mama_kestrel

This has not been a great year for me physically. Short version is thar covid knocked out my thyroid, and getting the dosage for replacement adjusted takes time. End result: garden? What garden?

On the other hand, I have perennials in monster pots on my deck. I did that originally so that my garden-mad mom could putter on a level surface, and it worked beautifully. Meanwhile, there were roses, lavender, thyme, and a whole bunch of mints that came back cheerfully, along with some annuals that had self-seeded. And weeds. Oh, merciful deities, the weeds. Which I didn't have the spoons to pull.

The most abundant of them is yellow woodsorrel, growing in merry mounds around the roses. Which is when I noticed something. We have deer. Lots and lots of deer; far more than I would have expected in an urban backyard. Those deer had been eating my roses, along with low hanging leaves on a number of my trees. But where the woodsorrel is growing, the roses are thriving. Apparently the deer dislike the scent so much that they don't reach past it for the rose leaves. So even though I'm finally starting to get my energy back, I'm leaving the woodsorrel alone. My roses will be much happier that way.

I have, as I've commented before, an interesting relationship with electronics. Computers generally get along with me, probably because they aren't in close physical contact with me for extended periods. I can't wear watches since they became almost universally battery-operated, because I fry batteries that are supposed to last a year in a matter of weeks. I usually end up replacing a cell phone while it's still under warranty because it forgets how to do some necessary function. Even restaurant shake machines tend to clog or otherwise malfunction if I try to order a shake. (I consider that the universe's way of reminding me that no matter how good the shake tastes, it will cause issues about 2 hours after I drink it. My husband, seeing that particular manifestation of my anti-tech field, started calling me "shake-machine bane.")

Now I can add a computer controlled visual field testing machine. My ophthalmologist wants to check that. She tried a month ago, only to find that the computer had crashed, and no test was possible. So we rescheduled for today, and off I went. The machine was working this morning, but when I sat down? The control display flashed and then turned sideways. The tech got the manual and fixed that. Then half the screen vanished. She rebooted. Screen comes back. I get my head into the device...and the "start" button disappears. Long story short, they called the repair person while I was still there, and will call me as soon as the thing is fixed.

I didn't tell them I had minimal faith in it staying fixed once I return. Too much explanation. My husband suggests I buy the visual field machine a shake. I've heard worse ideas.

I'm not ignoring anyone. I've read my messages. I've also managed to get sick. NOT Covid, nobody need panic, but pretty much all I can do right now is sleep. I just wish I knew how I caught something when none of us have left the house in the last three weeks!

And Kestrel's head is going back under her wing....

I should be baking for a family reunion that's supposed to take place in Chicago weekend after next. I have my hotel reservations, but somehow baking hasn't happened. I can't make it "real in my head" that this event is happening, which makes baking for it feel like a pointless exercise. There is indeed discussion of cancelling in light of Covid-19; the people who are organizing will make that call sometime in the next week. So there may be a good reason I can't bring it into focus, but meanwhile the rational part of my brain is most unhappy at the lack of action.

The fiber fair I attend annually the first weekend in April, also in Chicago, has already been cancelled. I knew who the organizers were the first time I went and saw the banner saying "YarnCon". While this will undoubtedly save me money (I need more yarn like a hole in the head), I'm concerned for the vendors for whom this is a huge part of their annual income. The big problem is that yarn, like fabric, is one of those things which it's impossible to judge without touching. I can see that it's pretty, but is it soft? Squishy? Smooth or fluffy? Does it set off my contact allergies? I thought for years that I was allergic to wool; had the rashes from trying to wear it to prove it. Turns out I'm allergic to the processing chemicals used in commercial wool. Artisan wool yarn, for the most part, I do just fine with. When the farmer that raised the sheep is also the one who shears it, cleans the wool, spins it and dyes it, I can wear it. Mind you, it's expensive, so I make smaller projects than I otherwise would. I do not grudge the price at all, though. There's a lot of labor and skill in it.

And I envy those of my friends who can put a movie on and watch it all the way through in one sitting. I can't. Mom invariably comes in and needs something, or doesn't notice that there is sound coming from the television and starts talking or turns on one of her YouTube painting tutorials. Moving to another room isn't really a viable option either. I usually pause and take care of the first couple of things, but after that I just give up for that moment. It's very like having a small child who wants/needs attention. The inability to claim a block of uninterrupted time for any purpose is frustrating, but it's not an aspect of care-giving that I've ever seen mentioned. Maybe because it's so small, it feels petty to be grouchy about it. But petty or not, I'm grumpy about it.

My daughter-in-law-to-be got her driver's license last week, tried to take my son out for dinner to celebrate, and promptly misjudged an oncoming driver's speed, started to turn left, and totaled the car. Thank all deities, everyone in both cars got out and walked away under their own power. The cars did their jobs; they protected the contents. Front and passenger side airbags deployed, the front axle was broken, and something broke the windshield - but what broke the glass was not my son's head, and aside from some spectacular bruises, the kids themselves are fine. I'd called to get her added to our insurance as soon as she passed her test. She wrecked the car five hours later. That's got to be some kind of record.

And the dishes are calling my name. I suppose I'd better answer.

I have now had a vehicular encounter with a deer.

I am fine, my car is fine, and the deer is fine. No, I did not hit the deer. The deer hit me.

I was trying to explain to my daughter-in-law's grandmother how far out in the middle of nowhere we lived when we first moved to this part of Indiana, and suddenly realized that it wasn't really much out of the way to go by our old house. It is situated in the middle of fields (currently stubble-filled), across the road from a wildlife preserve. Seriously. Middle of Nowhere, Indiana.

So as we were coming up on the house - the only one in that half-mile stretch of road - I spotted a little flock of deer in the field on the north side of the road. It looked like several adults and a couple of juveniles. I do not trust deer. They were meandering toward the road, and when it started to look like they might cross, I slowed down, then stopped entirely. We three humans sat and watched them. I drive a red minivan, and it was broad daylight. I figured my dragon was, if nothing else, a very visible boulder.

Sure enough, when they got about five feet from the large red object in the middle of the road, the largest suddenly threw up his head and bolted. The rest followed. Three of them ran in front of the car; several ran behind it, and they vanished into the preserve. All but one. That one bolted with the rest, taking a flying leap...headfirst into the van. THUMP! She bounced off onto her little white tailed rump, stood up, shook herself, and then tried again, this time going successfully around in front of the car and across, presumably to join the rest of her deer buddies.

So yeah. I didn't hit the deer. The deer hit me.

And my herbs are in full leaf. There's a farm-stand about half a mile from our house, where I can get tomatoes, corn, green beans, etc picked that same morning. To get even fresher herbs, all I have to do is walk out onto my deck, since everything is in huge pots. End result is great yumminess.

Tonight I cut up small new potatoes and set them to start steaming while I trimmed green beans. The potatoes take about 15 minutes to steam, and the green beans about half that, so once the beans were ready I dumped them in on top of the half-cooked potatoes. Went outside and cut flat leaf parsley, sweet basil, lemon basil and garlic chives, ending up with about a handful total. Rinsed those and chopped them, dropping them into my serving bowl with about a tablespoon a good butter. Dropped cooked veggies on top, stirred to coat with the herbs and butter, and added one good grind of sea salt. Sprinkled on about a tablespoon of white wine vinegar and stirred again.

My mom had come in while I was cooking, wrinkled her nose, and announced that she didn't like green beans. I took it as a challenge.

She took seconds on the vegetables.

As previously noted, I spent the weekend with my oldest friend. Came home Sunday evening late, having waited out a thunderstorm part-way home sitting safely on the shoulder with my blinkers on. When I'm going 20 mph and still can barely see the road, it's past time to give up. My Sophia cat had been given her meds by spouse and son, so I was only mildly surprised that she didn't greet me. Her pain meds made her drowsy, as they do for many of us.

Monday morning my husband told me he'd fed and medicated her, and that I should go back to sleep. So it was moderately late when I came downstairs and greeted my mom and the Rocky-cat. Rocky quacked. (He does. He doesn't mew, he quacks.) Then came a series of urgent mews, the kind you get from a panicked cat, but quiet. It was Sophia. She's been very ill, but she apparently collapsed sometime between when my spouse fed her and the time I came down. As soon as she heard my voice, she started calling for help.

I picked her up, but didn't call the vet or take her over. There clearly wasn't time. I just sat in my rocker, with her on my chest, and held and stroked her. She stopped crying as soon as I had her; she'd accomplished her goal, which was to have me come get her. And after half an hour or so of being cuddled and petted, she just - left. No purrs, but it was clear she was where she wanted to be, head in the hollow of my shoulder, body resting in the curve of my arm, my voice talking to her quietly. telling her how much loved she was. My herd cat, my consumated mouser, my familiar who convinced spouse single-pawedly that he really was a cat person. As soon as the heat wave passes, I'll plant catnip by her grave. She's in a place my son can't get to easily to mow, so it's the perfect place for a mint.

Other things...home repairs continue apace. We're in week 4 and counting. Actually, we're taking this week off because it's too hot to work outside and most of the inside work is done. But what we thought was going to be a day's work at most as been magnified by all the things that got found in the process. Like the dishwasher installed without a ground. And the leak in a door that never made it inside because the wood absorbed it, rotting out in the process. Lots of new wood in there now, and the leak has been sealed and caulked. It's quite a list.

And a rather odd thought I can't shake in regard to the relationship between humans and Mother Earth in regard to climate change and the current extinction event.

The line between a symbiont and a parasite can be rather slender. E-coli in the human gut is a perfect example. It's always there. It's supposed to be. It helps with digestion, insulin production, and vitamin K production. But overgrowth or infection with an outside strain can cause severe illness.

We humans have crossed the line. A good symbiont helps its organism to thrive. A successful parasite may do its host some harm, but won't kill it because that would kill the parasite as well. I think one could make an argument that we humans have become an unsuccessful parasite on the planet. We're killing the ecosystem we depend upon for our own survival. And while individuals seem to understand this, collectively we're as mindless as any bacterial parasite. Not a very flattering picture, but there you go.

I really hope it can be calm for a bit.

In the last 24 hours:

J's fiancee's father N had a second stroke. (The first one was in late March.) She was visiting a friend in the next county overnight, so I ended up racing out, picking her up, and racing back to her dad's. He wouldn't leave if she wasn't there. Mind you, there's a two hour window to prevent damage following a stroke, and getting her ate an hour right there. (If I'd paid attention to the laws of Physics, it would have been an hour and a half. I don't have to, if I'm willing to spend the energy. Time-benders R Us.) He had also called his brother. Then he was so busy proving that he was still in charge, dammit, that he refused to leave the house for another 45 minutes, until he knew where all his important papers were. When we got to the hospital he wouldn't go in the door until he smoked one last cigarette. When the hospital security guard remonstrated with him, he blew smoke directly in her face. I nearly smacked him. He got verbally smacked, hard, today. It was interesting: he'd been arguing with his daughter and mother, but he didn't have a word to say in his own defense to me. And my future daughter-in-law has now seen what I look like in Full Courtroom Lawyer Mode. His mother's comment, when I was done? "I hope you were listening. She is absolutely right."

So we brought S's grandmother back here for dinner and a nice long visit. She and my mother are of an age, and are instant friends. I just listened to the stories while I assembled dinner. About the time I was getting ready to serve it, the internet went out. Reset the router, right? Um, no. Turns out the circuit breaker has flipped for half the upstairs. Okay, reset the circuit breaker, right? Um, no. Upstairs smells - reeks! - of burned insulation. I just last week found an electrician, and had his cell number. I called him. He agreed that it qualified as an emergency and bless him, he came out on Sunday night. He also told me that if the smell didn't dissipate quickly, or got stronger, to get out and call the fire department. Son J. was panicking and theorizing on source of trouble without either data or knowledge of household electrical systems to back it up, and being a total know-it-all who knew nothing. First I explained to him that we were not going to guess when we lacked the skills; we were leaving diagnostics to the experts. Then I gave him something useful to do: in the unlikely event that we did have to evacuate, I had him gather all the cats and get them into carriers. Talk about a meowlelujah chorus! Six cats can sing quite the opera. In the event, it turned out one of the fixtures the electrician was already going to be replacing had cracked insulation, which had shorted out and burned a bit. So he took the old one out of the ceiling, capped the wires, and made sure no current was running to it when the breaker was reset. He'll be back when he originally planned (day after tomorrow) to replace that fixture and quite possibly the box behind it. He was not impressed with whomever had installed it, probably in the mid-90s. And he is now expecting to not only replace half a dozen fixtures, but also all of their boxes.

I like this guy. When I thanked him for coming and said I was glad I'd called him, his response was "I'm glad you did too." Good people. He's like "whatever it is, don't worry, we'll get it taken care of."

Enough excitement, right? But wait, there's more! When the electrician went out to the garage to choose a step-ladder, we discovered a leak in the ceiling. Checking above it, it turns out that the air conditioner is leaking onto the floor in the upstairs utility closet. (We have two HVAC systems, one for the old part of the house and one for the upstairs addition.) It was new in December, so it's at least under warranty. But I have turned off the AC and opened windows, and the drip has stopped. So I get to call those folks in the morning. Unlikely the electrical problem, it's an annoyance rather than an emergency.

All of this in the space of 24 hours. Mama Kestrel fall down go boom now!

My mother, bless her, will be 85 years old this coming Thursday. I asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted. I was expecting her to say cheesecake, and indeed had all the necessary ingredients already assembled for the creation thereof. Cream cheese, sour cream, and eggs all await their destiny in the auxiliary refrigerator in the garage. The almonds for the crust are ground, and Amaretto for flavoring is in the liquor cabinet.

Mother surprised me. She asked me to make Boston Cream Pie. Now, I don’t remember her ever making Boston Cream Pie the entire time I was growing up, and indeed when I asked her she agreed that she had not, nor did she know how. Nor did I recall my grandmother making it. Grandma, when she was called upon to make a Festive Dessert, always made Sunshine cake, which was her own recipe for hot water citrus sponge cake. Further conversation led me to realize that my memory was not faulty in the least. My grandmother had made Boston Cream Pie for my mom’s birthday, but had done so for the last time when Mom turned 16, the year before she graduated high school. And now, about 70 years later, she wanted another one. How could I make one to match something I’d never tasted – indeed something that hadn’t been made since before my mother met my dad, let alone before I came into existence!

But really, that’s less of a challenge than matching reality, because memory is a slippery thing. We talked about it, mother and I. It started with a sponge cake, but not like the Sunshine cake. It wanted a sponge cake baked in layers, not too sweet and not too rich. The filling was a thick vanilla custard, like the filling in a custard pie, but cooked, not baked. And the chocolate on top was a soft frosting, not fluffy, but definitely not a glaze. I set out to create something to match.

First came the quest through my vintage cookbooks. I have the cookbooks my grandmother and mother were given when they were married, in the late 1920s and 1950s respectively., plus others I've acquired along the way. Those recipes are very different from modern cake recipes. Eggs were clearly expensive then, and recipes are described based on how many they required. They have less sugar than modern cakes as well, by as much as half. I mean that literally: the modern four egg sponge cake I dug out of my current Fanny Farmer cook book called for 2 cups of sugar with a cup of butter. The recipe I ended up using, from the 1953 Joy of Cooking, used 1 cup of sugar. Then there was the pastry cream. That was easy; the filling for a vanilla cream pie worked just fine, thank you. And finally, there was the frosting. I hunted, read, got frustrated, and finally gave up and made up my own based on mom’s description. Melted butter, cocoa powder, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and heavy cream. It turned out beautifully. Even more to the point, it turned out exactly as described: soft, smooth, and very chocolaty. It was also so dark that my son thought I'd put black food coloring in it, but no - it was all pure chocolate.

And it worked. Mama came in, was handed a piece, and ate it standing in the kitchen, hmm-ing and purring in pleasure, occasionally verbalizing enough to tell me I’d nailed it perfectly. She was on her second piece before everyone else had firsts, and her third before I got one at all. Basically she had cake for dinner, but y’know? She’s 85. If she can’t have cake for dinner now, when can she?

And so I baked a memory, when I wasn’t even sure what she was remembering.

It seems an appropriate birthday gift

We've lived in our current house for almost four years now. It was thoroughly landscaped when we moved in, so I gave it a year to see what would come up where before I started moving some things, removing others (ornamental grasses aren't, in my opinion), and generally making it mine. I noticed that surface appearances aside, the soil was pretty poor, but figured that if I left it chemical free and let the leaves and such decompose it would recover.

It hasn't. It's simply dead. I went to expand a front bed to add an annual border, which entailed digging up a foot wide patch of grass roots and all, leaving a trench about eight inches deep. I should have gotten worms and wriggling things with every forkful loosened and pulled out. It had rained the day before; I should have been able to smell it. It should have been dark brown.

It was grey and compact. It had no odor at all, and nothing wriggled out of it, not even the occasional sow bug or centipede. I don't know what chemicals our predecessors used, but they must have been something else again. I don't know whether to dig deeper, work in compost and add worms or seal it off and work upwards at this point. Probably a bit of both; work down in the front, where all I'm planting are ornamentals, and up in the back in raised beds where I want vegetables to grow. If there's persistent chemical contamination, I don't want it in my food, and I don't know how to test it. My herbs I'm not worried about; they're in giant pots on the deck anyway. But I have never dealt with anything like this. Usually when I put my hands in the ground, it tells me what it wants. This isn't soil; it's just dirt. It's silent. It's dead. And it's profoundly unnerving.