It’s all gravy

This morning my nieces and my sister came over for breakfast. Our school system had a “late start day” so we all were able to sleep in and still get in a bigger breakfast than we normally would do in the middle of the week.

I made sausage gravy and biscuits. I’ve made it a couple of times in the past few months… I made it for Robby’s 40th birthday-surprise-brunch (or “The Meat Feast” as my sister refers to it) and I made a batch for us to reheat on a cold morning at family camp. My nieces don’t remember me making it before those times. Which surprised me at first– I don’t make it every weekend but it shows up on our breakfast repertoire here and there.

But there was a big gap in its appearance on our menu. When Robby and I were first married I made it more often. I learned to make it when I worked at Greenfield Village. One Christmas season I worked in one of the historic house kitchens most often with a girl named Lola. She and I both loved sausage and made everything associated with it we could. Hash. Gravy. Soup. Stuffed things. Our house was off the beaten path and on really snowy days we had a big window of time before the first visitor would show up giving us a lot of time to experiment. Neither of us were great cooks– but we improved quite a bit that winter. We figured out sausage gravy one morning and enjoyed it with batches of beaten biscuits. I still think of Lola whenever I make it.

Meanwhile, my Dad was going through chemotherapy and didn’t have much of an appetite. Or rather he didn’t have much of a tolerance to food– certain things still sounded appealing but the normal odors and aromas could turn him off before he was able to enjoy a bite. Eating breakfast at a restaurant was nearly impossible– by the time Dad would sit and order he was too nauseated by all the food around him to stand the wait until his own food came to the table. When he found out that I could make sausage gravy and biscuits we had several Saturdays where Robby and I would wake up at an ungodly hour to Dad calling us on the phone to tell us he and Momma were on their way. It was 77 minutes between their house and ours. Robby and I would jump up and start the sausage cooking and whip together a batch of biscuit dough. We got pretty good at it. It would be finished when Dad arrived– he and Momma would eat with us then escape the smells and drive back home. Robby and I would go back to bed.

It wasn’t just the food on those Saturdays– it was the chance for a homesick new bride/worried daughter to see her parents and a chance for Robby and I to, in the most miniscule way, repay some of the enormous kindness that my parents showed us. And Dad got to eat and run without anyone at the table thinking it odd.

I couldn’t help think of my Dad this morning when my kitchen table was crowded with Trish and the girls. It always makes me sad to think of my lovely nieces growing up without the Bompa that they both adored when little.

I also thought of Lola and wished she were here with some of her better-than-mine beaten biscuits. I didn’t want the pressure of making biscuits this morning so I used the refrigerator-tube kind.

 

17 Days of Being Grateful

Some of my facebook pals have been using November to post Things I Am Grateful For in their status. It’s a good idea. So I’ll try to think of 17 for the first 17 days of this month:

I Am Grateful For:

1. my husband. I’m glad I am not alone in life. I am glad that there are warm legs to warm my cold toes against in our bed. I’m glad that there is someone to raise Jack with.

2. my son. I am so glad that I get to be a mother. Apparently I’m not so good at the gestating a baby so I’m glad that Jack’s time in my belly was relatively normal.

3. Our furry little children Philbin (aka The Little Black Dog) and Hildy Guard Dog. As infuriating as the two of them can be when they do not want to play nicely together… or when Hildy decides that pooing inside the house is preferable to going outside… and as expensive as Hildy’s first shots have been… well. I’m glad that they are part of our lives.

4. our parents– my father, my mother, Rob’s parents, and Eric. They’re all good people who love us and take good care of us.

5.my sister and her girls. Jack loves few people like he loves his cousins.

6. Robby’s job. It leaves him sapped out on some days and some of his coworkers drive him batty… but we’re very grateful that he is gainfully employed.

7. our home. It’s an old house so there is a lot of things about it that frustrate us on a daily basis. But then, to compensate, there are the arched doorways and lovely, lovely dark wood throughout, and the windows that make me happy.

8. books and the ablility to read them. Watching Jack learn to read has made me so grateful that I can read and that I enjoy it so. I can’t imagine life without a book within reach. I like my tall bookshelves full of a mishmash of book genres. I love the glass window doors that protect the two “good shelf” books.

9. our health. We’re so lucky to be in working order.

10. our friends. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I take a cue from Bing and Rosemary and count my blessings. Usually that comes in the form of our friends. Oldest friends and newest friends and far-flung friends and old-school friends and church-family friends and our parents’ friends and work friends and and and and and. We’re lucky. I wish that our best friends lived closer and that we saw the far-flung friends more often… but at least we get to know them and love them.

11. orange juice and chocolate. My favorite comfort foods are fresh-squeezed orange juice and really, really good chocolate. Lumpy mashed potatoes and gravy. Glass-bottled Coke. Good cheese. Cold Calder’s milk. Scones with clotted cream and jam. Jam tarts. My mother’s Texas Sheet Cake. My sister’s Scripture Cookies. My pot roast. Mrs. Nordmeyer’s soup. Horseshoes with Cheese Whiz. Biscuits and gravy and grits. Eggs in the Snow. Brussel Sprouts. Bacon. A proper sponge cake. Mallomars. Mommy’s Smokey Corn Chowder or Bean soup.

12. Tea. Properly made and perfectly hot tea. Or perfectly iced. A day without tea is a sad, sad day.

13. sewing and knitting. I like to make things. I like the quietness that comes about me when I can sew a long seam by hand and the soothing rhythm of knitting.

14. Lush. There are few things more decadent in my life than soaking in a Lush-y tub full of some yummy thing. Add in a Hello magazine, glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a box of Mallomars and you’ve made for a darn fine evening.

15. our church. I’m really grateful for our church. We have great pastors and a wonderful music program. The church family is a good mix of old and new members, new people, old and young, and it’s getting more racially diverse with each generation. I like it there. We feel well-fed when we leave.

16. Jack’s school. After all the agony of the past year trying to choose just the right place for Jack to learn– we lucked into a great school. We’re so happy with his teacher. We couldn’t have imagined what a good fit that she would be for Jack. We should have– we’ve prayed and prayed about it– but it was beyond our hoping.

17. that it’s almost Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the trees and lights and cookies and music. I like the goodwill among men. And I love wrapping presents. So it’s all good.

Hole

I’ve been out-of-sorts today. Cross, too.

I spent a few days at a Museum conference with some dear, dear friends that I don’t see often enough. I miss some of those friends today. I miss the lively discussions and practical jokes and comraderie.

We’re all flung out across the midwest (mostly) and so it’s only 2 or 3 times a year that we’re at the same table again. I used to placate myself with a theory that, if we lived in the same town, we would take each other for granted and the luster would wear off somewhat. That theory was nice on paper until our pals Chris and Susan lived in our town for a year. Now I realize what I’ve suspected all along– it would be wonderful if we were all in the same zipcode.

The angst made me want to stay home from church and sleep. But I didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t. The Jr/Sr high sunday school class that I co-lead is a good group of kids. Today we followed up our earlier discussions about Heaven and Hell with a dabble in Purgatory (being Methodists we had to google it to figure out how it works) and then a foray into Sin.

Not as satisfying as a walk in the sunshine with Susan and her baby but better than nothing.

Fifteen Year Anniversary

Fifteen years ago today Robby and I were married. It was a great day. We had a lovely wedding ceremony and a room full of our nearest and dearest for a reception. The cake was delicious. My Mom’s dress was perfect.

Like I said, it was a great day.

We’ve had some good anniversaries since, too. Before Jack, when it was just all about us, we celebrated each year in fine style– a trip, a present, flowers, champagne. After Jack came we haven’t been as pomped or circumstanced– we’re more practical. It occurs to us that we might need whatever money we’d spend on each other for Jack or the house or to fix a car.

So today has been pretty low key. Last night we snuck out for a bit after Jack went to bed– Lady came over with her knitting and an ear cocked for the monitor while Robby and I ran errands and then split a plate of chili-cheese fries at our old high school hang-out. Today we met for lunch, with Jack, at Sam’s Club because it’s very close to Rob’s office and, well, it’s cheap. And tonight? Well, tonight I’m going to a hotel but not with Robby. I have a Museum conference and so I’m bunking in with our pals Chris and Susan and their sweet boy while Robby and Jack stay here and “do man things.”

It’s not exactly the 15 year anniversary celebration we’d imagined in 1994. We imagined then that we’d spend days like this at the Aleyska Hotel or on the Great White Way in NYC or eating at our favorite french place in Chicago.

It’s made us both a little sad. And frustrated.

On the other hand– we couldn’t have ever imagined, 15 years ago, how wonderful an ordinary day like today can be. How much we’d appreciate a half-day of school so that we could eat lunch with our little son on a weekday. Or how nice it was, after our late night chili cheese fries to sit on the couch together with the little dogs and something good on TiVo to watch. (The TiVo, by the way, was an anniversary present several years ago. And Hildy is this year’s present to each other. We scrapped our plans to go to NYC to see the Christmas lights when my hours dwindled to ridiculously low levels at work. We bought the little pup instead.)

I wish today had more fireworks and hoopla but I’ll take this. Thanks for marrying me 15 years ago, Robby. I love you.

Parent-Teacher Conference

Our milestones with Jack now are spreading out a bit further and further from the last. We can cross our first official K-12 parent-teacher conference off the list.

We were nervous. We devoted a big chunk of our prayers last night to it. We were still nervous as we stood outside of the classroom waiting our turn. We looked at the little art projects that the kids have been working on and tried to figure out who in the blazes Koby is. I volunteer in that classroom once a week and I still don’t know who that kid is.

When the good Mrs. R called us in we took our places in the too-small chairs at the little table where Mrs. R had Jack’s portfolio. She greeted us warmly and started telling us that our Jack is “fun to teach to” because he loves learning… I felt Robby relax a little, too, next to me.

From there it all went well. Jack’s doing great academically. He’s got his letters and numbers down backwards and forwards. He’s picking up the sight words readily. He’s doing well in math and shapes and the other tests.

His biggest challenge to date is his fine motor skills– Mrs. R reassures us that he’s made lots of progress since the beginning of the year– and he’ll continue to improve but that he needs to work on it.

We went over his computer work and his drawings and talked about the class. Robby and I remembered to breathe again and laughed at the huge grins on each other’s face. Out in the hallway again we greeted the next Mom & Dad– a couple we know from our church– and then, when we were alone– high-fived each other in our glee.

It’s tough sending Jack out into the world. Out in the world Jack gets judged. I can’t protect him from that. We’re doing our best to raise him as the kind of person we want to know as an adult– the kind of person that will make a good husband. A good father. A good friend. A good son. And in our little bubble that’s simple. We can (somewhat) control the influences and the input. But in the world he’s bumping up against other things– some of them good, some of them bad. All these things are shaping him– us, school, church– it’s scary not to have complete control.

Still. On days like today the fear is manageable. In all the worries whether he’s too young to be at school or if he’s choosing good friends or if he’s behaving nicely it’s good to have a break like today. It’s good to know that there are other people out there that love our darling boy, too.

It’s good to get a good parent report.

Tuesday follies

Another Tuesday with the good Mrs. R and the little inhabitants of Room 3. Today’s “Centers” had me manning the worksheet table where they labored over the letter H and a fun game of matching sounds that different pictures begin with.

The children were squirrely today. There’s probably some reason behind that– but the energy was completely different than it usually is in the normally ordered and quiet room. Some of the little pictures were tough to interpret– I couldn’t always come up with the right word. By the time I got to the third or fourth group of kids I figured out that it was yarn– not knitting and yolk– not egg that we were looking for to match with each other.

Meanwhile Malakai and Jacob were working on their two-man comedy routine that probably kills at the Kindergarten Lunch Table but not so much with the Helper Mommy. Kennedi and Marshaun had an escalating battle that started with Marshaun allegedly accidentally pinching Kennedi’s finger and then, instead of an apology Kennedi only got a “You’s a crybaby!” Nice. Trying to put out that fire– get Kennedi to stop crying and get Marshaun to learn to be a gentleman and be kind– was interrupted by Emma trying to figure out the matching sound for the word goat. (I thought gate was tricky, too. It looked like a fence. The hinges weren’t obvious.) Jack was in fine form today– wanting to hold my hand while he did his Hs with the other hand.

Praise one child and you set off a chain reaction with the other 5 sitting at the same table– “What about my coloring Mrs. Jack’s Mom?” “Look at my page!” “Do you like mine?” “I haven’t done it yet!” “Is mine pretty, too?” I try to say something encouraging to each of the kids. I try not to blanket them all with the same praise– because that would be empty. I try to find something that each is doing well or uniquely. After a few weeks of being with them it’s starting to become apparent that some of them aren’t as used to hearing kind words from adults. I’m glad that the joy in finding something to praise edges out the horror I feel that a five-year-old can be so unfamiliar with encouragement.

I’m glad I can help out. I’m even more glad that Jack is in the hands of the good Mrs. R and the other very qualified people.

The Annual Reading of The Long Winter

I just finished my annual reading of The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think it’s probably my favorite book. Not just in the Little House series– but of all the books I’ve ever read. It’s the one I’ve re-read the most often.

Not to spoil it if you haven’t read it– it’s not a very cheerful story. Laura and her Ma and Pa and sisters (blind, good Mary; thin, fragile Carrie; and small Grace) endure a long, hard winter of seven months of blizzards. Their little town of DeSmet in the Dakota territory is only a year old and the townspeople run out of supplies when the trains stop running due to the weather. Laura’s family goes from eating simple but hearty meals of beans and salt pork and bread to eating just potatoes and bread to eating a coarse bread made from Almanzo Wilder’s seed wheat ground in the coffee mill. They run out of things to burn and end up making sticks out of twisted hunks of hay to keep from freezing. It gets bad. They are starving and cold. They’re cut off from the rest of the town– each family unable to make much contact with the others so that they might as well not be in town at all– the blizzards are that bad.

It’s the darkest of the books (until Laura gets married and they have a series of misfortunes). Laura describes the monotony of surviving the winter as an unending cycle of grinding wheat, twisting hay, eating the coarse bread (without butter or preserves or gravy– just coarse, brown bread), sleeping– all in a semi-darkness brought on by the blizzards and lack of kerosene.

At the lowest point Pa can’t play the fiddle– his hands are too chapped from the cold. They exhaust the only other entertainment– reciting from memory the things they can remember like poems from their schoolbooks or verses from Sunday School. Laura feels “dull” and “tired.”

And then– in the last few chapters it all comes out well. Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland make a desperate run for some rumored wheat, find it, bring it back, and save the town from starving. The Christmas barrel that was sent out from the Minnesota church on the last train arrives with the turkey still frozen and they Ingalls have a Christmas feast in May to celebrate the return of Spring and their survival.

Mixed in are a few observations about human nature. The storekeeper that tries to make an unfair profit from the wheat brought in to save the town. The inexperienced Easterner that ruins a (literal) shot at some meat when the men see a rare herd of antelope. The patient Ma who snaps.

I’m not sure why I love it so. But I do. And I’ve reread it every year since I first read it when I was about 9. I usually read it in the summer. Her descriptions of the howling winds and thick snows of the blizzards chase off the humid Michigan summer heat. This year I read it late. I had it with me at church this week. We had a conference after church and I used the half-hour between to read a bit. I was interrupted by several people asking what I was reading. Our pastor’s eyes lit up when I showed him the cover. He knows it well, too.

Several years ago I was doing a research project for work. I spent a day at the Detroit Public Library’s special collections pulling images for an exhibit. The staff there was pretty patient– they filled my many requests with trips to the archives. I finished earlier than I’d expected to and I sought out the librarian that had been the nicest and asked politely if it was true that the original manuscript for The Long Winter was in their collection. She sighed and laid aside her work and led me to a locked case where she handed me a pair of white cotton gloves. We sat together at a long table where she carefully pulled a Red Chief notebook from an archival box and opened it to reveal Laura’s long-hand writing. Page after page in long hand was the story I’ve loved complete with corrections and crossed out phrases. I soaked it in. Took in the way she shaped her letters and the height of her letters. And then I thanked the librarian for letting me see it. She was startled. Didn’t I want to see the rest? She was willing to sit and turn it page by page while I read it. The entire thing. I was just as startled. “Oh no. I’ve read it before. I just wanted to see it in her handwriting.” I don’t remember a single image we pulled that day for the project at work– and I was there pulling images for at least 6 hours. But I remember the way my throat filled up with my 9 year old heart when I saw that first page of Laura’s familiar words.

If you haven’t read the Little House books you shouldn’t necessarily start with The Long Winter but keep reading till you get to it. Little House in the Big Woods will seem simple and childlike. Little House on the Prairie might be too earnest. Farmer Boy (my second favorite) will make you obsess over donuts and ham and baked beans. By the Banks of Plum Creek is where the payoff starts in your investment with the Ingalls Family. By the Shores of Silver Lake is the hardest one for me to slog through. Partially because in the first 50 pages or so Jack the dog will die and Mary will be blind. And then there are all the passages about building the railroad (Robby loved this book because of that). My beloved The Long Winter makes its appearance here. And then it’s a happy coasting through Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years before Laura’s writing tone changes with her memories of The First Four Years of her marriage to Almanzo Wilder.

Let me know what you think.

And they have all that flat pizza, too– it’s not fair!

Question of the day:

Do East Coasters appreciate their Mallomar availablity? Do they express genuine gratitude for the months that they can stroll into a market and pick up a box as easily as a carton of eggs??

Grrr.

Jack and Frost

Our little teaching moment came today in the morning frost.

The windshield was all frosted over when we got in the car to go to school. Jack was confused, “Is it snow, Mommy?” I explained that it was like snow– because it’s cold and icy– but that it’s frost. All the way to school we talked about dew and wet morning grass and how, when it gets cold enough the dew gets icy and that’s frost.

Jack nodded and I think he understood a little of it.

Then– on the way into the school building we walked through the thick leaves. (I’m bad at leaf shapes but I think it is oak leaves that we wade through every day. They are deep enough that they nearly come to Jack’s knees when he shuffles.) I realized that the frost had melted off the leaves where the sun shone– but in the shadows they still glistened and sparkled.

“Jack! Look!”

I showed him a shimmering, silvery leaf. It was beautiful. All the delicate veins were visible. Jack marveled at it then gingerly reached out to touch it with his finger. The spot he touched instantly melted, of course, and his mouth was a perfect little o! in understanding.

I’m glad there is still a lot for him to figure out. For us to figure out.

With the press of a button

I had to run some hard copy images to the printer’s today for work. There were two images for the newsletter that I didn’t have digital scans of– so I swung by the office, picked them up, and then headed over to the printshop. I was irritated because I got the message right after I’d picked Jack up from school so it wouldn’t be a quick in-and-out errand but now I’d have the car seat buckles to contend with and a somewhat cranky Jack who only wanted to go home and eat something. 

I used to take Jack to the printshop all the time when he was smaller… They have an Easy Button. It was a gimmick they got from their Office Dept (or was it Staples? or Office Max?) supplier. You press it and it says, “That was easy!” It used to keep Jack busy while I met with the designers to go over layout issues/learn InDesign. One of the designers is a mom with boys. She and I could carry on lengthy conversations while over and over in the background there was a constant refrain of “That was easy! That was easy! That was easy! That was easy!” We could tune it out. The other designer is a man. I don’t think he’s married or has children. But he seemed unbothered by it, too.

Anyhoo. Today the side entrance that goes directly to the designers was locked so we went through the front office. The receptionist there is super friendly and she let us go the backway through the actual print shop where all the machines are clattering and whirring. Jack loved it.

“It smells like an office!” he declared.
I love that smell– ink and paper and solvents. It reminds me of my Dad.

It was a great little field trip. The man-designer was there and showed Jack around the designer end of things. Jack admired all the big computer screens and the red-lit room and the really big copy machine… But all of it was eclipsed by the sight of his old toy– the Easy Button.

He pressed it for old times sake.

Making Jack happy was easy. I’m glad that it worked out that he went with me.