She was the tomato to his lettuce, the bacon to his mayonnaise. Their bread was toasted, exquisitely crisp without being dry. Then she sensed something was amiss: where did that slice of turkey come from?
Today’s splash fiction was inspired by this week’s Red Writing Hood prompt:
“Plump tomatoes, salty bacon, crisp lettuce, soft bread, this week we want you to be inspired by the BLT. Write a piece of either fiction or creative non-fiction based on this photo.”
In September, our ten-year-old cat, Name-O, was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor, a fast-growing sarcoma between her shoulder blades. This was a terrible shock, as we expected to have her with us for another decade or so.
Name-O came to us when the children were respectively 18 months and 4 years of age; they chose her and named her (“and Name-O was her name-o”). She slept with them when they slept and napped close by when they were awake. She enjoyed their attention, though she let them know when she had reached her limit, always without biting or scratching. When they went off to school, she met them at the door every afternoon. She was a steady comforter of my drama-queen daughter and a boon companion to my cat-crazy son.
The things I put up with...
Name-O was large for a female cat. Her long, lean frame was easily twice the size of our other cats, and at fit adulthood she weighed 14 lbs. She had big round eyes of green and the longest whiskers I’ve ever seen. Her short fur was beautifully marked with black tabby stripes and swirls on a tawny background. Her underside was creamy with black mackerel spots, and she liked to roll over and invite us to rub her speckled belly. I was intrigued by the distinctive, diamond-shaped patch of light-colored fur that marked her nape. Her tail bore Tigger-like alternating half-stripes; she always carried it vertically, with the black tip crooked like a flag.
Name-O-in-the-box
Like many cats, Name-O enjoyed exploring places that were difficult to access. She was a strong jumper and agile, but not always a good judge of where her large body would fit or how she’d get back out again once she had satisfied her curiosity. I could fill several pages with her hilarious (sometimes exasperating) exploits and mishaps involving shelves, ledges, and furniture both high and low.
Toward the end of her time with us, she spent most of her days in the master bedroom walk-in closet, which serves as a dressing room as well as storage space. We cleared a cubby for her next to the dresser and gave her a fleece blanket to lie on. Drawn by the sound of her loud purring whenever she heard someone enter the bedroom, we detoured into the closet a great deal more often than we might have otherwise, always with a word and a gentle touch for her. If she didn’t come downstairs when it was time to eat, we brought the food to her. Noticing she had difficulty getting up and down, the children set up a series of chairs and footstools so she could reach the cubby without jumping.
Winter 2010
A friend once observed that one of the most precious gifts our animal companions give us is their mortality, for we enter into relationship with them in the knowledge that we will outlive them. Difficult though her dying was for everyone, none of us would forego the ten years of joy we had together to avoid the pain of those last few months.
She has been gone five weeks now, and I no longer glance at that cubby every time I put away clothes. I’ve finally broken myself of the habit of greeting her whenever I cross the threshold. I don’t cry when I get dressed anymore, but the master closet is still, for me, the saddest room in the house.
As a follow-up to my Madwoman in the Kitchen post, I made waffles this morning. Here’s how I did it and how it turned out:
Just before going to bed last night, I mixed the following together in a my big, yellow Pyrex bowl:
I put a dinner plate over the bowl and left it on the counter overnight. When I got up this morning, I added the following:
I poured a scant cup onto the heated waffle iron, shut the lid, and let it cook. It sizzled as the batter spread in the iron, and a little bit of batter drizzled out the corners (I’ve a square waffle iron). The waffles turned out crispy and golden, and I didn’t even have to spritz the iron with oil (all that butter in the batter).
Here’s the post-mortem:
This amount of batter made six 10 x 10 inch waffles, which was more than we could eat. I know that sounds impossible, since 6-foot-tall teenage boy with two hollow legs eats at my table, but the waffles are so rich (all that butter) that even he couldn’t eat more than one whole waffle at a single sitting. Unless I’m feeding more people, next time I’ll cut it in half and use the remaining proofed dough for bread or something.
The waffles were so buttery tasting (all that butter!) that even my butter-freak daughter (who has been known to eat butter…plain) ate them straight up. I drizzled a little real maple syrup on mine; it was divine!
I’d say this was a success; it wasn’t difficult and both kids seemed to really like the results. (As you can see, my food photography skills haven’t improved, but maybe that comes of using inferior equipment — I used an old I-Phone for ease of photo transfer.) I’ll throw the leftovers in the freezer for quick toaster waffles on school mornings.
If I ever started a blog about cooking, I would name it the same as this post. I like to cook and bake, and do both quite a lot. Unfortunately for my family, I’m very open to new things and willing to experiment with weird ingredients and techniques. To make matters more interesting, I almost never follow a recipe exactly.
As an over-educated liberal arts major with anarchistic tendencies, I see recipes as texts to be interpreted rather than prescriptions to be followed. This may be an admirable approach for cultural analysis, but it has serious drawbacks as a culinary philosophy. I do follow recommended measurements with baked goods, as the chemistry of baking allows a smaller margin of error than other forms of cooking, but most recipes serve me more as inspirational guidelines than as instructions.
Finding just such inspiration in a post by my dear friend Murphala at FlourWaterYeast&Salt, yesterday I made bread dough. From scratch. Yup. And I’m here to tell you it worked and was blissfully easy.
I cut the recipe she gave down to one-third, threw all the stuff in a bowl, covered it with a damp dish towel, and started making dinner. Things got busy after we finished eating – in addition to the usual chores and homework, we had to take down the tree (it was starting to get a little crispy) – and I forgot all about the dough until just before bed. I put a plate on top of the bowl and stuck it in the fridge.
Because of weather developments, we got an automated call from the school district at 5:45 informing us there would be a one hour delay. (I prefer the old method – just turn on the TV at my usual waking time – but I’m sure there are parents out there who really appreciated knowing about the delay at that hour.) I lay there trying to go back to sleep, and after a long while it occurred to me that I had both extra time and a bowl full of bread dough.
I rolled out of bed, turned on the oven to preheat, and pulled out my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook. The cinnamon roll recipe gave me a general idea of how to proceed, and I was off. I dumped all the dough onto my pastry board and worked enough flour into it to keep it from sticking too badly. It was still pretty wet, so I flattened it by hand into a large rectangle rather than rolling it.
I slathered it with this too-soft buttery spread my sister left here at New Year’s, then sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon. Then I rolled it up, starting from the long side, cut it into nine pieces, and placed them in a greased 9 x 9 pan.
I didn’t really have time to let it rise for 40 minutes and then bake for 30 minutes – I only had 60 extra minutes here, people! – so I reasoned that the dough, which was still quite cold, would rise okay in the oven. I turned the heat down from 375 F to 350 F until I saw it had doubled, at which point I turned it back up. It baked for a total of 45 minutes, until the tops split open and no longer looked wet inside.
For glaze, I took a little less than a cup of powdered sugar (all that was left in the box) and added enough sour cream to get the consistency I wanted. I spooned this over the hot rolls; it sizzled most delightfully when it touched the still-hot sides of the pan. By this point, the entire house smelled of warm cinnamon and the whole family was gathered in the kitchen, tongues lolling out of their mouths.
Here’s the post-mortem:
So that’s what happened. You can see from the picture that I’m not a very good food photographer, but the result of this spontaneous experiment was edible and quite tasty, if not exactly what everyone had in mind.
I’ve been told I can try again, which is the greatest affirmation this madwoman can hope for.
Now that it’s December, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is officially over. I actually participated for the first time this year, after a decade or so of promoting it to other writers and cheering them on. This isn’t quite as hypocritical as it might appear, because I’ve always written short stuff – poetry, flash fiction, reviews, articles, press releases – not novels, which are by definition somewhat long. I’ve never so much as had an idea for a book, let alone a novel. But this year I decided I had nothing to lose and might even discover that I really am a novelist, so I signed up on the web site, in the sight of God and everyone. I came up with a premise and some characters that I thought were interesting and started writing.
As the dust settles and I reflect on what I accomplished, I’ve decided to call my experience NaNoWriWee (National Novel Writing Week) because that’s about how long I was able to keep up with it. I didn’t actually get pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) until November 5, and my last contribution was on November 12. During those several days, I was pretty diligent about writing something every day, though nothing near the 1,700-word daily average required to reach the target goal of 50,000 words. In fact, my final word count was just shy of 3,000. Pitiful though this may seem, it’s quite an accomplishment for me: it’s the longest bit of creative writing I’ve ever done (if you don’t count papers in school, that is.)
Here’s what I took away from NaNoWriWee:
– Even though I didn’t spend nearly enough time writing my story, I did spend a lot of time thinking about it. And I enjoyed both the writing and the thinking.
– I’m obviously not very good at lengthy narrative, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t get better with practice. And I think I’d like some more practice.
– If I got that much done in haphazard moments stolen from my batsh*t crazy life, how much more I could get done if I actually spent a week away from that life, writing?
Okay, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but I didn’t have much in the way of expectations, so I’m thrilled. And I’m already making plans for next year’s NaNoWriWee.
A bit of verse offered in the spirit of the season:
Lunamore
The moon shines bright upon my love,
and she herself becomes a moon:
fair flesh aglow with silver light
kindled by another’s fire.
The moon shines white upon my love
and washes roses from her cheeks.
It turns her coral lips to gray,
her flaxen hair to spider silk.
The moon shines cold upon my love,
on limbs so marble smooth and pale.
Her eyes, now shadowed pools, reflect
a strangely luminescent dark.
When I started this blog, I included the word “daily” in its title as incentive to write every day. What I didn’t fully appreciate is that writing every day does not mean I will produce something publishable every day.
In all honesty, I haven’t actually written daily since founding the blog. I’ve fallen off the wagon more than once, for weeks at a time in some instances, but the blog has nevertheless served its intended purpose. 
My writing practice has been more consistent over the past 27 months than at any time since the years BC (before children). Despite feelings of inadequacy that beset me when I don’t post every day, I can truly say that my writing habits have improved. I’ve written nearly every day since a much-needed getaway in August, and my mental muscles have begun to show the effect of regular exercise in the form of more frequent posts.
On this particular day, I am able to tell myself, “Don’t get discouraged.” Even if I do not reach the goal, at least I seem to be moving in the right direction. And today, by the grace of God, that’s enough.
A few years ago, I began to notice a popping in my left ankle when I walked, a kind of noise that I felt more than heard. This alarmed me; surely it was a sign that something wasn’t working properly. I saw a podiatrist for something else and asked her about the noise. She examined me carefully, looked at my x-rays, watched me walk, and told me that everything seemed to be working just fine. There was no evidence of arthritis or deterioration in the tissues that support the joint. It was just something quirky my body had started doing.
Sometime over this past summer, I began to hear a click, almost like a tiny slap, whenever I went down the stairs in my house. I didn’t notice it until I turned at the landing to go down the second flight, so I thought it must be a board or something structural. It’s structural, all right, but not architectural: I recently figured out it’s my right hip.
A veritable symphony of pops, clicks, and other noises accompanies me on my daily walk these days, but I’m no longer alarmed. It’s reassuring, like the grinding and whirring of gears I sometimes hear from the antique pendulum clock that hangs above my mantel. Ah, it’s working, I think when I hear the clock. Listen to those joints move, I think when I hear my own gears turning.
Alas, hunky actors did not likewise appear.
As bedtime approached last night, my son casually mentioned a story problem from his algebra homework that had stumped him. He related the problem to me, and it was like a scene from Numb3rs: I could SEE the variables and their relationships, as if they were floating in the air before me. (Note: this has never happened before. Ever.)
My son wandered off to brush his teeth, and I scrambled for paper and pencil and began frantically writing down mathematical equations, afraid I would somehow lose them. (This also has never happened before.) When he came back, I handed the paper to him and went to deal with some laundry. His father took an interest, and I could hear the two of them puzzling over what I had written. I called down the hall words that I swear have never before crossed my mind, let alone my lips: “You need to set up a binomial equation.”
Where the heck did THAT come from? I can’t remember where I put my keys not five minutes before, but stuff I all but flunked over 30 years ago spontaneously pops into my brain? As dementia closes in and other faculties fade, am I becoming some kind of mathematical idiot savant?
Maybe I should sign up for some math courses at the community college…
(By the way, they were able to solve the problem by following my suggestions, though they resorted to using a calculator. Wimps.)
At this remote point in history, I haven’t the faintest idea what triggered it, but there was our toddler son, throwing a classic tantrum on the kitchen floor. We had tears, a beet-red face, continuous screaming, pounding feet, and flailing arms. His father and I exchanged looks high above the rampage, eyebrows arched: this was a most impressive display. After a few more seconds, one of us shrugged and cocked a head toward the door. The other nodded, and we left the room.
We resumed our interrupted conversation on the living room couch, two rooms removed from the din. Suddenly the noise from the kitchen ceased. We heard small feet pound through the dining room. Having located his stray audience, the indignant little performer flung himself at our feet and began the tantrum anew. After a brief, amazed silence, we burst into laughter, unable to help ourselves.
This was not at all the intended effect, and the offended actor stopped mid-fit and sat up to fix us with such a look of annoyance that we were further reduced to tears of hilarity. Summoning the autocratic dignity with which all children are born, he picked himself up, surveyed us with disgust, and walked out of the room.
A long moment later, we had recovered sufficiently to go in search of our budding Machiavelli. We found him in his room, busy at some new thing, the entire affair apparently blown over. Its lessons were not forgotten, however, for he’s a cagey little creature, possessed of a shrewdness that his sweet disposition both belies and (fortunately) moderates. He’s also a quick study: this was his one and only tantrum.
Good thing it was so memorable.
(I want to thank Marie of 1000 Reasons I’m a Bad Mom for inspiring this post, via Mamapedia: http://www.mamapedia.com/voices/barbarism-begins-at-home.)
The Daily Compost 