Category Archives: Whimsies

Friday Book Whimsy: Malibu Rising

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From its title, Malibu Rising sounds a bit like a beach read. I have nothing against beach reads, but I haven’t even been in the vicinity of a beach this summer. In fact, aside from a trip to Vermont, I mostly haven’t been outside of my back yard. Still, author Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote two of my favorite books of all time: Daisy Jones & the Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I was ready to give this book a try.

What I like best about this author is that she doesn’t tackle books in a traditional way. Daisy Jones & the Six is presented as an oral history, making it unique and extremely readable. I hoped for the best from Malibu Rising, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Every year, Nina and her siblings (Jay, Hud, and Kit) hold a summer-ending party. Nineteen eighty-three was no exception. Except this party changed many lives completely.

These four are the children of a famous singer who knows how to entertain but doesn’t know how to be a faithful husband or a good father. He leaves his family when the children are young. His wife tries her best, but sadness and the stress of raising four kids alone drives her to drink herself to death when Nina — the eldest — is only 16 years old. She reaches out to her father, but doesn’t hear back from him. She quits high school to take care of her siblings the best that she can.

While the bulk of the story takes place in a single day, flashbacks tell the story of how the four cope with their unusual family situation. Once she turns 18, Nina takes over the restaurant that her mother’s family always ran. Jay becomes a professional surfer, while the youngest — Kit — tries to figure out where she fits into the family.

They author’s description of the party are vivid and crazy. There are no invitations, if you hear about the party, you can come. Alcohol and drugs are plentiful. Famous people mix with blue-collar workers. Nina’s siblings look forward to the party every year. This year, Nina — in the midst of getting a divorce from her famous husband — is not as enthusiastic.

Normally back-and-forth stories are troublesome to me. I sometimes find them confusing. The author’s telling of this story is, however, seamless. The characters are interesting and realistic. Most important, though they could be obnoxious, they are likable. Well, at least the main characters are likable.

Malibu Rising is a story of survival and figuring out who you are amidst chaos and confusion. The ending was satisfying, except for the fact that I wasn’t ready to be done reading. Yes, it was that good.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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No Laughs
For some inexplicable reason (well, it’s probably explicable to him), Bill has been jonesing to see the movie Stillwater, starring Matt Damon, ever since he first heard about it. The movie is about a man from Oklahoma (Damon) whose daughter has been arrested for murder in Marseille, France. She says she is innocent, so he goes to France to see her and try and get the courts to reconsider her sentence. Matt Damon does an amazing acting job portraying the father who did nothing but break promises to his daughter as she was growing up who now wants to make up for his mistakes. The movie is good, EVER SO SAD. So sad, in fact, that I would think twice about recommending it to someone unless they were pure movie buffs who watch movies for the acting only. I don’t know why Hollywood filmmakers and actors insist on movies being “realistic” and depressing. Throw us a bone, won’t you? Can’t you just give us a couple of well-acted movies with a happy ending? Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

She May Not Look Tough
I talk about my niece Jessie a lot, mostly because she is funny and reminds me so much of my mother. She is under five feet tall and probably doesn’t hit 100 pounds. But she is tough as nails. She is an civil engineer, and leads a team of mostly men. By now, they must know that they can’t win a fight with her, and they’d BETTER NOT take her for granted. My brother sent me this photo of Jessie running a meeting of her staff, and it made me laugh. Jessie’s the one with the computer. I bet she’s sitting on a phone book…..

What’s the Buzz?
A follow-up to my story about the bee stinging situation. I called a bee removal company (and when I say company, I mean one man named Gregg whose mission is to save the bees when he can). He came the next day, and his price was very reasonable. I watched him walk to the back where the two guys were attacked. He looked for about 30 seconds and headed back to the door. “Not bees,” he said. “They are Western Yellow Jackets.” HA! I’m not one to say I told you so, but didn’t I tell both fellas that they weren’t attacked by bees? Gregg used carbon dioxide to kill the yellow jackets, and gave me a guarantee. He even left me with a jar of honey. I was happy about that, because it doesn’t look like Dagny’s bees gave her any honey this year.

Hot Diggity
I accomplished another first this past week. You might recall that I recently met the challenge of successfully making hamburger buns from scratch. This last week, I got hungry once again for brats, but I didn’t have any buns. So I looked up a recipe and realized I had all of the ingredients and all of the time to make hot dog buns from scratch. They turned out perfectly, and they were delicious…..

Ciao!

Nothin’ Out Here

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There ain’t nothin’ out here but dogs in the yard
And a couple John Deeres, some fallin’ down barns.
Yeah, it’s pretty damn clear like lightning in a jar
If you passed it on the interstate, I bet you’d say
There ain’t nothin’ out here, there ain’t a skyline
If you seen it from a Learjet, I bet you’d ask why
Anybody down there would wanna live and die
Somewhere you gotta be lost to go, but they don’t know

We alright with that out-of-touch label.
Turn that dirt into what’s on the table.
And we don’t need no shiny good time.
We’re fine with a county line kinda cold beer
Keep those dust-covered, rusted trucks running.
You kissed on the bus, now you’re raising up youngins
All you’re gonna find windin’ through the country
Is some middle-of-nowhere folks
Makin’ somethin’ outta nothin’ out here

Ben Hayslip / Jimmy Yeary / Michael Hardy

I was out and about yesterday in the car by myself. I was listening to my own playlist, cleverly called Favorite Country Music. My destination made even me laugh at myself. I was heading to what I thought was a fancy King Soopers grocery store with furniture and housewares and all sorts of cool food items. Such stores exist in the Phoenix metro area, and I hoped this one would be the same.

The store made me feel like I was in the old Soviet Union. The shelves were more bare than I’d seen in a long time. (I’m looking at you COVID.) There were no shopping carts. The produce looked sad. The shoppers looked sad. Heck, I looked sad.

I was sort of mentally beating myself up, thinking things like what kind of hillbilly goes to a grocery store looking for excitement? Calling myself a hillbilly is one of the most frequent ways I beat up on myself. I rarely wear makeup; I’m a hillbilly. My clothes are old and out of style; I’m a hillbilly. My idea of a fun day is walking through a big grocery store; I’m a hillbilly.

And then the song Nothing Out Here, sung by a man called HARDY (who frankly really does look like a hillbilly) and featuring Thomas Rhett (who doesn’t look like a hillbilly) came on my playlist. I hadn’t heard it in a while, and immediately remembered why I spent my hard-earned buck twenty-nine to buy that song. The song talks about how the center of the United States is considered desolate and uninteresting, and is largely ignored by mainstream media from both coasts. Little consideration is given to the fact that much of the food we eat each day comes from those huge fields full of corn and wheat and sorghum and soybeans and many other things. The farm report many midwesterners listen to every day at noon might be boring to most, but the information given is critical to those who farm and ranch. Midwesterners are considered to be out of touch with what’s important and meaningful. How insulting.

Remember back in March 2019, when parts of central Nebraska were devastated by tremendous floods? Remember how it took days and days and public outcry before the media even paid attention to the plight of the people affected by the devastating flood. I wrote about it here. What I remember about those many days is that the Nebraskans didn’t let it stop them. They buckled down and helped each other and cooked and baked and babysat and cleaned and kept spirits up. That’s what midwesterners do.

I’ve lived in Colorado far longer than I lived in Nebraska. Nevertheless, I feel like the formative years that I spent in that state formed who I am as a person. Maybe I am a hillbilly, but I’m honest and considerate and love my family and friends with all my heart.

Mistaken Identity

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I’m not one to complain about food that is delivered to my table in a restaurant. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve had to send back a food item: once when I found a Band-Aid in my meal, and once when I found a tissue in my salad. I don’t remember any others, but I will concede that there have probably been more times that I’ve felt the need to complain. Heaven only knows how much hair I’ve eaten in my 67 years on earth. I just don’t look very hard. If you eat out, you take a risk.

The other night, Bill and I went to a neighborhood Italian restaurant. Bill ordered a sausage cannoli and I ordered linguine with clam sauce. Our server was a young woman whom I hadn’t seen before. She was new to the restaurant, but who isn’t in these days when workers are more and more difficult to find? Perhaps she had been a manicurist prior to this job.

Anyway, a short time later, she came to our table and proudly set this in front of me…..

“Here’s your linguine with clams,” she said proudly, kind of like she had discovered a vaccine for cancer.

I looked at my plate of food for a moment, trying to take in just what it was that she had set before me. It looked very good, but it didn’t look like linguine with clam sauce. The fact that it was covered in shrimp with nary a clam to be seen was my first clue. I’m like a detective. A food detective.

“This isn’t linguine with clam sauce,” I said politely. “I ordered linguine with clam sauce.”

She seemed stunned. But she quickly recovered.

“Yes it is,” she answered cheerfully. “That’s how they serve it at this restaurant.”

I once again looked down at my plate. Maybe there were clams hidden underneath the pasta, and the shrimp were just an added bonus. But no. Sadly, I couldn’t spot a single clam. I suspected this was, in fact, NOT how they serve it in this restaurant. In fact, I was positive, since I have ordered it many times in this very restaurant. Plus, there were no clams.

“Seriously,” I said. “This really isn’t linguine with clam sauce. In fact, it’s not even linguine; it’s spaghetti.”

Deer in the headlights.

“Let me go back to the kitchen and check,” she said, leaving the plate of spaghetti with shrimp at my table.

She came back a few minutes later with the surprising news that it wasn’t linguine with clam sauce.

“I don’t know how that happened,” she said. Neither did I, but I suspected there was another customer nearby looking sadly at what should have been her plate of spaghetti with shrimp, knowing full well she was going to have to wait a while more while the dish was prepared once again, this time for her.

A minute or so later, the waitress appeared once again, this time with this plate…..

Ahhh. A lovely plate of linguine covered with delicious chopped clams and garlic and white wine and olive oil. The smell wafted up to my nose, and I was happy. Happier than the diner who wished she could have her shrimp and spaghetti.

Bill, by the way, got his sausage cannoli without a single hiccup. Always order a sandwich would be his motto.

To Bee or Not to Bee

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In 2007, The Bee Movie was released. It was written by Jerry Seinfeld, who also provided the voice for the movie’s star, Barry B. Benson. The movie’s objective was to show the world just how much our lives depend on honey bees. It’s point was well-expressed, and shook us up, some more than others.

Shortly following the release of that movie, my sister Jen was having lunch with her kids, Maggie and B.J. A bee flew onto their table. Jen expressed fright, since she has an allergy to bees. Maggie, always one to take matters into her own hands, took her shoe and squashed the bee. B.J., who has a soft heart and takes things very seriously, teared up, and a sibling fight ensued. No rolling around on the ground, mind you. Just a disagreement about how the bee should have been handled given its plight per Jerry Seinfeld (and many scientists).

I recalled this particular event because this past week, my husband Bill was out in our back yard putting things away in our shed. All of the sudden, he was attacked by a number of bees, and was stung several times before he got away. I wasn’t home when this happened. By time I arrived home, his wrist was swollen twice its size, and apparently hurt like the dickens.

“I got stung by bees,” he told me.

“No, I don’t think you did,” I answered, having gotten my Ph.D degree last night in melittology (a branch of entomology that deals specifically with the study of bees). Ha. Anyway, I went on to say, “I’m pretty sure they were wasps, because bees aren’t aggressive, and wasps are. Plus, bees can’t sting more than once because they lose their stingers, but wasps can sting over and over again. And wasps are frankly just mean little shits.”

He nevertheless held firmly to his belief that it was bees. At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter, because his wrist looked like Popeye’s bicep. I put his wrist on ice and gave him a Benadyl that had only expired four months ago. (It was the best I could do. The other antihistamine had expired in 2015. What do I look like? A doctor? Well maybe a doctor of melittology.)

Anyhoo, yesterday afternoon, our grandson Alastair was mowing our yard. When he finished, he was putting the mower away in the shed in the back yard. All of the sudden, I heard him holler, “God dammit,” and saw him run past our family room window like he was being chased by a swarm of bees. Which he was.

I ran out to the front yard, where he was standing looking quite disheveled.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I just got attacked by a swarm of bees by the shed,” he answered.

“Are you sure they weren’t wasps?” I asked him. Yep. I really did.

“No, they were definitely bees,” he answered. “I got stung eight or ten places, and they were all bees.”

Today, my first order of business is to contact a bee removal business. Haters, don’t hate, but I don’t even care if they remove it or relocate it. Don’t tell my granddaughter Dagny — who keeps bees — because she, like B.J., would likely tear up and a fight would ensue.

By the way, here are two illustrations of bees. The first is an illustration of most bees. The second is an illustration of our bees…..

If you don’t believe me, ask Bill and Alastair.

Saturday Smile: Wash Up

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My two sisters traveled to Nebraska this past week to visit with relatives and check out our old stomping grounds. In one of the restaurants they visited, this sign was on the bathroom wall…..

Ain’t that some good advice?

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Lilac Girls

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It’s not difficult these days to find a novel that takes place during World War II. But it’s refreshing to read a WWII novel with a bit of a different twist. Though fiction, The Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly, features real-life New York philanthropist Caroline Ferriday, whose heroic story needs to be told.

Caroline Ferriday was a fledgling actress who found her niche working at the French Embassy in New York City. Her work took an important turn as Hitler’s armies became more powerful, and it looked as if France was going to fall. Her role was to assist the French people who had fled to the United States to either return to their families in France or bring their loved ones to the United States. Her work became even more important when the Germans overthrew Poland and the war escalated.

Kasia Kuzmerick was a young Polish girl who watched her country fall into pieces around her. Feeling helpless, she became involved in the resistance movement, couriering messages back and forth. She was eventually caught in the act, and she, along with her family, is captured and sent to Ravensbruck, an all-women concentration camp in northern Germany. Ravensbruck is notorious for the medical experiments conducted on many of the women. Referred to as the Ravensbruck rabbits, they were mutilated and purposely infected with bacteria so that the new antibacterial drugs called sulfonamides could be tested on them. They were mostly refused subsequent medical care, leaving many permanently disfigured.

One of the German doctors working on these experiments was young Herta Oberheuser, who became involved as a means of using her medical degree and making something of herself in the new Reich. Oberheuser is not a fictional character. She routinely performed horrific surgeries on young women as part of the experiments.

The story of strength and optimism and ability to overcome horrific circumstances is as compelling as a story can get. At the same time, the contrast between good and evil (Ferriday and Oberheuser) takes your breath away, especially knowing the the circumstances and the stories are all too true.

I highly recommend this book.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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The Real Deal
I texted Adelaide on Monday, which was her first day of college. How did your day go? I asked her. It was pretty difficult, but I’m glad to get started was her response. I remember those first days of school. I went to a high school that was considerably smaller than Addie’s school. Suddenly I was thrust into classrooms that were 300 students in a giant auditorium. I don’t remember being nonplussed, however. I only remember being excited to finally be a college student. However, while I don’t remember what my first college class of 1972 was, I do know that it wasn’t Honors Chemistry, which Addie faced as her first class. She’ll do fine, and pretty soon it will be second nature.

Hit the Ball
I got a text from Jll early on Tuesday morning, which was Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith’s first day of school. Dagny has a volleyball game at 5, and it’s at TJ, was the gist of the text. The real point was that this might be the only opportunity to see Dagny play volleyball without having to drive across town. Since Bec was spending the final few days of her Colorado adventure at our house, she, too, attended the volleyball game. Thomas Jefferson won handily, and Dagny played well. I learned that I like volleyball, and understand it more than I do soccer. It’s fun when they win, but I will continue to love Dagny when they lose!

Birthday Doings
We celebrated the final of our August birthday marathon last Sunday, as Kaiya celebrated her 13th birthday. Her mother says Kaiya has been a teenager since she was 2, but I know it was considerably earlier than that. Bill and I used to babysit a bit when she was a baby, and she showed up bright and early at our house at not even a year old carrying a Hello Kitty purse. She already had the teenager attitude. Being a teenager in 2021 is a lot more difficult and scary than being a teenager in 1970, so I pray for all of my grandkids every single day…..

Drive Safely
By the time you read this post, Bec will be on her way home to Chandler, AZ. She said she had a wonderful trip, which included time in Nebraska with Jen. They had the opportunity to connect with many cousins, some whom they hadn’t seen for 30 years or more. Mom did a good job of keeping all of us connected to her many siblings and their many children, something for which we are all very grateful. I was sorry not to be able to accompany them. However, next summer is my 50th high school reunion (and I don’t know how THAT happened), so Bill and I will certainly be making a trip to my home town at that point.

Ciao!

Am I right?

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Shortly before our granddaughter Adelaide left for college, she and I were in the car together. She was driving. She stopped at a four-way stop. The person to her right was there before Addie, but waved at Addie to go. With a sigh, Addie began to drive.

“Nana,” she said. “I really hate it when people have the right-of-way but wave me to go. It seems unsafe, and it’s not following the driving rules.”

I was stunned. I thought I was the only person alive whose pet peeve was that very action.

“I KNOW!” I said. “I hate that too.”

I’ve always considered that to action be one of my major ridiculous pet peeves. I say ridiculous, because it really is just a matter of people trying to be kind. When I complain about such an action, Bill always comes to the defense of the other driver.

“They just don’t want to take a chance that you’re going to go at the same time that they move out into the intersection. And they’re just trying to be nice.”

“Then why have any driving regulations?” I always respond. “Why don’t we just drive any way we feel like it, like we would if we were flying in the air in hover cars? Just follow the rules People!”

Here’s an example of kindness nearly leading to a catastrophe: Bill — who is about the most courteous driver around — once stopped in the middle of a busy street because there were two or three children on a bicycle wanting to cross the street. His kindness would have been fine except that the person behind us got impatient and roared around our car, nearly hitting the children. The kids stopped in time, but I might have said something to Bill about following the rules of the road and how his action almost led to disaster. Maybe I just thought it and didn’t say it out loud. (As if that could happen.)

I’m pretty sure the last time I took a written drivers’ test was in 1969, when I got my first drivers’ license. I think I have managed to avoid any subsequent written tests. Nevertheless, I think I still know most of the rules.

  • When a red light is flashing, you treat the intersection as a four-way stop.
  • At a four-way stop, the car reaching the intersection first has the right-of-way
  • If two cars reach the intersection at the same time, the right-of-way goes to the person on your right.

And so on. But don’t test me. Or at least grade on the curve.

Perhaps the best thing about that whole experience with Adelaide is the opportunity to see how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Of course, since Addie is my step-grandchild, the tree in question might be a linden tree. Still, one learns by example, and it’s good to see my Crabby Appleton example is running through her veins somehow.

Or is it just that she’s first-born?

You’ve Got Gas

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Much to my surprise, I learned from a local news station that there is a upside to the recent and ongoing increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. Apparently, for economic reasons that I can’t quite understand (hey, don’t laugh at my lack of knowledge about the economy because I can diagram a sentence flawlessly), the increase in cases is causing gasoline prices to go down.

Apparently, the COVID surge is causing U.S. businesses to tell their employees to stop packing up their home desks because they’re staying home for a while longer. They can continue to hold staff meetings in their tighty whities as long as they are wearing a nice shirt. The lack of demand for gasoline (since workers are now only driving as far as the grocery store), coupled with the end of summer traveling, results in an increase in gas supplies and a decrease in price.

Don’t get your hopes up. The price drop is pretty minimal. It’s going from $telling-Jr.-he-can’t-go-to-college-because-the-Suburban-needs-a-fill-up all the way down to $putting-off-the-kitchen-remodel-even-though-the-appliances-are-white-and-electric so they can top off the Ford 150’s tank. The price only dropped a penny-and-a-half per gallon.

It seems like we have been concerned about gas prices for most of my adult life. There have been dips, of course, and they have been appreciated. The theory is, however, that low gas prices lead to people driving more. I can’t support my opinion with facts (heck! the media does that all the time), but I don’t think gas prices have that much to do with the amount of driving people do. The United States is spread out. Entire European countries are smaller than many of our states. Rail travel is unavailable because it is too expensive to build railroad tracks that accommodate only passenger trains like they have in Europe. So our passenger trains have to stop often to let the trains-that-keep-America-in-food-and-air-fryers running. Mass transit is available in many larger cities, but it is clumsy and time-consuming. Just like when I commuted to work every day until I retired, when I look at cars during rush hour, they are mostly empty except for the driver.

Americans drive.

Baby Boomers are old enough to remember the gas shortages of the 70s. Lines at gas pumps. Ridiculous interstate speed limits of 55 mph. But people — including me — sat in the gas lines and drove the interstate highways anyway. What else could we do?

When I turned 16 in 1969, I could fill up my parents’ car at about 35 cents a gallon. I remember “riding the mains” in my small town one weekend night with my best friend in her parents’ car. She wanted to replace the gas she used, but she only had a dime. We went to the gas pump at the bottom of the viaduct that went over the railroad tracks, and she put in a dime’s worth of gas. Don’t get me wrong. Even in 1969, a dime didn’t buy you much gas. But nowadays, it would be next to impossible to even be able to stop the gas pump at a dime. At least she had enough gas to get home.

It is my most fervent hope that there is a time soon when gas is once again below three bucks a gallon and COVID-19 cases are few and far between.