Skating

Los Angeles, California


It's time for a recipe. And I will get to that, down below. However, if you're expecting haute cuisine (but why would you be, here?), you should exit, stage left, pronto. This post isn't about what we take in, at least not food-wise. 


Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was good. We gratefully accepted an invitation to break bread, and turkey, with our friends, Bonnie and Marty. In reverse order of importance: their home is beautiful; the food was fab; other guests were interesting and friendly; we felt warmly welcomed. No small thing when you are changing out holiday celebrations. We spent the afternoon with my mom. Her caregivers, who we think are heaven-sent, took her to afternoon dinner in the dining room of her retirement facility. Hard to write that, but it was ok. Especially for her.


For many years we spent Thanksgiving on the road. Our family celebrated Thanksgiving at a relative's home in Long Beach. After 1998, it was our job to collect the widows -- my mom and aunt, who lived at diagonal opposite ends of the Valley where we live on a middle edge. This was cheerfully done, more or less, though it meant we were on the road for hours -- one year, exactly five. We could have driven to Carmel. But it was my family's Thanksgiving, and we have always been pitchers-in. Plus, I always looked forward to this first holiday celebration which kicked off the season. I enjoyed being with my family. And I miss them.


However, apart from the heavy commute, the unfortunate thing about this annual Thanksgiving celebration was that the relative hosting it was not open to adding anyone in to the celebration -- even those we call splinter relatives, the ones not exactly on the main branches of the family tree. And, like the Shakers, we are a barren lot -- there were no babies who grew to children who grew to adults through the years, either. No cousins' table. Once I asked if I could bring along a friend who was freshly separated from her husband. No, was the reply, to which was added, I don't have enough matching wineglasses. I offered to bring wineglasses, but it wasn't a problem that welcomed fixing. As a result, Thanksgiving turned into a tontine with the older guests disappearing from the table at the end of their lives, including, first, my father, then my favorite aunt. I had promised Billy that when my mom was gone and we were down to four, we would stop going. It was getting more depressing by the year, with the numbers diminishing and the dining room looking dim and brown, like something from Arsenic and Old Lace. Then, something unexpected happened. One of our generation died, and shortly after, my mom needed to move to a retirement village. The Long Beach relatives didn't want to host Thanksgiving that year. And that, was that.


During the years when we carpooled the ladies there, we would sometimes leave my mom in Long Beach to spend the weekend with the relatives. When we left to take my aunt home, she and I always rode in the back seat, talking all the way home. Billy would act as chauffeur. Once we dropped her off at her pretty house in Toluca Lake, we would head for home. Our route took us past St. Charles Borromeo, the Catholic church that Bob Hope and Bing Crosby attended (and helped build) while they lived in Toluca Lake. On the ride home from my aunt's, now late on Thanksgiving evening, I would take A Charlie Brown Christmas from it's jewel case and insert it into the CD player in Billy's car. The first hearing of Christmas music (except in stores since mid-October!). It was our tradition.


I like A Charlie Brown Christmas. I like the spirit of it. I like most of the Vince Guaraldi music. But the main reason why I listen to it is for the tune, Skating. I love this. I have told Billy that if I am ever in a coma, this is what he should play next to my bedside over and over again. It will bring me back to this earth. It's not just the title, though, as a former figure skater, I do like the title. But more than that, I love the evocative nature of it. It does sound like skating -- something that I loved to do beyond anything else in my childhood.


My family started listening to this music back when I was growing up. We also listened to To Wish You a Merry Christmas by Harry Belafonte. Music is, and always was, an important part of the holidays for me. My parents never watched much TV, and so there was often music on in our home. My dad had built our stereo system. Fine fun for a former radio engineer who ended up in aerospace. The receiver tubes were all exposed behind a cabinet door, and I remember once placing a stack of records on top of these tubes where they melted into something that looked like it could be found in outer space. My dad wasn't angry (even though I was taking HIS records off to put MINE on). I had often seen him do this, but hadn't understood that you couldn't do it when the tubes were hot.


I had a similar lack of understanding when I once put a Playdoh ashtray, which I had made for my grandfather's pipe, into the kitchen oven to fire, as I had seen done in school (but with, uh, real clay). The Playdoh dripped through the rack and into a smelly pool at the bottom of my mother's new oven (which came with her new kitchen). Not a similar response to my dad's, when I melted the records. My mother dissolved into hysterical tears, railed at the Gods and asked what was to become of a dangerous person like me? Parents. You really get the yin and the yang there.


But back to Skating, and Christmas music. For the first time in, well, forever, we have not put up a Christmas tree. And, for the first time in, also forever, we will be spending Christmas away from home. We will be in Carmel. Neither Billy nor I have ever spent Christmas anywhere away from Los Angeles. As in, never. We do have some Christmas decorations placed around our house right now, but even those will be packed up and taken up to Carmel. We plan on buying a small tree there, and a wreath. I'm bringing Christmas tableware-- napkins and place mats, and some of our collection of large Christmas mugs which appear the day after Thanksgiving and disappear the day after New Year's.


All our Christmas music will come with us -- CDs and iPod. It wouldn't seem like Christmas without it all, and, of course, without Skating. And, maybe too, there will be actual skating. I haven't laced on skates since I was just out of college, and that's a couple of decades without being in boots and balancing on blades. But I still carry the feeling within me. It's one of the reasons why I love salsa dance. A couple of my partners in salsa know how to spin both of us around quite fast. One of them, Marvin, does this the best. It's the one move that gives me that feeling of wind-in-my-hair flying that I loved the most about skating. That, and your first glide onto the rink from the boards. Feeling the smoothness, or not so smoothness, under your blades. Getting your skates under you, and your body accustomed to the familiar feeling of it all. Whoosh . . .


But now (lots of digressions here), back to that small tree which we plan on buying in Carmel. We won't have many decorations. I have some tiny Italian rooster pitchers, and also Emile Henry pitchers in various colors. They will go on the tree with ribbon, and maybe we will even string popcorn -- one of the very few things I am able to do with a needle and thread. And if we do string popcorn, we will pop some extra for eating. Because one of the things I like almost as much as Skating (and skating) is popcorn. Yes, I know, I'm afraid that's it for this post. I should be ashamed. But, it IS a really good popcorn recipe. I gave up on microwave popcorn at least a decade or so back. This is so much better:


Casa Healy Popcorn


1 tablespoon chili or red pepper olive oil*
1/2 cup good-quality popcorn**
salt (or flavored salt), only if desired


Heat olive oil in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. I find lighter-weight pans work best. I've tried this in my Le Creuset with lesser success than a plain stainless steel one. And I like a glass lid so I can watch the magic.


In a minute or so, when the oil is beginning to really heat, throw in your popcorn. Place a lid, cocked to allow for steam to escape. When corn starts to pop, gently move/shake pan over the burner. Keep lid very slightly cocked, or hot kernels will find a way to fly out. When popping slows down, take pan off burner and let the popping continue until it is just about stopped (invariably a couple of late boomers will pop while you are pouring the popcorn into a serving container). I use two baskets lined with cloth napkins or paper towels, depending on mood, or the movie we've chosen to watch. They are of differing sizes. I get the largest one. It just happens that way in our house, where popcorn is concerned.


*I've used both Consorzio Roasted Pepper olive oil, and Lucini Fiery Chili Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I've also tried it with Asian chili oil which is way too hot. I learned how to mix that with regular olive oil to tame it. I've also made this with lemon olive oil or a mix of the lemon and chili.


**I like White Cat Corn which I used to purchase at Williams-Sonoma, but they no longer carry it there, at least in my area. I did without for awhile, then found it at Whole Foods on a treasure hunt. More about treasure hunts in a later post . . .


So there it is. The belated first December post complete with music, family remembrances (both good and bad as they always seem to be), skating, and popcorn. A virtual potpourri of what is swirling around me as I begin to pack for Carmel. Hope your holidays (whatever they are) are warm. Hope they are merry and bright. Hope we skate through to a New Year with much happiness, and peace. See you in Carmel and thanks for reading my blog!

Wild Kingdom

Los Angeles, California


Billy was over at the rental house a couple of weekends ago, and I was left with the chore of doing the outside watering. Our house is comprised of four quadrants of areas which have potted plants requiring occasional deep-watering (insert hose, let drip into pot for ten minutes utilizing timer, move hose). Why all of these pots are not on a drip system, I know not. Someday maybe they will be. The project list is long.


Anyway, as I was saying, I grabbed the hose from the garage and began to walk out across the driveway toward a large pot which contains a red bougainvillea. The pot is nestled into a corner of the retaining wall that supports our back hill. There is a square bump out in this wall, where we have a Meyer lemon tree, and that creates the corner where the pot resides at the top of our driveway (there is also a front hill). Got that? So . . . as I approached the pot, I could see the ground behind it, where some leaves and dead bracts had accumulated. And I also saw . . . the snake. The funny thing was that it registered as Oh, a snake. And I continued my approach. Then my brain hollered A SNAKE!!! I made a hasty decision (despite the pounding of my heart, and burning desire to drop the hose and swiftly escape) to woman-up and water the thirsty plant. As I got closer, the snake, evidently, sensed my presence and moved towards the corner of the wall, then proceeded (ok, here it comes: EEUUUWW . . .) to slither up the wall under the rosemary that trails over the wall (again, eeuuwww) and disappear. Shudder, shudder, shudder.


I don't like snakes. Even small garter snakes, as this one appeared to be. We live in the foothill suburbs of Los Angeles, and share our neighborhood with owls, hawks, lizards, squirrels, mice, rats, opossums, rabbits, coyotes, and, until recently, one mountain lion (Officer Trulik reported this at a Neighborhood Watch meeting -- evidently they track the mountain lions and they know, to some extent, where they are). Unfortunately for our one mountain lion, he tried one of those Rusty's-in-the-club crossings of the 405 freeway, and didn't quite survive his initiation.


We see many of these animals, especially lizards and squirrels. After we lost our beloved Australian Shepherd, the bunnies showed up within about forty-eight hours. Word travels fast in the animal world. Billy told me early on that where there are rodents, there will be snakes. I suppose I thought that was fine, as long as I didn't see any of them. But now I have, and I fear that the one I saw may have been a scout.


Billy has sole responsibility for any lizards who get into the house. I'm not up to the task of capturing them, and neither is Ana, who helps us with housekeeping. But I have responsibility for relocating spiders. Billy hates them, but for some reason, I don't mind them so much. Maybe it's the Charlotte's Web thing. Though a voracious reader throughout my childhood and adolescence, I don't recall reading a lot of children's classics, except Alice in Wonderland. Then, in college, I took a class entitled Children's Literature; also known as Kiddie Lit. And that was when I read Charlotte's Web, and when I first read the wonderful Wind in the Willows.


But, let's get back to the spiders. If Billy is left to his own devices, his method for dealing with a spider who has made the ill-advised decision to share our home, is to take off his shoe and smash the poor thing wherever he stands -- like on a freshly-painted wall, for example. This bothers me on three counts:


1) Let the poor thing live. Spiders are beneficial insects. They eat the bugs that you really don't want around the house.


2) If you need to get rid of a yucky bug, you man-up and use a tissue or two: grab bug with tissue wad; deposit in toilet; flush twice (am I the only person who pays attention to the education provided in early Woody Allen films?)


3) Uh, hello . . . big smeary spot on the wall?


So, I get to do spider duty. The way I handle this is like so: I ignore them. But if I have to, I relocate them to the garden. Seriously. As long as they don't get into my bed and bite me, I pretty much let the garden spiders live. We do have black widows in California. They can give a nasty, poisonous bite. But honestly, I've never met or even personally heard of anyone who has been bitten by a black widow, and neither has Billy (I just asked him). So, it would seem to me that the risk is not large (about akin to children eating toadstools, and oh my, isn't this turning into a Halloweenesque post? Charles Addams has nothing on this girl!).


So I might as well tell you my spider story. A few months back I was doing some feeding of plants using a large watering can. The liquid wasn't coming through the spout easily, so I peered inside the spout and saw that there was debris blocking the hole. The watering cans are mostly of the attractive Smith & Hawken variety which I leave outside, displayed in picturesque fashion (I can hear throwing up as a result of this quaint visual. Sorry.). As a result, leaves and other debris sometimes collect inside the watering cans. In this case, the debris had been forced a bit out of the spout by the liquid, so I was able to grasp it with my fingers and pull it out. As I did this, it started to move between my fingers, and I realized that it was a very large spider. Even with my generally benevolent attitude towards spiders, this was a bit much: drop watering can; go into house; wash hands; get gardening gloves out of drawer; take deep breath; return to garden.


Truth is, if you're going to maintain a garden, sometimes you're going to come into contact with the wildlife. Generally I don't mind the spiders. And I always enjoy the discovery of a prehistoric-looking praying mantis in my garden. My father pointed one out to me when I was young, and told me never to destroy them -- a childhood experience which reminds me of To Kill A Mockingbird. My dad moved his finger next to the praying mantis, and it turned its head to look at it. Did you see that? my dad asked. And I always stop to appreciate these creatures when I see them in my garden, and I always think about my dad.


Dad was the only male and official spider-killer in our family home. And maybe that's why I stepped up to the plate as an adult. Though I usually don't kill them, I'm not that kind with other critters I find in my garden. I dispose quickly of any grasshoppers I can catch. They can eat their way through a patch of basil and go on to strip leaves from a rosebush in record time. A plague of locusts! They go out of my garden the moment I get my hands on them. Snails, too. I can be ruthless.


I don't know if snakes are creatures of habit, but I do now check that spot behind the pot every single time I am out on the driveway. And, I'm a little cautious about approaching any pot which creates a good hiding place for slithering creatures. My friend, Joan, who had a large ranch up in the Santa Ynez Valley once told me that she thought it was all the mythology about snakes which create our animosity towards them. You know, the serpent in the origins of Judeo-Christian tradition. Could be. I just know I don't like them, and am probably in pretty good company in that. Snakes, Indiana Jones said. Why does it always have to be snakes? And even though it was the first snake I had seen in fifteen years of living here, that was exactly what I thought.


Happy November from the wild kingdom, and thank you for reading my blog.