Sunday Musings

I seem to muse a lot lately. I’ve caught myself talking out loud to myself lately too. I do have an answer for that — sometimes I need advice from an expert, but then I remember the definition for expert. EX, former, SPURT, a drop of water under pressure or a drip, so an expert in this case is a former drip under pressure.

At this age there is a lot of pressure too. Behind the eyes a pressure headache, in the left shoulder severe pain, nothing in my feet but that’s probably because it’s been a few years since I could feel them, pressure on my one remaining half of a brain cell adding up to more headaches. In fact, name all of the different headaches known and right now I think I have all of them.

Okay so back to my musings. Not sure why this memory came up, but probably due to the time change. My kids were at the beginning and end of the bus route for school so mornings they had to be waiting at 5 a.m. It was the country and there were a lot of miles to cover. That was bad enough when we were on standard time but daylight time? They rode to school and waited for it to open in the dark, then rode home in the dark as well.

My older son created a mother’s worst nightmare one afternoon. I met the school bus so I could get a little bit of exercise and watched the kids get off. The neighbors daughter, Gina, Mike and — and– now why wasn’t that kid getting off the bus. The driver got out and told me he wasn’t there when she was loading the kids, she had waited but finally someone told her he had gone home with a boy in his class, so she went on. Okay, we ran home that day and I got the car keys and broke all speed limits getting to the school and from there to the home of the boy Don had decided to spend the afternoon with. His mom came out and told me she had sent him back to the school to wait for the bus. He wasn’t at school when we got back there, no one was there except one of the staff who remembered him getting on another bus with his cousin, totally different route! So we broke another speed record getting over to that farm, arriving in time to see him getting off the bus with a huge smile on his face. I hate to say it but the smile didn’t stay long. First I hugged him and then kinda asked in a less than loving voice what he thought he was doing! By the time we got back home though I was over the panic and just wanted to put it all behind me.

In those days I baked a lot of cookies. I got a recipe book from the library and decided I would try every cookie recipe in that book. And every day I would make at least two kinds of cookie, a tried and true one and a new one, this way discovering a lot of delicious cookies I ordinarilly wouldn’t bake. And every day each kid took a huge bag of cookies to school for sharing with the rest of the class, as well as a bag for the teacher. What else could I do? Some recipes made 6 dozen cookies and I had to clear them out so I could try a new recipe.

For some reason I started thinking about dumplings this afternoon. Not sure why, but there it was in my head. My grandmother taught me how to make her dumplings when I was barely able to reach the stove top and I became the official dumpling maker in the family. With 4 brothers all clamoring to be the official taste tester it sometimes was difficult to have enough to put on the table since they all said they had to taste each batch. Yep, I said batch. I know most people cut them and dump them all into a pot of boiling broth and stir them until they are considered done. The result looks and tastes more like boiled dough to me. Our way was to put only a few in the broth at a time, leave alone for a couple of minutes and then carefully turn to cook the other side, resulting in a puff of what looked more like a biscuit inside, a bit thinner than a biscuit and tasting like the broth, whether chicken, turkey, beef or vegetable. And now I really, really want some dumplings! Our family kind though, thank you.

I seem to spend a lot of time remembering those days on the farm. I loved it then and sure miss them now. But things have changed out there too. The boys tell me the roof fell in on the old house we lived in and it’s not there any more. I think those were some of the best and worst years of my life, raising children, raising a garden, canning and freezing everything I could pick out of that garden. Sweet corn was frozen, at least what remained after the cows got out in it every year, usually during the night before I planned to pick it. They were watching for it to get just the best kind of ripe, and sometimes just wouldn’t budge when I would try to chase them out of my corn patch. Fortunately we always planted enough to feed an army so there was always enough to go around. It was just the principle of the thing.

Now I’m feeling nostalgic as well as hungry for dumplings. A lot of stuff was still in that old house. Old LP records, books I didn’t have space to take with me when I left the farm. A closet full of canned fruit and vegetables, all on shelves Edd built for me, but turned around the wrong way for ease of use. Since the suit I made for him one year had the buttons on the wrong side I guess I can’t complain about the shelves. I wonder if they are still there in the rubble. The house has been empty since shortly after I left there in 1995 because his second wife refused to live in a broken down house that couldn’t be heated in the winter or cooled in the summer. But I loved it there. And an interesting aside about that house. Wendell Ford grew up in it, before Edd and his brother bought that as their first farm. Ford was once a Senator from Kentucky, probably the last good one we had.

Some Bemused Musings

Now I have to look up the word “bemused” again. Or I could change it to “amused” which I remember the meaning of. Oh gee, I just kinda remember what bemused means and it works, but at the same time most people would find my thoughts more amusing than not.

Like, okay, I wonder sometimes what my life would have been like if I had been one of my cousins instead of myself. So many of them seemed to be so much better off than I was, but then after talking with one of them a few years ago I discovered she had wanted to be me. On reflection, I realize I’m not so bad most of the time but then again, there are always “those” days we all dread.

Good heavens and heavens to mergatroid! It’s after 4 a.m. now. Seems like it was only a few minutes ago when I woke up from my usual hour of sleep. And “mergatroid” is a word I think I made up several years ago, but then again, I might have heard someone else say it and just think I made it up. I should check a dictionary but that requires a little bit of energy that I don’t have at the moment.

Reminds me of when my daughter was in third or forth grade and heard the associate pastor say that when you point a finger at someone else you have 3 fingers pointing back at yourself. She and her best friend spent about a week trying to figure out how to point at someone else without pointing back at themselves, finally turning their hands so that the three were pointing down at the devil, something they eagerly showed the associate pastor the next time they saw him. Try it. Instead of holding your hand the normal way while pointing, turn it to a palms down position and point. Three fingers point to the ground, or as they put it, at the devil.

There are times when everything is quiet here that my mind plays tricks on me. At least I HOPE it’s playing tricks. I think I’m hearing voices. Now don’t call the shrinks yet. I know I am hearing the place settling, not voices, but sometimes I admit I try to listen to what the non-voices are saying. So far no luck, but then there’s always tomorrow. Unless of course I am hit by a bus and tomorrow won’t come.

A word or more about peas. While i love them raw, just out of the pod, I truly hate them when they are cooked with the exception of the sugar snap variety when used in a good stir fry. I did have problems with that at times though. I would get the peas and have everything ready to make the stir fry of choice before realizing I had just eaten the last of the sugar snap peas. But I found a solution to that — just stir fry the ingredients individually and eat them as I cooked the next batch. I made moo goo gai pan several times but don’t have a clue as to how it tastes when all ingredients are added together because I would gobble down each batch as they came out of the wok. Not sure what to call that but gluttony comes to mind. Hopefully just intense hunger from waiting too long between meals and having to taste everything to make sure it is cooked properly. I always had that same problem when making dumplings.

Speaking of dumplings, did you know there are several ways — well, two at least, of making them other than opening a can. One way is to roll the dough out paper thin, cut them all and dump them in a pot of broth all at once. Stir to separate and cook until they don’t fight back, producing the doughy rubbery things that are usually served everywhere — except in my family. My grandmother taught me to make them her way, roll the dough out as above, but cut larger pieces and drop only a few at a time in the pot of boiling broth. Give them a few minutes to cook on one side, then gently turn each one and let cook on the other side. The result is a thick bread like dumpling that is favored by my family.

I always made the dumplings for my family after learning how because my mom didn’t really like them. Our treat was her childhood reality from the days of the Great Depression. I would almost get depressed while making them though. I had 4 brothers who always wanted to be the official taste testers. By the time we were ready to sit down at the table I was lucky if there were any at all left. So finally I became the official taste testers while my brothers hovered around me begging for just one bite. Okay, so I am a pushover. They were all allowed to taste one from each batch, one brother at a time taking turns until I had a huge bowl full for the meal. Now I’ve made myself hungry just thinking about it all and not a dumpling or sugar snap pea available.

Well, now we’ll see if I have any luck with photos tonight — oops, I mean this morning.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

Well how ’bout that! I finally learned how to add photos! Most of them are quilts I’ve made, but there are also photos of my mom packaging 150 pounds of sausage (in case you ever wondered what that would look like), my grandmothers house in the country, some of the doll clothes I made, and a photo I took from my 16th floor window. Oh yeah, the bottom one is one of my tomato plants in that 16th floor apartment. Planted in a huge pot and growing out of control, but only a few tomatoes. Must have done something wrong there.