Monthly Archives: December 2009

My good mama

I crept into Mama’s room this morning, intending to wake her up cheerily by singing “Happy Birthday” to her, but it didn’t work out that way. I ended up weeping all over her instead.

Probably not the most awesome way to awaken. By way of apology, I made the coffee, and she said it tasted just like the way Dad made it.

The fact that I am a tea drinker makes that even higher praise.

Hard to wish her a happy birthday, given that each one of these events is Difficult. But I got to spend the past five days with her, my sister, Dingo, and the Wicked Stepchildren in a pretty little condo in Pigeon Forge, TN. Like our Thanksgiving trip, I think it was the best thing we could do.

1. Mom, Lissa, and I toasted to having Gotten Through Blechmas.

1a. Blechmas! Awesome! I just made that up.

2. Dingo and Giant Stepchild of Doom got to go snowboarding and have spent today groaning around like creaky old men.

3. While they were off, the rest of us drove the heck up frightening roads to play in the snow. My stepdaughter (she who will some day rule the world) kept laughing at me for repeating how pretty everything was. Except that it was all so gorgeous – mountains, icicles, snow. Icy rivers, snowy rocks.

4. I won a Scrabble game. That was a first.

5. We flew back into Dallas, and I turned around and drove home so I can go to work tomorrow (indicating very questionable judgment on my part). I’m so tired that my eyes ache. I meant this entry to be all about my brave, strong mother on her birthday, but every time I start thinking about it, I start to cry.

5a. It’s 8:00. Finally. I can go to bed.

Jinx has been all over me, purring, from the minute I walked in the door. He wouldn’t even eat until I sat down, because he had to follow me around. I think he’s glad to see me.

(Okay, fine. I missed him too. He’s biting his way into my heart.)

One of the big birthdays

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First, some news: my story “The Wolf I Want” will appear in the January issue of Cabinet des Fées. I’m super proud of that story.

So. Yesterday was my birthday, and it is weird to now call myself 40. I don’t really feel that grown up. And, you know, I still get carded sometimes when I buy wine at the grocery store.

It was a pretty good day, all told, but very very hard to know that Dad was not going to call me up and say, “Happy birthday, honey bunny.” It does make one sad, and with Christmas coming hard on the heels of it, I can’t muster up a shred of enthusiasm. But Dingo and the Wicked Stepchildren are joining me in a trip east and north to meet my mother and my sister on a mountain for some snow. That should be good. With all the trips back and forth and huddling under covers, I haven’t seen the Wickeds much this year, and I miss them.

A story:

When I was 15, I decided that I wanted knee-high boots. (And I have never stopped.) We were all Christmas shopping, when Dad said he had found some in the weird “tack shop” store in the mall. I didn’t have enough money to pay for them, but the salesperson said I could put them on layaway, and that day there were having a special – I could put them on layaway for $1, then just make payments.

For the next several weeks, every time I went to mall, I tried to make a payment on those boots, but there would be some kind of crisis, or we’d forget, or any one of a dozen excuses. I got so furious a couple of times that I was probably a giant pill about it.

Then, on my 16th birthday, I got those boots, with $1 stuffed into one.

Nope, hadn’t seen it coming at all.

Two minor Christmas movies and the king of them all

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My desire to opt out of Christmas has not in any way dampened my desire to watch All the Christmas Movies.

I mean, a year without The Bishop’s Wife just ain’t worth livin.

There are so many good ones. And no one ever seems to bother with them. Yes, A Christmas Story is hilarious, but how about that scene in Holiday where Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are hiding out from the fancy party in the nursery? Lovely and heartbreaking.

Two that I particularly love:

A Holiday Affair: In general I am no fan of Robert Mitchum and his Two Magic Facial Expressions – eyebrow up and eyebrow down. But this story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) and the carefree dude wot melts her heart is GREAT. My favorite scene makes use of Christmas Movie Trope 17: Kindly Department Store Owner (see also Miracle on 34th St.). The widow’s young son, having found out that Mitchum’s character is poor as a spring squirrel, walks downtown by himself to try to return the train that Mitchum gave him for Christmas. And it’s totally entertaining to see tough ol’ Mitchum in a romantic comedy, for god’s sake.

Christmas in Connecticut: Why is it that I hate modern renditions of the “I got in trouble because I won’t tell the truth” trope but love old ones? Anyhow, I have never understood why everyone doesn’t love this movie. Barbara Stanwyck is a fake Martha Stewart whose publisher sends her a war hero sailor for Christmas dinner at her farm, except that she has no farm, no husband, and no baby, and she can’t cook. Hijinks ensue, including the phrase “hunky dunky,” pancakes stuck to the ceiling, wayward cows, runaway sleighs, and more velvet evening gowns than you can shake a stick at.

Gosh, apparently you can watch the whole thing on YouTube starting here.

For my money, the movie to end them all is White Christmas. My sister and I have sung the “Sisters” song in many airports, grocery stores, and Vermont fields.

But oof, it’s the end that really gets me. I start getting teary right around “What Do You Do with a General,” and then by the reprise of “We’ll Follow the Old Man,” I’m sobbing like a baby.

I suppose maybe because that actor’s face reminds me a little of my Gogo.

Rest for the weary

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What a sleepy weekend it has been. Yesterday morning I was sitting in bed watching the 2001 Royal Ballet Nutcracker (with, why YES!, Anthony Dowell as a brilliant Drosselmeyer, available on YouTube in many many parts starting here).

Dingo came in and lay across my legs. “Do you know what you want to do today?” he asked.

“Do we have to do anything?”

“No!”

And nothing is what we did. I sat in the bed and watched many Christmas movies on my TiVo, knitted a hat, ripped out another knitting project, and noodled about in a notebook. Dingo played games and watched movies. Round about 7:00, we put on clothes and got some dinner.

Nice.

Today I met a friend for fancy Mexican brunch at Hugo’s, then came home to laundry, chicken stock, letters. Jinxo is just now snuggling in. I feel so cozy and sleepy. Ready for the week to begin.

The mysteries of chicken math

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I have roasted hundreds of chickens in my time. My mom believes firmly in the power of the boneless, skinless chicken breast. I don’t know whether it was stuffy old novels or my subscription to Gourmet that initiated me into the wonderful world of giblets and confusion.

Don’t get me wrong: I love to roast me a chicken. Just the phrase gives me satisfaction. And I adore the thriftiness of it: one chicken is 3 or 4 meals, PLUS I get to use the carcass to make stock, which makes a whole other set of soup-based meals.

And it really is true that homemade stock is miles and away better than bouillon. (“Better than Bouillon,” which comes in a jar next to the bouillon cubes, is an acceptable substitude in a pinch.) It has actual chicken flavor, not just that flavor of “salt and yellow.”

(Chicken in a Biscuit crackers are flavored with “salt and yellow,” and I LOVE them.)

But. It should be math, right? You have a chicken of x pounds that you will cook at 425F until the meat reaches 180F in the breast. Cookbooks will tell you that it takes y minutes per pound. So cooking time should be xy.

However, I usually find that the total cooking time is xy + (30-75), resulting in many late dinners and curse words.

Today I figured on xy + 60, to both pad the time and allow for ‘tato cooking.

The chickie was done precisely at time xy. How does this happen? I don’t even know. So at that point, the chicken had to rest in its pan for 45 minutes while I cooked potatoes, so although it was very good, it was not anything like hot by the time we ate it.

Maddening.

Potatoes, however, are admirably regular little things upon which one can depend.

Take a few ‘tatoes. I like swanky yellow ones for this, but any type will do, really. Take a glass baking dish. Chop up your potatoes until you have an amount sufficient for the folks wot will be eating.

Place potato chops in the baking dish. Pour a big healthy glug or 3 of olive oil over them. Season VERY liberally with salt, pepper, and whatever else you think sounds nice. (I like fancy seasoned salts, poultry rub, oregano, and thyme – just not all together.) Stir to make sure all the pieces are coated.

Stick in your 425F oven (heated for your chicken, of course) and roast the ever-lovin’ bejeezus out of them. This takes 30-45 minutes, depending on how crispy you like them and how small your pieces are. I like itty-bitty pieces and a long roast: this results in pieces that are well browned and crunchy on the outside, as if you’re eating french fries that maintain the illusion of being kinda-sorta healthy.

Back from the high country

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Mom decided a while back that she is opting out of the holidays this year, which I think is totally reasonable. This year, it’s too soon to do the same old thing, too much to cook a huge meal, to awful to contemplate putting up the Christmas tree.

So instead, I flew to Charlotte on Thanksgiving Day, she and Sissa picked me up at the airport, and we all hightailed it to Asheville for the weekend.

I miss mountains. Aside from the year+ in Austin, I have lived in flatlands since right after college.

We stayed at the Grand Bohemian, which I thought was great. Huge stone fireplace in the lobby, hunting-lodge decor (including many creeturs), a bar/lounge “lit” by dim red lights. It was funny, lovely, comfortable, with excellent staff. (ie, take extra money for all the tipping you’ll want to d0)

And there was great art. Most of the paintings in elevator alcoves and the two in our room were hunting scenes. There was one in our room of a flock of pheasant at sunset, and I liked waking up to see it. There’s a gallery in the hotel off the lobby. We had a good time wandering around, admiring a lot of the glass and jewelry and some of the paintings. I really liked the work of Joshua Smith: I like the dreaminess of it, and that rich gold/copper color.

Dinner was good. We toasted to ourselves: the Six-Legged Creature, that we’re learning to walk individually again, that we’re going through this and not around it. The turkey and ham were lovely, the squash casserole was like dessert, and the green beans were just like my grandmother’s, which made us miss her but glad to eat them. The tiny pies were a disappointment.

What a tragedy! One wishes to love a Tiny Pie.

Too much crust.

Next day we toured the Biltmore Estate, gawping at Old Shit Covered in Christmas Decorations. It was very interesting and lovely, but afterward we needed to fortify ourselves with a winery tasting. It’s thirsty work to tromp through a mansion.

At the suggestion of a coworker, we had dinner at Enoteca, happily just across the street from the hotel. We chose the “pick eight” tapas option and a bottle of wine, and it was just the right amount of food for Ladies Small of Appetite. If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend this cute little place. Everything on our plate was delicious.

(Everything about my Mama is small these days, except her bravery.)

Saturday we walked downtown Asheville and discovered two jewel-box stores: Origami Ink and Cafe Ello. I could’ve spent my fortune at Origami Ink, if (a) I had a fortune and (b) I had room in my house for any more stationery or notebooks. Alas, trying to get either usually involves things falling on my head.

The man working there was so much like my dear friend Zenthony that for a few minutes, I didn’t have to miss my friend, because I felt that I’d gotten to talk to him.

(I did buy an owl-shaped seal.)

Cafe Ello is just a cute, kind of shabby little coffee shop run by a bunch of really mellow folks and one fast-moving go-getter lady who makes a tomato-basil soup so good my Mama finished the whole thing. Bonus points to you, soup lady!

Spa treatments. They are good for all the peoples. I had a Horrifying Spa Experience a while back. Maybe I’ll remember to post about that. The hotel spa was a perfect antidote.

All weekend we split sandwiches, shared breakfasts. We did pretty well, considering.

Then, you know, the Panthers lost horribly and we had a major three-way howling breakdown that I think we needed to have … which doesn’t make that sort of thing any easier. Yesterday I got up at 4:00 local and was at my desk in Houston six hours later. Which is to say, at my desk but not really awake or productive.

Looking back after a good night’s sleep, it was just the perfect thing to do. A subdued holiday but still a holiday – distracting, relaxing. Healing.