A Birthday Cake

Remember last year and the spectacle that I made of myself in order to prepare Scott's birthday cake?  Remember how it started.  Scott was watching Bobby Flay and one of his throwdowns. This show had to do with German Chocolate cake, one of Scott's particular favorites.  He watched and salivated and cried at the beauty of the cake that Bobby Flay was whipping up. Before my one active brain cell kicked in, my mouth had opened and out came "I'll make that cake for your birthday". Scott's face lit up, his smile dazzled, he gurgled with happiness, and stars gleamed in his eyes. He looked at me with pure adoration.

 

A short while later I printed the recipe.  What was I thinking? The recipe was three pages long and contained ingredients unknown to the mortal working woman, such as muscavado brown sugar, and Dutch process cocoa powder. (Hum along to the tune: "the things we do for love".) I met with the assistant manager of a rather tony grocery store that I frequented only on high holy days. She was very gracious when I explained the situation and admired my fortitude. In reviewing the list of ingredients, there were a few that we had to look up while others had to be specially ordered and she did do that for me.

 

I took the Friday off to collect the special orders and shop for goat's milk, vanilla bean ($12 each), buttermilk, cocoanut rum, cocoanut milk, bittersweet chocolate, fine sea salt, extra fine sugar and other exotic ingredients.

 

Saturday arrived. I began at 9:30 am to collect and measure the ingredients. There was a lot of chopping, slicing, dicing, grating and there were room temperature ingredients, chilled ingredients, and chilled blended into room temperature ingredients. Finally all the wet stuff was poured onto the dry stuff and the ingredients were blended, then halved into two pans. Of course, the oven broke down and the cake came out of the oven too soon, then went back into the oven, and the first batch of goat's milk boiled over while the ghost of Lucy Ricardo hovered and cackled overhead. Undaunted, this cake would be completed and edible or I would die trying. I was unstoppable. I finished the cake at 6:30 pm. I was covered in flour, cocoa powder, and liquids of unknown origin but the cake was a work of art (she says modestly).

  

Round about 7:30 pm the candles were lit, speeches were made, and the cake was cut. It was a triumph, a never to be repeated success, but a masterpiece nonetheless. That was last year; this year my pal Duncan Hines may be sharing my kitchen, but we'll keep that between us. 

Kiss of Autumn

It was the last summer day, only I didn’t know it at the time. The humidity had  dissipated during the last few weeks, which made the outdoors much more inviting, certainly more than had been the case all July, a month that proved to be the hottest in recorded history. August and September, though, were only unreasonably hot. Ah, I thought, this is what summer’s supposed to feel like, dry and warm, with just enough of a breeze to rustle the leaves in the trees. I savored the moment. But then I felt it, that first trembling kiss of autumn; a tiny nip at the tail of each soft gust. Perhaps I had only imagined it, but I thought I was right. A tiny part of me was impressed with myself. In one year this city slicker had converted to a country squire who could feel the nature of the land. Then again, if I was wrong, I was just another loud mouth who didn’t know what she was talking about and the locals would have a good laugh behind my back. But the next morning I knew I was right; the chorus of geese started up at the crack of dawn. The cove was once again polluted with Canadians. Although the morning sun was shining, it was a more wan light. Summer had become an Indian summer. Cool days, long evening shadows, mists in the dusk and a chill in the night air heralded the coming of fall, as did the occasional hint of color on a few trees; all in a matter of days. 

Another harbringer of fall is sleeping, not that light summer sleep, tossing and turning and getting up for a glass of water, or the call of nature, but the deep hibernating sleep of the dead that happens only when the weather turns cool and requires an air horn to wake up. All summer long I woke with the morning's rays and while I tried to keep my eyes closed, it was never any good. By 8:30 am I was wide awake and ready to spend my day doing absolutely nothing constructive. However, these past few days ‘mama bear’ has taken over my psyche. I open my eyes to see that it’s 10 am. ‘Papa bear’ is sleeping soundly beside me. We’re both covered in blankets. Hibernation season has arrived, which brings up two pertinent questions: (1) How will anything get accomplished if we sleep until 10, and (2) what can be accomplished today that can’t be accomplished tomorrow.

Well, unlike last year, this year, I’m ready for fall. Crikey, this must be how the past generations did it; flipping through the Sears-Roebuck catalogue and ordering plants and equipment by mail. I too pored over all the garden catalogues that arrived during the past month, reviewed the online how-to articles and (fast forward to the 21st century) purchased a massive number of daffodil, tulip and lily bulbs using the 24/7 800 number and a handy dandy credit card. Lest anyone think I’ve turned into Horticulture Harriet, you know that I’m not about to spend hours bending over the dirt on my knees and actually digging holes into the ground, not to mention the havoc that would wreak on my fresh manicure. My current favorite piece of gardening equipment is the garden bulb auger that attaches to my drill. I just stand at the planting site (the auger is three feet long) and drill a hole into the ground. The auger prepares a hole that is 3” wide, which is enough to plop a bulb into the ground and have space left over for some good potting soil to surround the bulb. I drilled a few dozen holes for the daffodils, planted them and covered them with mulch in 30 minutes. Mick, I got satisfaction. The remaining bulbs are planted in November, which is a good thing. This break neck pace is almost too much for me.  

Three Bite Rule

Forget the French diet, the Greek diet, the sew-up-your-lips diet. For the last time, here is the three bite rule. Follow this rule and the risk of obesity, or even double digit clothing size, will minimize itself to almost size zero. This experiment is truly scientific and I'm sure the New England Journal of Medicine will publish my article as soon as the ink is dry. I used myself as the guinea pig and lived to tell about it, which is much more than Madame Curie could say. 

First, eat all your veggies, fruits, chicken and fish (yes, mom was right, eat your vegetables and a lot of bad things will not happen to you).  Eat all you want of the aforementioned items, although I strongly advise against liquefying your fruits and adding vodka – that’s a no no.  And I’m not going to belabor why this stuff is so good for you, you know why, you’ve read the articles, listened to the sermons, you know.

Now let’s get down to it. Try this in the privacy of your home. There you are, having eaten a healthy salad with oil and vinegar dressing, a main course of grilled fish, accompanied by baby carrots and broccoli spritzed with lemon juice, and now you are done; you feel so good about yourself, all healthy, wholesome and wise, and then. . . someone plops a slice of mud pie in front of you. 

The little angel on your right shoulder squeals “no, push it away, think of that tiny new little dress you just bought; it’s killer dangerous, you’ll knock ‘em dead in it, but if you eat this dessert, you won’t get that dress past your right thigh, never mind around your hips”.  The little devil on your left shoulder says “are you nuts? Look at that crisp oreo crust, the chocolate-espresso ice cream swirl, the hot fudge spilling over it, the fresh whipped cream with almond slivers sprinkled on top. Life is short. Dig in. You can exercise an extra half hour tomorrow and work it off.”

And the devil is right; life is short, but the angel is right too. You will not get into that dress -- ever. Ah, what to do?  Don’t deny yourself the pleasures in life. After all, what is the point of life if there is no joy. Who ever lay on their death bed and (1) wished they’d spent more time at the office, (2) were glad to have eaten enough roughage, or (3) were grateful to have passed up the chance to kiss George Clooney. 

So, here it is -- take three bites. Three bites are all that are needed to enjoy the pie thoroughly. Think of it. The first bite goes into your mouth and the flavors are relished like a Busby Berkely extravaganza: Your taste buds explode like thousands of kaleidoscopic dancers throwing their long legs into the air, with huge smiles on their faces, and in living color; all of your senses are focused on the delicious tastes bouncing over your tongue, your throat gurgles and coos as the chewed morsels slide down your gullet. Your eyes are closed. You can’t even breathe, the moment is so exquisite, and then, it’s gone. 

The second bite is eagerly anticipated because there is such a delectable memory of the first bite. It’s still a Busby Berkely extravaganza, except that there are fewer dancers, it’s now in black and white and no longer in Panavision. Nonetheless, the thrill is there, albeit 80% of the first bite. Still delicious, still savory, luscious and rich, your tastebuds are still speeding along and your tongue still salivates while your throat murmers with happiness, but you can breathe now and listen to the conversation around you while the second bite scurries past your tonsils. 

And now the third bite has found its way onto your palate. Alas, the memory is now thoroughly registered in your taste buds. You know what you are getting, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but you know; like a bad boyfriend coming back to despoil you once again, like watching Gone With The Wind for the nth time. You know. Your thrill scale is down to 60% , and that is the sad truth. You know how it will end.  

After the third bite, you are just shoveling it in because it’s there. There, taped to your hips before you even stand up.  There, one more lump on your thighs. There, adding a notch to your belt. The moral of the story is stop after the third freakin’ bite, damn it! Leave it on your plate, and forget about your mom’s chiding remarks regarding starving Chinese children. Their GDP is greater than ours. 

Wicked Wabbits

As a child I loved spending Saturday mornings watching Looney Tunes, especially Elmer and Bugs. “What’s up, doc?” was the mantra around the house for many years. However, as the saying goes, I saw life through the eyes of a child. I was greatly repulsed each fall as I watched my dad and brother hoist their rifles to hunt jack rabbits. How proud they were to return with their catch. My poor heart was with Bugs, not with Elmer. That said, and with all sentiments aside, mom’s rabbit stew was so very very good, especially with polenta, and many an evening I ate heartily but with great guilt, like eating cheesecake in the middle of a diet. So good, so wrong; a little more sauce please. 

And so it came to pass that I no longer saw life through the eyes of a child. The hard lessons of life must be experienced to be learned. Now, all grown up, I see those sweet little cotton tail bunny rabbits, so soft and cute, for what they really are: insidious vegans. Oh Elmer, where are thou? If only our lovely little strawberry patch could be viewed by the masses. I nursed it, talked to it, fed it, loved it, watered it, treated it with gentle kindness, watched maternally while the darling little strawberries grew from a pale whitish yellow to a soft green color, then turned pink and finally a bright red. Another day or two and the red would deepen to the mature color that would let us know that they were ready to be picked and eaten. I had such delicious plans for those tasty strawberries. The day arrived. I awoke to a warm morning sun and happily ambled to the little strawberry patch only to find that, horrors, no, it couldn’t be -- they were half eaten, just little dried patches of fruit left on the ground. How did this happen? I stared, unbelieving, heartbroken. And then I spotted the little rabbit brushing the tell tale red juice from its whiskers. It did some fast hopping when we made eye contact. I promised that wicked wabbit there would be no west or wewaxation until that wabbit was stew. 

Tattoos

And don’t get me started on tattoos, Ooops, too late. I remember a day, about 45 years ago, one of our little group of girlfriends availed herself of a very tiny butterfly on her buttock. When she told us about her little excursion to the dark side, naturally, we “pumps and pearls” girlfriends were scandalized. A tattoo! Tattoos were meant for drunken sailors and licentious girls who frequented pool parlors! But not us, we were almost virgins, for heaven’s sake. The shock reverberated for years. Time went by and we ladies grew up, scattered to all parts of the world, became more accepting of others, and ourselves, after all, we were the Beatles generation. We wore fishnet stockings and white lipstick, so what’s a butterfly tattoo amongst friends. A few years ago we all found ourselves in or near Los Angeles, so we had a happy reunion, at which time we ate foods high in cholesterol, drank pretty colored drinks, maligned bad boyfriends and ex-husbands, and ruminated generally about the foibles of our youth. The matter of the tiny butterfly came up, to which she responded “oh yeah, now it’s a monarch”. Yes, we were in hysterics and no, we did not ask to see it. The singular truth of this old joke comes to mind: a senior nurse tells a young nurse that the patient she just bathed had a tattoo on his penis that said ‘swan’. The next day the young nurse bathes him, then tells the senior nurse, “you were wrong, it doesn’t say ‘swan’, it says ‘Saskatchewan’”.  And there is the lesson. Everything changes; nothing stays the same.

At the gym, I saw a couple of women with the f hole tattooed on their backs. For the uninitiated, that is the italicized double f that is found on the front of the violin that contributes to its resonance, and not the figurative description of certain regions of a woman’s anatomy. While the look does conjure a certain fantasy (making beautiful music together?), what will happen to that tattoo in a few years when the body stretches and the violin becomes a cello. Everything changes. Another young lady had a Buddhist phrase tattooed in a circle around her belly button. I can’t wait to see what that will look like when she’s pregnant; a bull’s eye comes to mind, not to mention what her stomach will look like after she has the baby. Nothing stays the same. And then there’s my favorite “what the hell was she thinking” tattoo. A woman was getting out of the gym shower and, at first glance, I thought she had an unfortunate amount of body hair running from her waist to the top of her legs but I quickly realized that she had a tattoo of a snake pushing out of her belly button and winding down to her plumbing. Whoa! I did not have the temerity to ask “WTF?”, thinking that a woman who would have that tattooed on her body is capable of decking me just for asking, and did I really want to lose my teeth over such an inquisition. Nope. I showered, thinking I had to ask my brother about his reaction if he undressed a woman and found that ‘picture’ awaiting him. His response, “leave quickly and quietly”. He agreed that while it conjured certain images, none of them were good.

I’ve come to realize that each generation ups the ante on shock value, so I can’t wait to see what the next generation will bring. In the meantime, I'm thinking of a tattoo on my butt, something that reads "best before 04-07-2048", my 100th birthday.  Then again, I don't have a tattoo for the same reason you don't put bumper stickers on Ferraris. 

Turtle Soup

Having lived here for seven entire months, and with wall to wall windows in just about every room in the house I was confident that I had seen all the local wildlife nature had to offer, both indoors and out: deer, wild turkeys, heron, egrets, rabbits, ducks, geese, lizards, snakes, stink bugs, mice, not to mention mosquitoes, cockroaches and ghosts.

But I was wrong. This morning, while quietly watching the vacationing boaters bobbing up and down in the cove, I noticed something else bobbing up and down in the newly weeded garden plot. A turtle! Now that was enough to give me pause, and (after squealing to Scott like a precious three year old), I realized the turtle was trying to climb the fresh little mound of freshly dug earth that will soon sprout freshly planted flower seeds. It’s spring; everything is fresh. Then I noticed that it was digging only with its hind legs. Still a mystery; was it trying to gain traction to make it up the hill; why not go around. There was quite a pile of dirt behind it so the digging must have been going on for some time. The little turtle looked very determined, brow furrowed, mouth sealed, staring straight ahead. Clearly, this was a turtle on a mission, grunt grunt, breathing hard, and then it stopped. Half of its body was below ground and the facial expression vacillated between eyes shut tight and eyes wide open. It finally dawned on me; the turtle was laying its eggs.  My grand maternal instincts kicked in (as evidenced by my many offspring), and I wondered aloud to Scott about helping to preserve the eggs after mom turtle left the scene. After all, turtles gave us turtleneck pullovers, ought we not to give something in return? Scott gave the idea some cursory thought, then said not to worry, the raccoons would get them; so much for the circle of life.

While I watched, I did a little research. The adult turtle lives nearby. Turtles do not venture far from their birthplace and always return to their ancestral land to lay their eggs. They will eat anything that can fit into their mouth, starting out as carnivors and becoming more vegan as they age. (Note to self: watch out for baby turtles snapping at my ankles, as they may be trying to eat my ankles.) The underground gestation period from laying to hatching is about 8-10 weeks, which means that this fall we will watch a half dozen baby turtles running for their lives as they try to make it to the safety of the forest or the water. They will live in either environment, in the reeds by the water edge or under the fallen leaves in the forest, if their predators don’t get them first, including anyone in my immediate family who desires turtle soup or wants to find out if turtles taste like chicken.

The Weather

Fritz Coleman, a local Los Angeles TV weather reporter, once remarked that he had discouraged his son from following his career footsteps because he was a weatherman in California, a state that had no weather.

But this isn’t California, this is Maryland, springtime in Maryland.  Each morning I listen to the weather report on the local radio station. The report usually goes something like this: “Mostly sunny today, then becoming partly cloudy tonight; tomorrow mostly cloudy with chance of sunshine in the afternoon.” One day I heard “Partly sunny this morning, then clearing, but partly cloudy tonight.” The day before that, it was  “Mostly cloudy, then clearing, then mostly sunny.”  My personal favorites: “Mostly cloudy, but with a little chance of showers” and “mostly sunny, but then cloudy, with a little chance of showers”. The operative words here seem to be partly and mostly. But if it is partly cloudy, then wouldn’t it follow that it is also partly sunny. And, if it’s partly sunny, then wouldn’t it also follow that it is partly cloudy. Likewise, if it’s mostly sunny, how great is the ‘little chance of rain’. Really, the translated weather report seems to be “look out the window, hope for the best, but take your umbrella; you never know”.

For instance, this is the Memorial Day weekend and all the weather reporters unanimously agreed that the weather would be perfect all three days, sunshine and blue skies, that there was no inkling of precipitation, with not the slightest chance of rain or a thunderstorm until Tuesday evening. And yet, late last night, Sunday, Scott and I, while deep in a conversation, heard the celestial taps open and water came pouring down. Our quiet reverie was broken by our maniacal scurrying to close all the windows. The weather reporters should get paid only for each accurate report. If they get the report wrong, they shouldn’t get paid.

At the very least, reporters should have a sense of humor about the weather since they clearly can’t do anything about it, not even report it accurately. A few years ago, I spent some time in Seattle and was most impressed with the weather reporter’s numerous descriptions for rain. Drizzle, Scotch mist, wet fog, liquid sunshine, patter, pouring, sprinkles, presence of wet in the air, light dampness, heavy dew, rainy, stormy, and of course, grand precipitation. Marylanders have not dipped into that particular thesaurus; it’s just ‘showers’ or ‘rain’ around here, whenever. 

Edgar A. Poe's Pond

There is a pond on the property. I don’t know what else to call it: too big to be a puddle but not large enough to call a lake. It is man made by one of the previous owners. I don’t know how it maintains its water level; a geologist could explain it, ocean proximity, clay sediment, etc. I noticed it, in the midst of the forest, each time we drove by but I was afraid to pay attention to it. Remember, we arrived in November, during the bleak mid-winter. The sun went down by 4 pm. The tree branches surrounding the pond were black and bare, the water itself was opaque, grey and grim. When the wind blew, the area looked even more eerie. This wasn’t Jane Austen territory, this was Thomas Hardy at his darkest. Even the deer stayed away. It creeped me out.  When first viewed, the pond was desolate. Pond scum floated on the surface, dead reeds trimmed the borders and center of the water. It looked cold, dark and scary; the kind of place that Don Vito would drop cement shoed bodies. Logically, the area had to be haunted. Why else would it look like a scene from a Poe novel. Baltimore, Poe's home, is not that far away. He could have been here; had a hand in its design. Only missing from the picture were vapors from the previously deceased and the crows. I didn’t want to have anything to do with its existence, so I did what lawyers and St. Peter have done since the beginning of time: deny, deny, deny.

Spring followed winter. Spring. And with spring came bugs and flies and other nasty flying critters. Naturally, it followed that this pond would be the death of us.  I envisioned mosquitoes the size of drones targeting our tender pink flesh, forcing us to run into the deadly water to save ourselves from their bloodthirsty stings. (Poe again, in one of his diabolical endings. Us, underwater, breathing through those dead reeds until a bug crawls down and chokes us to death, thereby allowing us to meet some of Don Vito’s previous victims.) It’s the romantic in me.

I put out the call to local friends “Please save us; what are we to do?” The answer, unanimously, was, “do nothing. The frogs will save you.” Frogs? The frogs? What frogs? While I’m a great fan of garlic fried frog legs, and aside from kissing a lot of them before finding Scott, live frogs have held no appeal, in any mutation; big, ugly green things or small, brown bouncy things.  However, there it was, do nothing but wait for the sound of frogs croaking in the twilight. Okay, I guess . . . .  Then, again, it’s spring; flora, fauna, birds singing, sea grass gently bending in the soft ocean breeze. It wasn’t all bad. As we were driving by the malevolent pond last weekend, heading out for a potluck dinner, I noticed, what, color?  Were there flowers around the pond? It looked, dare I say it, inviting. Then again, the Lorelei on the river Styx looked inviting and look what happened to those mortals. Reluctantly, I realized that a closer look was required, which inspired me to take the walk to the pond the next day. And a magical transformation had taken place. The sun dappled water was much more clear, most of the pond was encircled with yellow and purple irises, and the dead reeds had been replaced with live green shoots. Even while I stood transfixed by this metamorphosis, I became aware of plunking noises in the water. Looking carefully at the ground, I found the area strewn with frogs, big frogs, big, big frogs, bullfrogs, I mean bullfrogs the size of my head big. A small child could ride one of those darn things. Heck, one of those darn things could eat a small child. The water looked much more clear and clean though, and there was no flying wildlife hovering about the water, so I decided that as long as the frogs continued to do their job, they could continue to live there, rent free. From the look of things, including the tiny little tadpoles swimming by the shore, I can imagine a crystal clear pond and a symphonic ribbit lullaby each evening in the near future.

The frogs, though, are not alone on golden pond. While there are no loons, Scott noticed a duck hanging around the pond recently. He discovered Mrs. Mallard nesting somewhere near the pond. We were told that we ought to see a lone drake (Mr. Duck) roosting not far away, guarding the little Mrs. on the nest, while she kept her eggs warm. I was told she will keep the goslings in the pond until they grow from golf ball size to softball size, then she will walk them to the dock and encourage them to fall into the cove, or push them in, as would be my wont, giving the sink or swim term new meaning, or giving back its original meaning. The walk from the pond to the dock is long and perilous. Apparently a good mom will keep them clustered closely together, on the walk and in the water, so they appear too large for hawks and vultures to swoop down and dine on them.

As spring rolls into summer, there will be more events around that pond, I’m sure. For one thing, Scott purchased a perky full body wading suit from L.L.Bean. Aren't the mental pictures already forming.

The Blue Hour

The blue hour comes from the French expression l'heure bleu, which refers to the period of twilight each evening when there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. This twilight time is considered special because of the quality of the light. It infuses the environs with surreal calm, casting crisp silver light on the greying shadows and the promise of the evening ahead. It is a new time of day for me. Remember the Platters' hit song "Heavenly shades of night are falling, it's twilight time. . . . When purple colored curtains mark the end of day. . .". There was no blue hour in California. A celestial switch was thrown, the sun went down, the daylights went off and the headlights were turned on. It happened in five minutes. But here, I am learning about the blue hour. "Deepening shadows gather splendor as day is done. Fingers of night will soon surrender the setting sun. . . ."

Twilight time seems to encourage reflective thoughts, which come easily when looking out at the dock, the still water around it and the nearby forest at the back of the house. All seems calm at first blush, "in the afterglow of day", and yet the life that is slowly realized out there demands attention. I watch the heron that reigns from atop the tall pines that line the shore disappear into the evening sky, its wingspan barely reflected in the water. There is a warren of rabbits that lives under the bushes near the front of the grounds. During the blue hour, sometimes I see a small movement in the trees and realize a bunny is bouncing toward home for the night. I imagine a little salad is waiting for ingestion. The hawks circle, then squawk goodnight before disappearing into the pines, and the egret too goes off to wherever it goes at night, long legs dangling in the sky. This twilight time spells a long good night. I hear Scott pattering around the house and wondering aloud about dinner. It warms my heart just to hear his voice. This is our l'heure bleu, our twilight time. "Each day I pray for evening just to be with you, together at last at twilight time." I couldn’t have asked for more, or better.

Suspended Disbelief Once Again

As Jack Smith famously remarked in his columns "my wife and I settled down for the usual night of sex and violence".  So did Scott and I settle down in front of the TV to an evening of sex, violence and suspended disbelief, or cognitive estrangement, as the therapists like to say. 

Once again, a few favorites of the nonsense that people believe after watching the shows enough times. After all, they are dramas, so they must be true. Alas, that is not so. Another fairy tale favorite is the long photo shot of the license plates taken from a bodega’s security video camera two doors down from the kidnapping site. Out pops the old used VCR that has been taped over and over since the beginning of time. Off it goes to the oh-so-technical crime scene crew, using such state of the art equipment that even nerdy hackers in basements haven’t heard of the tools of the trade. The tech team, once they are done laughing about the VCR tape (my mom told me about these kinds of tapes), gets to work copying it to a 21^st century host, then “cleaning it up” and in precisely three minutes, the work is done, during which time we are subjected to a completely non-sequitor piece of loud music that will get credit at the end of the show while we watch the tech team silently do its work. And back the data goes to our keenly analytical detective, who looks like a toad but has a mind like a steel trap, which is why gorgeous Amazonian model types all wait breathlessly for his call once he’s off duty.

‘Zoom in on the plate, and sharpen that lower right section,’ says the savvy detective. Next thing we know, we are no longer looking at the grainy black and white video frame of the back of the van, now we are looking at a perfectly crisp HD shot of the license plate, which is then cross referenced with the DMV database (available to anyone with an app) and voila, we have the location of the perp.  Here’s where cognitive estrangement steps in. That can’t happen. There aren’t enough pixels in those grainy long shots to affect the resolution. While the brightness or contrast can be altered somewhat, nothing, not even Steve Jobs in heaven, can bring back the resolution. The victim can’t be found and probably is dead, damn it. 

And then there’s Scott’s personal favorite, reverse GPS.  Someone has been kidnapped but the detective is able to find the young diabetic mother before it’s too late. ‘I reversed the cell phone GPS and found her location’. In real life, GPS satellites don’t receive; they just transmit. In real life the young mother would have gone into insulin shock and died, unless the old bodega owner found her and gave her a chocolate bar, but that's another story. 

And the legal shows. . . . During a recent show, a witness, flanked on both sides by his legal representatives, was having his deposition taken when another attorney stormed into the room and demanded: ‘Stop the deposition, I now represent this witness’, at which point the seated attorneys, and the witness, gave each other the ‘wha?’ look. What? Who is this guy? Does the witness know him? No? And yet the perplexed witness left the room with his new representing attorney while the previous attorneys sat scratching their heads. Really? (That was a setback to their case.) Again, what happened? Did anyone file a Substitution of Attorney with the court or serve the previous attorneys with a copy. Did the witness inform anyone? Did anyone inform the witness? Were such fripperies dispensed with for expedience of time? Did the writers believe that people who do not work in the legal world wouldn’t know the difference (cognitive estrangement again) and the show would go on with no one the wiser.  But wait, at last count there are over one million attorneys, not to mention judges, paralegals, legal secretaries, court clerks, court reporters; all of whom buy the toothpaste the sponsor is peddling, but now they too are driven to distraction. They, like me, can’t enjoy the show any longer, and when I can’t enjoy myself, I have to let my husband know the source of my great unhappiness, regardless of the fact that he’s perfectly content staring at the young associate’s splendid figure outfitted in a one size too small business suit.  Yes, I know, I mustn’t distract his concentration on her blouse with facts and logic because, sadly, he doesn’t care; he just likes the pretty associate. And it’s not that I dislike her, but it does explain the state of this country. 

I'm bugged

Spring is in the air and with it brings forth tulips, daffodils, Japanese magnolia blossoms and of course, the less eagerly anticipated, native bugs. I’m new to bugs. In California, bugs are the stuff of folk lore. Oh sure, there’s the occasional old timer who remembers the spring of ’74 that brought killer bees from South America, but no one ever saw them. We read about their impending arrival but they never arrived.  In Maryland, though, bugs are fodder for reality shows. Here, eat this.

For instance, Maryland is home to the rare Puritan Tiger Beetle (Cicindela puritana), which is classified as endangered. Endangered? How so? Does this mean that we won’t be finding this beetle on a Chinese food menu anytime soon? If a carpet of tiger beetles comes running towards me I can’t stomp on them or spray them with agent orange; between you and me, anything with more than two legs comes running at me, it’s going down. If it’s rare, it will become more rare.

And I have come to learn about camel crickets.  Technically, they are crickets even though they look like spiders. They run like spiders. They have long hairy legs like spiders, but, unlike spiders who run in the opposite direction of any potential attacker, camel crickets jump toward their nemesis in zig zag leaps, and the freakin’ things are, on average, two terrifying inches long, which, when one is jumping towards me, is enough to send me screaming into my ever patient husband’s arms, who wonders aloud that a woman can have boiling wax poured onto her inner thighs and then have the hairs ripped out sans anesthesia could be afraid of a camel cricket. Yup. It’s a mystery all around.

Ever present to the area, we have the stink bug. I’ve never seen, nor heard of, a stink bug before finding our way to this little corner of paradise, but now we are ever so familiar with the little critters. They are called stink bugs because they stink if crushed; not quite the caliber of malodor that one comes to expect from a skunk, but enough of a stink to conjure the memory of a skunk.  As luck would have it, they are yet another ‘accidental’ import from China.  At least, that’s how the Chinese tell it. “So sorry”; but are they, are they really sorry? I see the bugs’ presence as the Chinese version of chemical warfare. The stink bugs seep into the home under sidings and doors, through soffits, and then hibernate until spring, when they pop up with the daffodils, scurry around the floor or fly crazily like drug addled moths around light fixtures. I keep a glue trap or two around the house to capture any bug that has the temerity to appear before me. I like to watch it wave its legs helplessly, unable to move, until it finally dies an ignoble death. “Zai jian” (good-bye in Chinese) I yell while it flails to the end. Yeah, it’s cold, but at least I’m not tearing wings off dragonflies.

Likewise, I’m told that while there are about 4500 different species of cockroaches, there are only four types in Maryland. Thankfully we haven’t seen any in this house, but four types still is four types too many.  While I think about it, I’ve probably dated more than four types of cockroaches, but we’ll leave those stories for another day.

Last, we have cicadas. Cicadas appear in Maryland at varying intervals and last about six weeks. The swarms are reminiscent of the locusts, so I’m told. If I read the bible, I would probably know a lot more about swarms of locusts, but what little I do know makes me want to know less. If you like numbers you will like these little tidbits. I have learned that swarms are classified as Broods (think ‘generations’) and given a number; Brood X is the largest. Brood XIX is the only 13-year brood in Maryland. Each swarm/brood can reach billions of insects in a given area. Billions. Fortunately, it appears that we landed just in time to live long enough to never see a swarm. Brood X will swarm next in 2021 (we’ll be dead by then), whereas Brood XIX will swarm next in 2024 (even our bones will have dried out by then). Specific broods will swarm together once every 221 years. Broods X and XIX are expected to next swarm together in 2089 (the dust that was our graves will be gone by then). At least that’s one bullet that we’ve dodged and probably the only one.

Cell towers

In retirement, we tend to hold smaller accomplishments more dear, like getting out of bed before 10 am., building the perfect BLT and using a cell phone to make a call.  In LA, cell towers reigned; so ubiquitous and so well designed that it took a third look before a tower could be discerned from the prosaic surroundings. Then again, I suppose lackluster described the LA surroundings. Billboards, graffiti covered retaining walls, brown mountains, beige air; not much for a cell tower to uglify. Well, that’s not entirely true. The fake palm trees lining Santa Monica Boulevard were lovely in the springtime. And I suppose there were beautiful areas of Beverly Hills, not that we mortals were ever allowed to tread there, but so I had heard.  Here, there has been much discussion, heated and otherwise, over the look and placement of a cell tower. After years of rancorous argument, the about to be constructed cell tower has everyone talking, albeit by land line since it is impossible to have a cell phone conversation. Argument against the cell tower? It would spoil the virgin country look and pristine views; sun dappled waters, clear blue skies, white puffy clouds, verdant fields. God's green acre here on earth. Argument for the cell tower? We could more easily call the sheriff when we hit a deer. With all that taken into consideration, the look of the cell tower has finally been agreed upon, which made it somewhat confounding and contrary that the locals, again, living in an area that is covered with flourishing forests, rows of lush tree lined driveways and leafy conifered beltways should decide, rather than putting up a camouflage tower to look like a tree, would agree to put up a tower that looks like a bell tower; white clapboard and brass edging rising 300 feet into the sky and topped with a bell. Why yes, that will blend right in to the neighborhood.  In a solemn moment of ‘you can take the girl out of LA, but you can’t take LA out of the girl’, I could only say “WTF”? Then again, since my Morse code is rusty and smoke signals have been outlawed, personally, I don’t care if a mountain of galoshes is used to give birth to a cell tower as long as the freakin’ thing goes up sometime this decade. All I want is a reasonable form of communication with my husband to remind him to bring home a quart of milk.

Back to Basics

Life has slowed down, wondrously slow. Hunting season is over. The pre-dawn shootings have been replaced with quacking ducks arguing melodically about where to have breakfast. Finally, it’s peaceful and we have time to count our toes and ponder our new life; grace and beauty in all things. Maryland life offers all manner of inspiration, even a poem about tractors:

There’s the love of a child that’s unafraid.

There’s the pure and true

love of a maid.

But the most gentle love,

the most tender love,

even deeper than the love for mother,

is the infinite, soulful, passionate love,

for a John Deere tractor’s green and yellow color.

Yes, the tractor has arrived; a perfect medly of yellow and green; the snow pusher already attached. The tires sport more chains than a Hollywood pimp. If only there was snow. Nonetheless, the three-car garage now holds a he-man SUV, a girly sports car and a baby tractor. We are a family.

With our newfound country life, comes country eating. No longer able to skip over to Whole Foods or Bristol Farms at a moment's notice, food shopping comes with forethought, planning and availability.  Right now root vegetables are on display so we partake of beets, onions, carrots, etc in all forms. Carrots, for instance, morph into carrot cake, carrot soup, carrot juice, diced carrots, carrots in stews (you get the idea). Scott is trying to concoct a carrot martini but I don’t think that idea holds much promise. 

Galoshes

For those who know nothing of galoshes and think, perhaps the reference is to a new drink that comes with the optional two olives or an onion, this notion would be wrong, galoshes are a type of snow boot that fit over the shoes. Just saying the word ‘galoshes’ makes me laugh. Say it out loud: galoshes. Do visions of overdressed young boys with tongues stuck to the flagpole in winter come to mind? Do fantasies of country folk donning Saturday night finery come to mind? “I wore my best galoshes to the barn dance, yup yup yup” and still went home alone?  

When the big box arrived, Scott opened it with great enthusiasm while I watched with learned trepidation. One never knows what treasures the mail brings these days. When he pulled out the galoshes, visions of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster’s footwear came to mind. I wondered if the galoshes started it all. Women are nothing if not about shoes. The good doctor may have pulled out a pair of hunky galoshes, presented them to his fashionista wife, who promptly screamed and asked if she could trade them for a pair of Jimmy Choo heels. Disheartened, he wondered what he could do with the galoshes . . . and the rest is history. After I was handed my pair, I quietly accepted that we are now officially 'country folk'. We wear galoshes. Oliver and Lisa owned galoshes and now so do we. Personally, I think galoshes are the height of sloth. The ad should read “for those people who are too lazy to take off their shoes and slip into warm and comfy L.L. Bean winter boots, galoshes are made for you. Just step in and walk out.”  

Ducks and geese better scurry

Sherwood’s population is 186, 184 of whom, seemingly, were lodged in a duck blind under our bedroom window and shooting birds one half hour before dawn. It’s 6:32 am and I remember when I thought early morning car horn alarms in LA were annoying. Deer season may be over but gaming season is not over until January 28, so here comes our next lesson in rural living.

Youth days: There are only two days a year in which youth under the age of 15 can join in the hunt with a valid license. However, during those two days the daily bag limit is (get this) six ducks, two Canada geese, two brant, 25 light geese and 15 coots. So Ralphie, armed with his Red Ryder shotgun, is not allowed to drive for a few years but is allowed to shoot a total of 100 birds in two days.  Brant, by the way, are small geese, not to be confused with light geese. And exactly how does one differentiate the two? I don’t know, but wonder, what if shooting a small light goose makes it a two-for. And coots; the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says a coot is a common water bird, often mistaken for a duck but is all black and possesses a white beak. All this time, I thought coots were those silly old men who would sidle up to me at a bar and attempt to gain my attention. If only I had known that I could shoot coots seasonally, I would have done so.  “Oh, wrong type of coot, my bad, officer.”

For grown-ups, the daily bag limit of ducks is six: Donald, Daffy, Huey, Dewey, Louie and their mom.  But it’s not that simple. The six duck limit, including mergansers (more on mergansers later), consists of no more than (it’s easier to read this next sentence while humming the Twelve Days of Christmas) five long-tailed ducks, four scoters, four mallards (but only two hen mallards), three wood ducks, two redheads, two hooded mergansers, two pintails, one canvasback, one fulvous tree duck, or one mottled duck, among others ( . . . and a partridge in a pear tree). In addition to the duck bag limit, hunters may take 15 coots per day. Again, if only I had known about the coots, I could have narrowed that population genre down considerably. And who knew there were so many varieties of duck, when really, what matters after Peking, l’orange, canard confit, foie gras, or roast duck. And how can these hunters tell the difference in the early morning darkness?  Hawk like eyesight? Large duck manuals with big, color pictures? Night vision goggles? How can they tell the difference between a tree duck and a wood duck. How much wood could a wood duck duck if a wood duck could duck wood? (Sorry, but it had to be said.)

As for geese, forget the romantic picture of geese flying in V formation on the crest of the silver moon. This is real life. Mergansers, according to John James Audubon, are large buff breasted geese, originally from Europe and Asia (not to be confused with the double breasted bed thrasher types that my brother seems to invite), while the hooded Mergansers, obviously, come from south central LA.  The daily bag limit of five geese per day may include (here we go again) cackling geese, white-fronted geese, Atlantic population Canada geese and resident population Canada geese. These last two varieties beg the obvious: how to tell the difference between the Resident and the Atlantic Canada geese? Aren’t both types (dare I say it) wetbacks?

Fortunately, there is no open season for swans. The thought of variations on a theme of Swan Lake would drive me quackers.

Rifles and Shotguns

Evidently there is a big difference between rifles and shotguns, a huge difference. Growing up, watching Rifleman on TV, I thought every long barreled weapon was a rifle and everything that fit in a pocket or a holster was a gun. After all, there was no TV show entitled “Shotgun Man”; to think that I’ve lived my entire life without recognizing this distinction. Apparently it’s like asking about the difference between brown and white sugars. Well,  it depends on who is asked.  Any doctor will say that sugar is sugar and the body deals with either one the same way; no difference.  Julia Child, though, would roll up a thick wad of parchment paper and swat me on the nose while describing the intricacies of cooking with molasses riddled sugar instead of white sugar.  So when I kept referring to shotguns as rifles my patient husband grit his teeth and, undoubtedly contemplating using something more substantial than parchment paper (except for those pesky wife beating laws), tenderly remarked,  “there is a difference! Oh sweet city girl, take a load off those Stuart Weitzmans, and I will teach you a thing or two”.  As was explained to me, while both have the ability to kill, rifles use bullets, have grooves in their barrels, which offer greater accuracy and range, as opposed to shotguns, which have smooth barrels and fire a load of pellets (shots), with less accuracy but more quantity. Ah, so here is what I’ve learned so far: Chuck Connors used a Winchester rifle to make his point.  Tim Allen probably uses a shotgun.  Both pieces are effective, but Chuck Connors was really hot! It was the rifle.

Yesterday the men loaded their shotguns in the trunk and their women in the backseat.  We then scurried over the creek and through the woods to the local ‘outdoor recreational center’, which looked for all the world like a golf course that used shotguns instead of golf clubs.  We even rented a golf cart. The men carried bags of shotgun cartridges to the cart, we hopped on and down the path we rode. It really looked like a golf course, although some areas looked like a miniature golf course with pint size lighthouses dotting each side of the road and a miniature barn on the other side of the water hazard. Each station was set up differently to simulate different environs and sported unique written instructions on the number of shots allowed. When a real pheasant crossed the grass at one station, there was some confusion about whether it was acceptable to shoot it, but nothing could be found in the rulebook, and since it was New Years Day, we pardoned it.  Back to the shooting; whenever “Pull” was yelled, a clay saucer or two appeared in the sky. Clay ‘pigeons’ (I was corrected) were fired at with abandon, scorecards were marked, great conversations re accuracy ensued and then we moved on to the next station.  It was an icy cold day and I was grateful for my warm L.L.Bean barn coat, but I felt like a complete pansy when I noticed one man in the group behind us was wearing shorts.  The others with him weren’t wearing much more either. New Englanders are a hardy stock. While the men discussed the finer points of hitting the clay pigeons I looked around for the ubiquitous Ninth Hole bar.  Alas, it was nowhere to be found.