Sunday morning

Sometimes, it's the little things.  My car accident was a little thing, easily fixable, but it threw me.  Wrecks always do.  Impacts of foreign objects--like big trucks--always do.

Except for a little puttering on the house, I've done little to nothing (but one yoga class) since.  Probably putting all my weight on the horn or bracing myself for the oncoming impact of said brown truck threw me into a couple of days of the fibro thing, but it seems to have vanished this morning. I watched a good three-episode series on Netflix last night: The Day Will Come.

Today, however, I'm running away.  Deb and I are taking a road trip to Austin.   Getting back on the horse again, I'm driving.  Then we'll take a stroll down South Congress and have lunch at the Italian place we love that serves lemon panna cotta.

Barbel sent me this picture of our dear friend Mary Frances:

She had a glow about her, always smiling, and all of us who knew and loved her miss her special radiance and friendship.

June 9th

At the stroke of midnight, as it were (there being no strokes, just a digital flash that says 12:00), I can't help thinking that June 9th would be my fiftieth wedding anniversary if I were still married.

That leads me to think about the person who walked down that aisle, clueless really, about anything beyond the wedding.

It was the way of the world back then and many of us bought it--giving away our names before we knew who we were, the carriers of our own names.  So many of us 18-year-old girls glowed our hearts out at the prospect of being married, the sooner the better!

Eighteen year olds (I now know, having taught so many of them in college) do not have strong chooser muscles. They are just beginning to imagine themselves as separate people with their own dreams and desires. Yet the girls in all the wedding pictures of the late Sixties were willing to "obey" some guy one or two or seven years older than they were?  "To love, honor and obey...." I thought those were the words that made the marriage legal!

We believed that a man would complete us.  The music of the Sixties told us so.  We may have sung "Climb Every Mountain..." at our graduations, but the songs that had us flipping through Brides Magazine were songs like "Cherish" and "Unchained Melody."  Really, there was only one mountain, the big rock candy mountain of Marriage.

The girl in this picture doesn't look like a glowing bride.  She looks pensive and dazed, like an actor who only knows a few lines and isn't sure how she wound up in this play.

Thursday

I'm spending the day in bed watching the Comey testimony.  More shaken than I realized, I didn't sleep last night, took a xanax at 3, and am about half-awake still.  Charlotte came and got me this morning for eggs rancheros with her and Charlotte, so I'm all set for a lazy day.

Not hurt, just shaky.

Fender Bender

In a quiet residential neighborhood on my way to drop off stuff at Goodwill, a big brown truck was ahead of me, not moving.  When I saw him backing up, I pressed the horn hard, but he didn't see me or hear me.  Wham!

He was very nice--unlike my August hitter, and he got right out of the truck and hugged me and said he was so sorry.  We talked to his insurance together and it's all settled.  I'll take my car in for a new bumper later this month.

At the end, he hugged me again and gave me a pen and his card.  Nobody was hurt, I'm just shaken a bit by the impact.  I celebrated not being hurt by having myself some ribs at Big Bibs.

New Canvas

Sometimes when you're writing a story or an essay, the time comes to start with a fresh sheet of paper.  Maybe all the paragraphs are good, and you don't want to part with them.

Someone once advised writers to "kill your darlings"--meaning you have to banish even the good parts for a better whole.

My flowery sofa is about to be recovered in a beautiful white.  The walls are white.  The Jane Bishop art chairs show up for the first time, not being shouted over by noisy flowers.  The mission chair is on the screened in porch where it resides happily with other flowers.  Otherwise, at the moment, the living room is bare.  But when a room or a page is bare, you can imagine other possibilities, not trying to force friendships in pieces that don't like each other.

The size of my house dictates what can stay, what can be moved to another room, what has to go.  Or as Pam says, "blessed and released."

I'm happy with my blank canvas and shopping for coffee tables, lamps, and end tables online every day.  One customer review of a little table said, "I love this piece.  It's one of a kind.  I'm ordering two."

Worry and Weight-gain

Is there a correlation between the current political chaos and weight-gain?

Okay--before I get accused of spreading fake news: I just heard on NPR (careful to say that this is anecdotal evidence, a scientific study) that many people are overeating to assuage their worry over the state of the country.  They are calling it "the Trump Ten."  Barbra Streisand and others are reporting weight gain and eating more sugar to their panic over Trump.

I was buying a donut (which I rarely do) at the exact moment I was hearing that story!

As usual, against my own better judgment, I ended my day catching up with Rachel's stories of the week regarding Trump.  Rachel is my go-to person for interviews with journalists and her analysis of what's happening.  Then I watch a snippet of Trevor Noah or John Oliver.

I woke up at four needing to get a chocolate-glazed donut.

Besides news of the world, however, I was worried about Elena.  Before bedtime, I got a text that she has a temperature of 103 and won't be able to come over today and spend the night as we'd planned.

So while I'm waiting to hear how our precious girl is feeling, I'm not going to watch anything political; I'm going to read a chapter of Sin and Syntax, a book about language and grammar, either that or a novel, something that Calgon-Take-Me-Away, will provide escape until daylight.

Making the planet great again

"Let's make the planet great again!" said France's President Macron.

While our bully president pushes people away to get to the head of the line, blunders in the international community every day, and refuses to acknowledge climate change and the catastrophes scientists predict it will bring, it's heartening to hear a sane voice from France.

Trump hates to be "laughed at," yet that is just what's happening worldwide. Thumbing his nose at countries that have been our friends for decades, he says (extricating us from the Paris agreement),  "They won't laugh at us anymore."

The vast majority of people and leaders in the world who care about the health of the earth more than money, towers, and walls are shaking their heads in disbelief when they hear utterances and read Tweets that reveal Trump's ignorance of history, geography, science, women, manners--just about everything .  They have been laughing for months--not at our choice to pull out of the Paris agreement but at the language and behavior of Trump.

In some states, like Wisconsin, there are gag orders in place--not to even talk about climate change, not to even use the term.

Many states and cities, like California under Jerry Brown's leadership, are vowing to continue working on green energy despite Trump's half-baked opinions, decrees, isolationism,  and lack of knowledge about science.

America, known for years as the leader of the free world, is quickly losing that moniker, and the world is appalled at one misstep after another.

Just as a bunch of mostly-white men are opining and making decisions about women's reproductive rights, they are ignoring Mother Earth's fertility and clean air.  What about all the babies already born and yet to be born?  Do they not care if the planet will support them into old age?

Martin Luther King said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

When climate change ravages the world with famines and droughts and death of animals, trees, and ecosystems, it won't follow political or geographical boundaries.  It will affect us all.

Recipe for Marjorie's Sheet Cake

Today has been a beautiful Saturday.  I went to gentle yoga at Two Hearts, then got this call from Will: He's being officially promoted to chief on June 15th and I am invited to the ceremony.

The other night--after I picked up Nathan from his last day of school (All A's and E's and perfect attendance)--he told Will, "I"m actually glad my parents got a divorce.  If they hadn't I wouldn't have ever met this amazing man named Will and I never would have had my two terrific grandmothers, Nana and Yenna, or my brilliant cousins Jackson and Marcus."  Talk about putting one's ten-year-old life in perspective!

Now I'm making Will a belated birthday cake which I will deliver to his station when it's ready.

Speaking of this cake: it's called Marjorie's sheet cake and I have the recipe on a yellowed and splattered 30-year-old card.  Elena says, "I love that cake so much.  I hate every cake but it."

So with that high compliment, I will copy the recipe here if anyone wants the only not-hated cake!  I sprinkle crushed pecans on top for Will, leave them off half the cake for the kiddos.

Bring to a boil:

1 cup water
2 sticks margarine
3 T. cocoa

Mix:

2 cups flour
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. soda
1 t. salt
1 t. vanilla

Add 1/2 pint of sour cream to the wet ingredients, then mis with the dry.  It will be soupy.

Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes in a 13 x 9 pan.

Frosting:

5 T. water
2 T. cocoa
1 stick margarine
1 pound powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla

Bring to a boil and pour on cake when cool.

Friday, June 2

Kate and I took a drive to Dripping Springs on this beautiful day to look at fabrics.  We stopped in Blanco and had a delicious lunch at the Red Bird Cafe.

Just got this picture from Day and Tom--who are about to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary:

Podcasts for Story Lovers

If you love stories, and maybe want to write them, I recommend some excellent podcasts to which you can subscribe for free at the iTunes Store:

Modern Love (readings and discussions of essays featured in "Modern Love" NY Times)

The Moth (short personal stories)

Strangers (Lea Thau's interviews with strangers)

Writing Class Radio (Thirty episodes of writing classes, prompts, and lessons on storytelling)