Day . . . Whatever

No, I know; it’s Day Five. Five days I’ve had this cold-flu-whatever. There’s not a lot to say about this experience, except that I suddenly realized that I no longer shudder when I swig down my shot glass of Nyquil, the way I used to when I was a college student. I’m long past that. In fact, the other night I was thinking (in that fuzzy manner of people with head colds), Why, if it weren’t for that nasty, cloying, sticky-sweet finish, you could maybe use this in a cocktail . . .

. . . Nahhhh.


For your enjoyment, here is something from Ogden Nash’s collection Bed Riddance: A Posy for the Indisposed. We have all been here.


The Common Cold

Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall no longer sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In never paying you for my visit.
I did not come here to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever’s hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne’er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympian laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare’s plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is rather coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Yet Another Squash and Curry Soup

Seriously—does the world need another curried squash soup? Well, I thought this one was really good. I’m not lying, either, because I’m not much of a “soup” person. This made me happy! It turned out spicy-hot, the kind of heat that lights up the back of your mouth a few seconds after you swallow, which I adore! (A result of the type of chilis I used, no doubt; “your results may vary.”)

And it’s so creamy you’d almost think there’s cream in it, but there’s not even milk.

Vegans take note: With a few tweaks (substituting oil for the butter, and veggie stock for chicken), this becomes a perfectly vegan recipe! Anyway you go, it’s pretty low fat, and doesn’t need much salt due to all the lovely spices.

It’s based on a recipe in the Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook, by the Editors of Vegetarian Times and Lucy Moll (New York: Macmillan, 1995). The recipe I used as my guide is called “Squash–and–White Bean Soup,” on page 172 of that volume. But you know . . . who follows a soup recipe exactly? I’m not a recipe tester!

The original uses curry powder, plus cumin and allspice. I used some curry powder, but I used even more of my homemade garam masala. What is garam masala? You could conceptualize it as the “curry powder” that actual Indian cooks use! You can get g.m. at grocery stores nowadays. It’s really fun to make your own, however, and then it’s fresh and you may end up using it more (and using salt less). All the Indian cookbooks have recipes for it.

The original (soup) recipe also has you throw in the spices and stock at once—but I use an Indian cooking technique that heightens the spice flavors by incorporating them into the oil: I sauté the aromatics in butter first, then add all the spices, stirring them into the oil to make a paste (kind of like a roux). Butter and curry spices love each other! After they make love for a few moments is when I add the stock and squash.

By the way, the butternut squash can, of course, be substituted with canned pumpkin puree, though it’s not the same. The squash is sweeter, I think.

The ingredients and method are interspersed with the instructions below.

1 butternut squash
—split in half lengthwise, bake in oven with a small amount of water until soft; let cool so you can handle it; spoon pulp out of skin and puree in a food processor until smooth. Yield is about 4 cups. Set this aside.

While the squash is baking, you can prep the other stuff.

Chop up aromatic veggies and set aside in a bowl:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup sliced celery (soup is a good way to use the leafy, pale inner parts of the celery that no one wants as crudité)
2 cloves garlic, pressed (or minced)
4 tiny hot chili peppers, with seeds, minced (I have a bag of little red cayennes in my freezer, harvested from my garden before the killing frost—but use whatever hot chilis you want—to taste)
1 or 1.5 T minced fresh ginger root (did you know you can process ginger way ahead of time and keep it frozen flat in zip bags? It’s very, very handy!)

Measure spices into a little bowl:
1 t dried thyme leaves
1/2–1 T store-bought curry powder
1–1 .5 T garam masala (I have 3 types, and for this I used mostly a kind I made that’s heavy on the cumin. If your g.m. doesn’t have a strong cumin presence, then add more cumin, about 1/2 t.; consider adding allspice, too)

Also have ready:
2 T butter
4 cups (32 oz.) chicken or vegetable stock

Finally, prep the ingredients that will go in last:
1 can white beans
2 big handfuls of chopped kale (stems discarded)
2 T fresh parsley, chopped

The soup will take about a half hour to cook; do it all in one big pot. Heat butter over medium heat, add aromatic vegetables and sauté until veggies are translucent and fairly soft. Sprinkle in a little water if it wants to stick. Add the spices and stir to make a paste. Then stir in stock and squash and bring back to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, for 15 or 20 minutes. Add beans, kale, and parsley, and cook another 5 minutes, or until the kale is cooked and still pretty green. Add salt to taste.

Ascent from Deep River: Paintings and Drawings by the Late Tim Williams

I’m sharing this with my Op Op friends because I’m pretty sure we like the same kinds of things: Home; art; nature; heritage; creativity; things that make you think. Finding the glory in imperfect things. Glorying in things that are well done. Doing things with heart and with love. Treasures of people and places.

You would have liked Tim Williams, and you will love his art.

A native Columbian, Tim Williams painted in Central Missouri for decades, but he always seems to have shied away from putting his work in shows and galleries. He was a creator, pure and simple. As a result, though he was prolific, not many people have seen his works.

But Tim was a friend of mine (“is”—? Well, I have never stopped liking and loving him, so how does someone word such a thing, anyway?)—and because of this, I’ve been lucky for the past fifteen years or so to get to see his art; sometimes as it was in progress, but mostly as samples of it hanging in his and Jane’s home, and in Jane’s office, which was a revolving mini-gallery of his work. (You see, Jane was my managing editor, and Tim’s colorful and evocative paintings in her office provided a surefire mind-thrill during every Monday morning staff meeting. I sipped coffee those mornings, but with his art on her walls, I didn’t need to!)

I could try to describe Tim’s beautiful, brilliant personality, and his intriguing, beguiling art, but it wouldn’t work. It would come out wrong; as Laurie Anderson said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Instead, I recommend you go see his art, which is currently on exhibit (free!) at Orr Street Studios in downtown Columbia (106 Orr St., north of Walnut, east of 10th St.).

For a taste treat, check out his enduring Web presence at his Flickr photostream and his StumbleUpon page. The Flickr photostream is a trove of his art, with each work often paired with a poem, each pairing guaranteed to make you feel more human and alive. There are landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, paintings on Zen subjects, architectural paintings, and more. (The Flickr site is where I have copied the images in this post from. See below for a statement on my copying of his art.) The StumbleUpon site shows the breadth and depth of his curiosity and the wide range of things that tickled him.

Tim’s Web presence gained him a large and loving international online following, and their appreciation was based only on digitized art glowing on a computer screen. Now you get to see the works up close, in real life. This is a huge opportunity!

------------------------------------

Orr Street Studios (106 Orr St., downtown Columbia, Mo.):
Ascent from Deep River: A Collection of Work by the Late Tim Williams, Boonville, Mo.
Exhibition runs through February 10.
Gallery hours 12–3, Thursday–Sunday (or by chance).
Reception is Friday, Jan. 18, 6–9 pm.
“Remembering Tim” discussion is Tuesday, Feb. 5, 6–8 pm.

Here is what Orr Street Studios is saying about Tim and his work:

In 1990, Tim married longtime friend Jane Lago. As a practicing Buddhist, Tim annually went to Japan to meditate with other Buddhists. One day a Zen master asked him to illustrate a book of poems he had written. Tim’s response was, “but I’m not an Artist!” and the Master said, “oh but you are!”

So in the early 90’s Tim decided to go back to school to pursue an art degree, which he completed in 1996 from MU. His mentor, as he was for so many others, was Frank Stack [professor of art at MU]. Tim would travel to surrounding river towns with Frank, and sometimes with other plein air painters—Jane Mudd, Byron Smith, and Chris Teeter—to name a few.

He communed with fellow artists and nature, and he quickly gained an understanding of painting from life. He had a natural, raw talent that amazed and inspired all who knew him. Tim was also influenced by MU professors Jennifer Wiggs and Jo Stealey.

He was passionate about art history and collected many art books. He and Jane eventually decided to buy a house in Boonville with a majestic river view.

In recent years, Tim’s desire for making art intensified. He investigated form and idea with an even greater urgency, setting a goal to do a portrait a day. Tim was a tireless seeker, a fearless innovator and an extremely sensitive artist. He died suddenly Dec. 19, 2011, at 58 years old.

This collection is only a part of a vast body of work by Tim’s in his last 20 years. In addition to attending the Jan. 18th opening reception, please join the discussion “Remembering Tim” at the Feb. 5th “Seeing Visions” Orr Street Studio event, 6 to 8 p.m.

A note on the images in this post: They are all under copyright, and I've admittedly copied-wrong by pinching them from Tim's Shitao Flickr photostream. My intentions are purely to help promote the exhibition at Orr Street, and to encourage you to look at Tim's work online, too. The pictures I've selected may not be in the exhibit. Finally, depending on Jane's wishes, I may be taking them off this post when the exhibition's done (or sooner). But the links to Tim's online collections will remain.

More Mystery Cooking Gadgets!

With a new year, there’s always the urge to get things done, finally begin those projects, and clean things up!

Ahhh, the kitchen junk drawer! I finally went through a collection of cooking gadgets that had come with our house. You all remember that we bought my grandma’s house after she passed away, right? Well, there was plenty of stuff in her kitchen “junk drawer.” You might recall the mystery gadget that turned out to be a butter curler?

I was able to figure out the butter curler because it had words printed on it that I could search on. But now I’ve got more mystery gadgets, and there are no verbal clues like that.

So I’m posting pictures of them here, and asking you to help me figure out what I’ve got. There are three mystery cooking gadgets!

(To give you a sense of scale, I photographed them next to a bunch of coins. It’s not that I have a hole in my pocket or anything.)

Gadget 1 is made of hard plastic, has an obvious handle (complete with textured surface), and features a pair of semicircular shapes very close together, like a very narrow taco shell.

The only writing on it says “Made in Canada” and “patent pending.” No help at all.

The length of the handle is 4.5 inches. The radius of the round part is 1.5 inches (meaning the maximum width of the rounded part is 3 inches).

The best idea I’ve gotten so far comes from Mom, who thought it might be a device to slip over the blade of a knife, to stabilize the blade in a vertical position while you press down on it with your hand. For when you’re cutting something really tough and you want to avoid slicing the palm clean off of your hand. (Do Canadians have to cut up a lot of really tough food?)

Gadget 2 is also plastic. I’d describe it as some kind of small spatula (length 6 inches), though the “soft” end isn’t really very soft (not like a really good, flexible rubber spatula, anyway). The “spatula” part is softer than the handle, however.

It’s mainly flexible just at the tip, which is the part that has me stumped: The end is split for nearly an inch, with a hole and a zigzag portion as shown in the pictures. What the heck is this for?

Last night as I tried to fall asleep, I mentally reviewed the entire produce, dairy, and baking departments of the grocery store, with this gadget in mind, and I couldn’t come up with a logical use for it.

Anyone got any ideas?

Gadget 3 is made of metal and has a hinge. Closed, it’s 4.5 inches long.

As the two handle-like parts are pulled apart, the opposite end shuts, like a pliers, only round, with one side overlapping the other slightly, kind of like the overbite of teeth.

The opening is about 1 inch in diameter. There are “teeth,” sort of, only they aren’t particularly sharp. They look like they’re for biting, however. Is it some kind of corer? If so, it wouldn’t work very well, since you have to pull the handles apart, which would ruin the cylindrical core you just made.

This thing is stamped “Taiwan,” which, again, offers little clue. (Grandma didn’t cook much Asian food.)

Sue suggested it might be an eyelash curler! Ha ha—she was of course joking. But it kind of looks like one.

This might be a clue, or not, but this gadget was in a section of the junk drawer that had a variety of beverage openers—a butler’s friend, corkscrew, that sort of thing. Maybe this gadget has some kind of cork-pulling function.

But it seems it would simply snip the cork in two, rendering it especially hard to remove. Well—who knows?

Seriously—does anyone know what these kitchen gadgets are supposed to do? (Or, at least, does anyone have any entertaining guesses?)

Come and Laugh at the Finke!

Do you hear that loud whoooshing sound? That’s the holiday season, nearly over! Whatever are we going to do once we get to the “other side”? No more salty cheese logs, no more fruitcakes, no more strange beers that taste like pine needles!

Fortunately, we don’t have to pack away our “ho-ho-ho’s,” because we here in Central Missouri can go to California’s “Last Comic Standing”! It’s a fundraiser for the historic Finke Theatre—so the cost of the tickets (a measly ten bucks) is a donation to a good cause.

What—you say you don’t know what the Finke Theatre is? Ohhhh people, you need to get out more! The Finke was California, Missouri’s local opera house 125 years ago—most towns of any size boasted at least one opera house—and people went there to see stage shows, musicals, plays, and school events. And yes, there would also be trained professional singers who would tour America, bringing high culture everywhere.

Click here to learn about the history of the Finke Theatre.

And it became a Vaudeville theater and motion-picture house. It was transformed into an art-deco-style movie theater that finally closed its doors in 1978. THEN, an organization called California Progress, Inc. (CPI) started raising funds and renovating the theater—and what a beautiful job they’ve done! Indeed, the work is still ongoing, but the historic landmark was reopened in 2009. It’s used for live performances and as a community center.

Click here to see the lineup for the 2012-2013 season. They have a nice mix of performances (“something for everyone”): magic, music, ragtime piano, storytelling, the annual community play, and more. All in that beautiful, welcoming space. You really should go to one of these shows! (Do you like folk music? Our beloved Cathy Barton and Dave Para, I see, are performing on February 16 . . .)

So what’s this fundraiser about--? Well, CPI is the group that’s been paying for the Finke and its renovations. Click here to learn more about CPI and its plans for the Finke. You see, it’s not just about the Finke as a building—it’s about the revitalization of downtown California, and strengthening that city’s sense of community.

The fundraiser is a “last comic standing” competition: Four standup comics will entertain the audience in 15-20 minute sets, and then the audience gets to vote for first, second, and third place. As an added bonus, there will be three more comics who’ll perform while the voting is going on.

Here’s a Youtube that amounts to a commercial for the event!



Ten bucks! You’ll check out the Finke Theatre, have a fun road trip to California, laugh your buns off, make new friends, and maybe even stop off and get ya some California-made Burger’s ham or sausage! (And do check out the Finke’s other events. You’ll probably want to return!)

When: January 12 (Saturday), 7-9 pm (doors at 6:30)
Where: Finke Theatre (315 N. High St., California, Mo.)
Cost: $10
For tickets: call 913-669-2979

My Aunt Carole

We have a special post today! We’re celebrating the birthday of my Aunt Carole, who was born this day in 1932. The day after Christmas! (That’s how she got the name Carole!)

I’m scheduling this to go online (and public) during her birthday party at my cousin’s house in Moniteau County, not far from where Aunt Carole and Uncle Richard live. She asked that everyone bring a homemade card for her.

Time to get creative! Okay: Since she has such a delicious love/hate relationship with computers, I thought it would be fitting (and fun) for her to receive a card with a URL on it, and have her own special place (however humble my offering is) on the Internet devoted to her.

You realize that any verbal sketch of a human being always falls short—and for that I apologize. There’s no way I can satisfactorily characterize Aunt Carole—a woman I’ve known all my forty-seven years, so she’s as much a part of my reality as air and water and earth—so we have to make do with some vignettes showing certain aspects of her that (I think) illustrate what a beautiful and engaging woman she is.


Eclectic Carole

One of the reasons I’m glad I moved back to Missouri is that I’ve gotten to know Aunt Carole and Uncle Richard (hereinafter, “Carole” and “Richard,” to save space) from an adult perspective, and having unrushed time to spend with them. More than ever, I’m impressed by their wide range of interests. They live in a small town—actually, the outskirts of a small town—but they both negate the stereotype of the close-minded small-town citizen. The only thing greater than the breadth of their knowledge is the depth of their curiosity. As you’ll see below, Carole is always trying to understand things better, and she doesn’t set limits on what’s “worth knowing.” It’s all grist for her mill!


Agricultural Carole

It’s not a surprise that someone who lives in a rural area would be a gardener, and Carole, the daughter of lifelong gardeners, is right in there with the best of them. Her garden is in a forest clearing, next to the long gravel drive to her and Richard’s “cabin in the woods,” lovingly called “Touch the Earth.”

Last year, the drought, and Carole’s being hampered by a serious elbow injury that kept her out the garden, limited her veggie output, but let me tell you—the whole family has been spoiled, utterly spoiled, by her summertime gifts of squash, tomatoes, basil, cilantro, lettuce, escarole, peppers, cucumbers, and beans, her glorious nanny beans, a completely stringless heirloom variety passed to her from her mom.

In our first years at our house, she brought us humongous, just-picked kale plants just in time for our holiday cooking. Such beautiful veggies, I almost hated to cook them. I asked how she kept bugs from eating the leaves, and she told me she plucked off the insects by hand. How’s that for organic! Also, the system she invented for coping with late frosts is ingenious—so smart she ought to patent it!

Gardening in the woods presents its own set of challenges, particularly in the form of critters—so Carole has been inventive in ways to thwart herbivores from above and below (deer, rabbits, squirrels, voles, squash bugs, etc.). And yet there is a sign along their driveway, as you approach their house, that says, “CRITTERS WELCOME.” There’s a paradox right there! One of Carole’s fun original stories is about “Wendy Weevil,” who is a type of critter reviled by most farmers but championed by Carole for its place in nature. She understands the balance, embraces the paradox, and fights the good fight of gardeners everywhere.

Woodsy Carole

This is a good place to talk about Carole of the woods, Carole who cuts firewood alongside the menfolks and who has never lost her childlike wonder about the woods. She has a true gift for getting children engaged with nature, too. (I speak from personal experience as well as from observing her with younger relatives.)

When they moved into their cabin, with its nice tract of wooded Ozark landscape, she discovered “stump dirt,” the freshly rotted wood turning to soil at the base of a hollow or dying tree. Apparently this is nature’s best-ever potting soil!

She glories at the wildflowers, dogwoods, and redbuds in springtime, and she’s a champion morel hunter. When Sue and I wanted to learn more about morel hunting, she’s the one we approached. And she and Richard were kind enough to take us on a hunt in their woods, even showing us where the shrooms usually pop up. (Anyone who knows anything about morel hunting, and its secrecy about fungal treasure troves, understands how charitable this was!)

I could go on and on about Carole’s love of nature, but anyone of like mind understands how all-embracing such a love is, and how it influences everyone who knows her. That her kids—my cousins—all grew up loving, and not fearing nature, is a testament to her unqualified appreciation of our natural world.


Socratic Carole

When my cousins grew up and left home, Carole went back to school and got an education degree at MU. She taught high school history at Bunceton for some years, and I often wonder about those farm-bred Bunceton kids, who were undoubtedly bewildered, trying to make sense of what had to be, for them, an unknown teaching approach: I’m sure Aunt Carole employed the Socratic method of questioning in order to stimulate her students to develop critical thinking skills, and get them to practice a fruitful system for their own intellectual explorations. Carole has always been a questioner—of others, and, I think, of herself. Which is always the approach of the wise.

I have to say (with a mischievous grin), this quality of Carole makes her great fun at parties. She is not bashful about talking to anyone, and the conversations are always fun. Her intense interest, in a huge range of subjects, at first surprises people who don’t know her, but as she draws people out, they find themselves engaged in what will become a memorable, and possibly enlightening, conversation.


Intellectual Carole

Carole is a bona fide intellectual, yet unlike other incredibly smart people, she doesn’t act like she’s aware of it. She doesn’t lord it over people, she’s not snooty; she’s simply enthusiastic. Take opera, for example. Remember that television commercial in the seventies of the cowboy riding the plains on horseback, listening to the Metropolitan Opera via his transistor radio stuck hanging from the horn of his saddle? That’s kind of like Carole, listening to some of the greatest performance art of Western culture with sheer enjoyment, oblivious to the fact that most people consider opera something that only “ivory tower” types can appreciate.

Seriously—the Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcasts are like candy to her. And yeah, after years of listening to the Saturday NPR opera broadcasts, she knows all the stories and everything! (I betcha she can name the opera this picture’s from right off the bat!)

I’ve mentioned her being a history teacher, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she and Richard are core members of the Moniteau County Historical Society, have created many of the museum’s displays, were deeply involved in writing and editing volumes of local history, and much more.


Weaver Carole

Carole has a low-key, part-time home business in rug-making. She inherited her antique loom from her mom’s family and has used this massive wooden contraption for years to make high-quality, fancy rag rugs and related items. During the California Ham and Turkey Festival (held in mid-September), you can usually find her in the front lobby of the Moniteau County Historical Society Museum, weaving a rug, and encouraging children to try it.

She takes commissions. Often her rugs are made to order, including the color scheme. She recently completed a big placemat and table-runner project for some Mizzou Tigers fans, using all black and gold colors. She’s really good at it! The weave is tight and the rugs incredibly sturdy. (I have one of her rugs, and I hate to step on it!)


Healthy Carole

At this point, it’s hard for me to remember Aunt Carole’s pies when she made them with (shhh!!!) lard—but I do remember them being exquisite, perfect in every way. Ripe, succulent fruits, and tender, perfectly flaky crusts. Naturally, people oohed and aahed over them. But guess what? Carole remains the whole extended family’s uncontested top pie-maker, even after she switched away from such traditional ingredients in favor of heart-healthy ones.

I guess it was in the eighties when the doctors told Richard he needed to lower his cholesterol, sodium, and what-not, and Carole took those instructions seriously. Embracing the challenge (and her husband), she explored healthy cooking methods, new ingredients, and low-fat recipes. So, toss out another small-town stereotype! Carole knows her way around pestos, low-fat soups, pies without lard, and much more. She’s learned how to make “healthy” taste opulent!

In fact, Carole’s become famous for her own special Christmas stollen recipe. We greedily anticipate our annual loaf! While most stollens are butter-laden, papoose-shaped affairs, drizzled with icing or sprinkled with powdered sugar, Carole’s stollen are made in loaf tins and are more breadlike—yet they’re sweet enough, with the fruits and nuts that are de rigueur in stollen, but more substantial. I like to toast a slice, and put butter on it. (Yeah, sometimes I use real butter!) Goes great with grapefruit or sliced oranges!


Multicultural Carole

Missouri’s recently been an appallingly “red” state, but Carole and Richard remain staunchly, steadfastly “blue,” and for that, I’m personally grateful. When others in the family vote “red” and therefore seem willing to sell me and Sue “down the river” in terms of civil rights, Carole and Richard are two who question the deep character flaws of politicians who inflame homophobia in order to attract votes. It’s nice to know that they accept us as a couple, and that they don’t have to perform mental gymnastics on election day in order to reconcile their feelings for us with the way they intend to vote.

Indeed, Carole and Richard have welcomed diversity into their family for decades, as my cousins have taken spouses who represent diversity in race and religion and whose children reflect racial and religious diversity as well. In fact, I think Carole and Richard are more than just “accepting” of this diversity—I think they see it as a badge of honor—they’re proud that their kids grew up comfortable enough to reach across subcultural borders, follow their hearts, and not worry about expectations and “shoulds.”


Canoeing Carole

Carole’s favorite thing in the world is to go canoeing on the Current River. In July 2007, she and Richard took Sue and me with them for a day on the river, and we got to see why Carole’s so addicted to it.

Truly, it’s beyond description—the sensation of floating in a narrow vessel sliding with the current downstream, the quietness of the river broken only by the sound of paddles dipping in the water and birds singing in the trees, the lush watercress like green garlands waving below, and the beautiful clear water in a pool just right for swimming on a hot July day.

Carole showed us how she likes to float on her back on the water’s surface, arms outstretched, and let the water carry her gently downstream. Her eyes were closed, her face beatific, her fingers gently outstretched in an unconscious gesture of gratitude, of grace. I think that for her, this is pretty close to nirvana. I had not seen her like this before, and I gained new respect and admiration for her that day.

I understand, now, why Uncle Richard claims that the sure way to get Carole out of a cycle of anxiety or grumpiness is to “get her out on the river!” The river is her cathedral, her holy land, the home of her heart and her soul.


My Aunt Carole

In preparing this post, I kept thinking of my earliest memories of Aunt Carole, which were usually from family parties and get-togethers, usually crowded occasions that felt overwhelming to me as a little kid. (I was always the youngest.) I recall all the adults leaning down to talk to me—big adult faces grinning and asking me questions I had no answers for. Carole was one of these people.

She struck me then as brusque—but then most of the adults seemed that way at parties, since they were essentially taking time out from the more interesting adult conversations to pay attention to me. And Carole often seemed more “intellectual” than “warm”—but maybe that’s more of a reflection of my own kid-self than it is of her.

Anyway, as I’ve gotten to know her better, since my return to Missouri, I’ve come to see more of the caring side of her. I’ve come to realize that one of the big ways she shows her love is by doing things—through actions.

In the last few decades, I’ve seen Aunt Carole, and Richard and my parents, all go through the difficult years of caring for their elderly parents and seeing them through to their passing. It’s not for the faint-hearted, and Carole, with the others in her generation, showed a tenacious, loving grace as she cared for her parents and mother-in-law.

One of my favorite stories about her lovingness and charity, however, is about near-strangers: One time, she brought morels to the old folks at the nursing home. It was all carefully planned and premeditated—she preheated her insulated cooler with hot water bottles, picked a bunch of morels, fried them just so, in the beloved traditional way, then wrapped them quickly, loosely, carefully, stashed them in her prewarmed cooler, then sped out to the nursing home.

Is this “allowed”?! No matter. You know these old folks ate morels for years! She snuck up behind some of the oldtimers, then snaked her hand into their view, waving a fresh-fried morel in front of them: “Ohhh! A mushroom!” The gourmet treats were gobbled up by folks who weren’t able to hunt their own morels anymore. What a delicious surprise! . . . And a thoroughly caring gesture.

And that’s Carole—creative, quirky, full of delicious surprises, challenging, clever, and caring. What an amazing woman! And I’m so proud to be her niece. Happy birthday, Aunt Carole, I hope you have a wonderful day!

First Snowfall of the Winter

It’s suddenly seeming very Christmassy here in Central Missouri, hallelujah! Naturally, I can be happy about it, since I don’t have to drive anywhere today—but I think a lot of us have felt creeped-out by the lack of snow both this year (we usually get our first dustings of snow around mid-November) and, well, all of last winter. (Climate change, you all—deeply disturbing.)

Anyway, this one or two inches we’re getting today helps give us the feeling that things are set to rights. At least today, when I look out our windows, anyway. (By the way, for similar views during a bigger snowfall, click here.)

It’s remarkably windy today, with 45 mph gusts, which make the snow blow almost horizontally, and stick it to the screens of our storm windows.

The wind and the snow sticking on the windows makes it seem incredibly cold “out there.” But having the Christmas tree up and glowing helps our drafty ol’ house seem a lot warmer. Yeah, the windows are rattling.

I’ve never lived in a house with a fireplace, and for me, the Christmas tree supplies that kind of visual-psychological warmth. (If you don’t know about my family’s Christmas tree/Weihnachtspyramide, click here for the back story.)

This year, especially, the familiarity of that dear ol’ thing is especially welcome, “grounding” me in my place in time, giving me a sense that I somehow can comprehend history and immortality, or eternity. And it feels like a comfort, and it’s especially welcome on a cold day like this, at the end of this solar year, and upon this first blast of snow.