter began on Monday. All classes online, of course. He’s bored, but glad to have something to focus on. He’s finally taking the last of his humanities classes — two of them — both required in order to graduate. He’s also taking the final course in a graduate level mechanical engineering series, which he’s looking forward to; a physics course in waves; and one other class that I can’t remember. He’s applied to be an online test proctor… something they need a lot of right now because all the online classes at UCSD are creating a huge test taking challenge. Not sure how that’s going to work, but interesting times for the university.

Mostly, it was just a wonderful 45 minutes. Heaven for me. Miss him so much.

Everywhere ya go, the message is clear.

This one’s at the Putah Creek Lodge entrance point for the arboretum loop. Here’s Vicki washing her damn hands. (And note how long her hair’s getting… we’re all getting kinda shaggy.

And it was just a beautiful morning. Pretty, huh?

Remember a week or so ago when I shared the creativity and humanity of a friend who, unable to do her job outside the home (massage therapist), turned her attention to knitting and started making mask covers? (https://lifeofwry.com/2020/03/25/adaptation/)

Well, now Kellie’s making and selling soap. Her soaps are designed as single-use cubes, about a dozen to a tiny packet, and come in a variety of scents. Naturally I had to buy some!

Note: my order is Invoice 001!

So, we’ve been using them in the kitchen (and getting many more than one use per).

This is one of a million stories about how people are stepping up to find ways to be part of the solution in all of this. They’re channeling goodness and kindness to help others. Or  they’re exercising a bit of entrepreneurial ingenuity in order to survive, as other income dries up.  Or they’re running out of things to do at home. Or all of the above.

Nevermind she also has a newborn at home.