joanperkins.com

From corn to tomatoes...

Hello All: So nice to be in the writing seat again. Wouldn’t you know that the big Friday entrance got trashed by a migraine. If it isn’t one thing…

When last we spoke I had written part one of Nathan’s and Jenny’s wedding. I promised I would put part two up with photos. And I will do that in the next week. Let me first go back and review the growing season with you. We are, after all, an Urban Fahm.

We made some wholesale changes in where we located veggies and in how we used the space. Pictures attached. This was a year we were certain would bring better yields than last year for everything. We get a little smarter and a little bolder each year! This year the tomatoes went into the 6 X 20 extension. Next year we’ll rotate them back into the garden proper. But this way “everyone” gets another quarter of rest before having the tomatoes pull the nutrients out in a big way. You’ll see from the pictures that we have both vertical and horizontal action this year.

The experiments were several. We made individual group trellises for the pole beans, planted lots of onions, and tried beets for the first time. Next year we’ll triple the onions and beets and make the trellises a little more sturdy - thank you, Irene!

Basil
Last year the basil wouldn’t quit. This year something was munching on it from the git-go. Finally in September it got its stuff together and we’ve made several batches of yummy pesto from the result. I’ve discovered that packing the pesto into 2 ounce containers and freezing it means I have pesto in 2-serving size containers that defrost quickly and ease on to that hot angel hair pasta. Please pass the romano/parmigiano cheese.

Pesto and other pasta sauces are a great gift in that size. For a two-some or a single with leftovers, it really works. To use it as a sandwich or salad addition, freeze it in an ice-cube tray. The individual cubes are just right.

Tomatoes - the big deal
The slicing tomatoes were largely late, huge and leaving much on the vine this year. It isn’t unusual to get a 2-pounder. In fact, I stuffed a number of those with sausage, cheese and tomato with coarse grain rustic bread. Come the dark days of winter these are like a glimpse of summer. We are expecting a frost soon and we are pulling off every tomato that even hints of being orange to ripen it inside and free the plant’s energy for the next one coming along.

The sauce tomatoes have been exceptionally slow to ripen and not very bountiful. The tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce have all been exceptionally flavorful. No complaints there. I’m usually canning tomatoes into mid October. Not this year.

Last winter we had tomatoes - carefully nursed - into the December holidays. I made salad with our tomatoes for holiday meals. One of our Christmas gifts to our neighborhood garden supervisor, Fran, was the last ripe tomato. She starts asking (kidding, of course) for tomatoes in April! We are hoping we can do the same thing this year.

Eggplants
This has been another standout year for eggplants. They have continued to produce as I write this. That moussaka made and frozen is going to taste great in March. By hand grinding the lamb and beef that make up part of the fragrant sauce mingled with the baked eggplant, I can ensure the meat is almost fat free and smooth as silk. There are so many other dishes as well.

The rest of the story
True to form, the broccoli started early and hasn’t quit. So easy. Cut stems, wash in cool water, shake out, cover, and the let the water in the bottom of the bowl steam the broccoli for 30-45 seconds in the microwave. That’s all except for the seasoning.

We grew two varieties of corn, butter and sugar and Silver Queen, and we planted them a couple of weeks apart. That worked exceedingly well. We actually ate corn for over a month. Soooo good!

Last year one of our new efforts was cauliflower. It was good, huge and ready all at once. Unless you know lots of cauliflower eaters, it’s possible to get seriously cauliflowered out. This year it came in stages. The big story is that we have just gotten five secondary growth cauliflower heads in October. Several small enough for noshing out of hand. Dunk it in that homemade baba ganoush. The rest have been large enough for a dinner side.

The other wonder is our potatoes - Pontiac Reds, Yukon gold, and Idaho bakers. Tonight they were baked until crispy outside. I dug them Friday, left the soil on and didn’t wash them until shortly before putting them in the oven. The variety of sizes makes for flexible serving ideas - baked, roasted, fried, mashed with garlic, etc.

The oregano and mint? Don’t ask. Well, okay, I’ll tell a little. This year, as I began cutting back the oregano beginning to flower, I found myself with a problem that had no solution. My so very civilized girls - the bees - had found the flowers first and chased me out of the garden by their sheer numbers. No animosity on either side. They worked there for days, several hundred of them. Obviously, since they work to make honey, that’s to my advantage. What an amazing spectacle!

The discoveries, observations and insights this kind of gardening permits are a real privilege. We get to watch the Earth Mother close up and personal.

As always, we are grateful for the bounty.

Remember that wedding I mentioned in the last dispatch? Part One

It happened on October 30. It was a wonderful mix of traditional and modern elements. In every sense it was a family affair – our extended dysfunctional families!

Here’s how it went down: Friday

We assembled in York Beach, Maine, on Friday afternoon for The Rehearsal. I felt it probably wasn’t gonna be a real stretch, so I stayed at the community hall to set up the decorations for The Rehearsal Dinner to follow. Bear in mind that these two families and most of the assorted – you should pardon the expression – umm, kids, had never laid eyes on each other. Finding it difficult to do the MOTG shuffle: shut up, show up, wear beige, and open my wallet, I decided The Rehearsal Dinner thang was going to reverse course. We pulled off the dressed up, linen tablecloth route, and designed a very informal, jeans, and sweaters, glorified, grownup pizza party.

We had rented the hall above the fire station. Large space, great kitchen, good furniture, stair lift, all around good Karma. Jenny was using fall colors for the accents the attendants wore, so I picked those up and we went with sage green, olive, brick, and ivory with fall yellow accents. I was thinking those colors were really familiar. Sort of natural direction to go in. The next afternoon I went onto my laptop and realized my website is made up of these colors. DUH.

I spent the next evening making fall baskets as centerpieces for the tables. Fortunately these are not the types of things I breathe hard over. Besides, I got to muck around in 2 of my favorite places – a local party supply and kitchen supply named China Fair and the every-male-dreaded Christmas Tree Shop. Could there possibly be more fun than spending 90 minutes in the CTS? The people watching is wonderful. I surreptitiously scribble notes about my observations for future Dispatches. But I digress.

All of a sudden the doors opened and a chilly wall of people blew into the room. The Rehearsal was most certainly over. All of the principals were present and accounted for. We were ready for ‘em. A little wine and beer, some cheese and appetizers and this amorphous group found its groove. The equivalent of cookies and juice for grownups. Could nap time be next, she thought, hopefully?

The caterer was a local guy who “got it” right away. Scott Wyman. OMG. The menu included wonderfully creative pizza, meat and cheese platters for Build-Yer-Owns, a luscious rolled, stuffed chicken breast and the BEST – no, really – the BEST Lobstah rolls any of us had ever tasted. I realize we’re right on the ocean, but I’ve spent a few years walking the planet – east coast and west, up and down and never tasted anything like this. It is entirely appropriate to say some of us swooned. It is also accurate to say we packed up the leftovers and hid some of them in the fridge back in our suite, away from the threat of midnight raiders.

Desserts. Ironic that it spells stressed backwards! The lemon bars and brownies were dee-lish. Then there was the trifle – a huge multilayered, right-on, chocolate trifle. We barely made a dent in it. The lemon bars and brownies would certainly go back to the hotel. The trifle would definitely go back. Under guard, if necessary.

Having run dozens of events with groups of 25 to 100+ or so, this little gathering – 30 – was really easy. I try to measure my set up and take down times, and compare them for the relative sizes of the populations. Yep, I’m competitive, even with me! Comes from spending a lot of time alone with me. This one was quicker on breakdown, but slower in construction.

The challenge was table placement to make the large space more intimate. How to frame the space to provide different groupings. I had a couple of drawings and ended up combining them to make a horseshoe with the curve cut off diagonally with 2 tables in a wide V. Scott and I hit upon making every other table on the sides a food or beverage table with chairs at the remaining ones. There was a middle row of several tables that paralleled the sides of the horseshoe just for seating. People didn’t have to sit together in uncomfortable groups, but they did have to exchange some conversation as they went to fill up their plates and glasses.

Well, we got all these leftovers into the fridge and freezer in the suite, put the beer out on the terrace, and settled down to the wine we brought for ourselves and a couple of friends. A little after 9. It was quiet and the electric heater fireplace thing warmed us. We had already announced we would host an “after” party, if there was any interest. For awhile it appeared that it would stay quiet. Around 11 the door opened and the after partiers arrived saying for the – they really said this – company, not the food. Let’s just say a hoot went up from those of us “personing” the comfy furniture. The fact that the beer came back into the kitchen and fridge door opened for the meats and rolls post haste, seems to contradict that.

But, before long we had a mixed group of a dozen and a half people talking amongst themselves. Many of them had not seen each other for a year or more. So the wine-fueled conversation was easy and sprinkled with outbreaks of raucous laughter. The trifle came out around midnight and everyone had more. Once again a small dent was made. By the time 3 AM came we were pretty much out of gas. And we all went like toddlers to our mats.

Next Dispatch

Here’s how it went down: Saturday

Let’s hear it for mental health

There’s something about New York City that makes the case for purposeful anonymity. I had decided to attend a business expo in the city a month or so ago, but waited to firm up my plans for when I would move my sorry tush from Boston, how long and where I would stay and what I would do. That I have relatives and extended family in the city posed almost more of a problem than an advantage to my personal needs on this excursion.

What I was looking for was a couple of days without any of the usual testosterone in my life. I was feeling caged, bitchy, dull, one dimensional, without a single original thought, and very slow on the uptake. That was potentially a dangerous combination with Nathan and Jenny’s wedding coming up next weekend. I need to be able to anticipate issues, reach out to people I don’t know and make them comfortable, and use the other event planning skills I honed so long ago for the rehearsal dinner. It’s always more difficult when the venue is ~2 hours away. You can’t just go back for the stuff you forgot!!! Let’s see, do I have the Tradeshow Bag (markers, scissors, tape, pushpins, post-it-notes, Velcro buttons, etc)? This checklist? That checklist? Oh mutha, where did I put that other checklist?

In short, I needed to flee.

And I did, via the Bolt Bus, about 2 weeks ago! What a wonderful thing. $30 for a round trip. 8 hours of enforced reading, sleeping, crosswords, writing – without interruption. Running away from home has some serious advantages!

My cheap hotel was shabby, but relatively clean, safe and located close to everything I needed. I left Boston with 1 and 1.5 mile courses to walk and run. I blew those completely out of the water. The weather was perfect for walking. I’m certain I easily passed 20 miles over the 3 days I was in the city.

Working on one’s own agenda – or lack thereof – yields its own experiences. I will go back to NYC the third weekend in November to see the American Craft Show and Art Fair NYC, because I was able to spend an hour watching a glass-blowing video outside one of the crafts shops, then going in and talking with the staff of the shop. They told me about the shows, what I would see and recommended a few of their favorite artisans.

While I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll also spend another hour + at Colony Music. I only saw a third of the store. I want to look at the classical music. There are more than a few concerti I would love to learn to play. The pieces are very inexpensive. The instruction books are incredibly reasonable. (And I’m certainly destined to be the eternal piano student.) Cheaper than in the Western Suburb I left for the big city a few years ago.

The carousel at Bryant Park was operating and a wide-eyed toddler was taking her first ride ever. I, of course, forgot the camera! And I also wondered about the physics that has the water cascading down a goblet-shaped fountain stick to that shape instead of falling straight down from the edge of the fountain bowl. I was the only one who noticed.

I spent several hours visiting the house guarded by the NYPL lions (about them, below). The plain truth is, you can take the librarian out of the library, but you can’t take the library out of the librarian. There’s a particular perfume in the air of a books place. It’s intoxicating!

The Library Lions

Patience and Fortitude, the world-renowned pair of marble lions that stand proudly before the majestic Beaux-Arts building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, have captured the imagination and affection of New Yorkers and visitors from all over the world since the Library was dedicated on May 23, 1911.

Patience

Fortitude

Called “New York’s most lovable public sculpture” by architecture critic Paul Goldberger, the Lions have witnessed countless parades and been adorned with holly wreaths during the winter holidays and magnificent floral wreaths in springtime. They have been bedecked in top hats, graduation caps, Mets and Yankee caps, and more. They have been photographed alongside countless tourists, replicated as bookends, caricatured in cartoons, and illustrated in numerous children’s books. One even served as the hiding place for the cowardly lion in the motion picture The Wiz.

According to Henry Hope Reed in his book, The New York Public Library, about the architecture of  the Fifth Avenue building, the sculptor Edward Clark Potter obtained the commission for the lions on the recommendation of August Saint-Gaudens, one of America’s foremost sculptors. Potter was paid $8,000 for the modeling, and the Piccirilli Brothers executed the carving for $5,000, using pink Tennessee marble. After enduring almost a century of weather and pollution, in 2004 the lions were professionally cleaned and restored.  Unfortunately, the popular tradition of decorating the lions also endangered them, so the practice has been discontinued on the recommendation of the conservators.  

Their nicknames have changed over the decades. First they were called Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after The New York Public Library founders John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. Later, they were known as Lady Astor and Lord Lenox (even though they are both male lions). During the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude, for the qualities he felt New Yorkers would need to survive the economic depression. These names have stood the test of time: Patience still guards the south side of the Library’s steps and Fortitude sits unwaveringly to the north.

As a tribute to the Lions’ popularity and all that they stand for, the Library adopted these figures as its mascots. They are trademarked by the Library, represented in its logo, and featured at major occasions.

To learn more, consult Top Cats: the Life and Times of The New York Public Library Lions by Susan G. Larkin. This publication surveys their history through photographs, cartoons, prints, original drawings, memorabilia, and lively tales. Published by the Library and Pomegranate, Top Cats is available at your local public library and online at The Library Shop.

One of my favorite finds was the Dictionary of Euphemisms. Human beings (guys?) definitely spend a lot of language development on body parts and functions, particularly sex! And we thought it was just our generation.

After words

How can you have a house with a full-time writer without small spiral notebooks? How is that possible?

Pumpkin art is all over the neighborhood. The particularly creative stuff is on display in group houses along my run-walk route. On one stairway there are pumpkins on each of the four steps. The most striking is a very well carved face with fashionable square glasses – the only one I’ve seen. There are a couple of pairs of particularly good menacing eyebrows on pumpkins around the ’hood. Gotta work on that!

The upcoming nuptials are certainly important, but I really wanted to go to that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Restore Sanity rally in DC. I’ve been trying to get my head around what kinds of signs I would make and bring.

“They” are doing what purports to be fixes to a main artery in my life, Nonantum Road. It’s a lovely ride on a Sunday morning in any season to look across at the tree-lined banks of the River Chuck as it flows through the western city neighborhoods and the suburbs.  

Outside the Big Dig (its own story), I honestly don’t know how a construction project could be longer, except maybe the renovation and new construction on our neighbor’s house across the street. Particularly critical as we get closer and closer to a frost. But that’s another story.

Now, I’m not sayin’ the work is unnecessary. I’m jes sayin’ that you should push your young children into a career doing road construction. I like the hours, the methodology (dig it up, put in pipe, pave, dig it up, locate storm drains, pave, dig it up, scrape the entire road bed leaving pipes and person-hole covers exposed. The end. So far) and the Tonka toys, because it provides permanent employment. Bonus: having the Staties as your best friends and sharers of the Roach Coach goodies at 10 AM… This leads me to the next item.

Clown fish?

Constantly looking at the construction barrels finally hit a live synapse in my brain. They resemble clown fish! Same stripes in the same colors. Coming home from the gym hungry alters perception just enough. Look at ‘em next time. Am I right?

The garden

Two more quarts of sauce over the weekend. Ten pints of whole peeled tomatoes. Eggplants are on a roll. There’s a real need to find creative recipes for using them. As the weather becomes cooler, they will slow down. The basil is already unhappy. It likes its toes warm and comfy. Me too.

Most of the squash is nestled in boxes on beds of straw in the root cellar that also happens to be the wine cellar. They share a need for cool, consistent temperature. On to the potatoes. Dozens of potatoes, red and yellow. Done right, in total darkness, they should store for a good six months or more without sprouting. We’ll see.

The beans and cucumbers have slowed way down. Lightens part of the load on me as the chief chefess. Good structure because they need immediate attention, but terrible on the toesies. Brought in an indestructible rug for in front of the stove. Another at the sink. They make a huge difference in the foot fatigue level.

After words

Is baseball still America’s pastime or is it really past time? If I can get my hands on Sox tickets I’m there. Early. I want to see batting practice, guys shagging balls into the infield, the big rakes going over the baselines and the infield in perfect formation. Why? Baseball has always been there for me. It was the first game I learned and the only one I can score. And it’s the stuff of memories, both childhood and romantic. You know who you are!

Ruminations of a word person. Heading off Monday for a business event, an exposition. I thought for a moment about the way we’ve chopped off that word and how sanguine we’ve been about that. We seem to have a need to abbrev. First it was expo and we gave that a pass because we are conditioned to see the correctness of the non-word Xmas. This event is billed as an Xpo. How impossibly cute can we get?

Tomatoes redux

Ooops. Spoke too soon and the Earth Mother heard me. I now have 2 baskets full of proto tomatoes – orange tending toward red, but not there yet! A basket of ripe sauce tomatoes was magically transformed into sauce this weekend. Another awaits. I don’t use the word magic lightly. I have been following the process of taking ripe tomatoes, slipping the peel off, chopping them and dropping the chunks into a large pot for many years. The magic occurs while I’m watching those chunks cook down. But I still do not see it. There is a moment of transformation when the chunks become sauce. And I am amazed.

The niecelings

The school Rachel attends is an intriguing combination of the arts and academics. This year for mother’s day I received a tablecloth with fabric painted seed packets whip sewn onto the larger material. These are kids who bought wholesale veggie seeds for a fund raiser and created packets for them out of their own art work. I also received some of the seeds – yellow beets, kale as well as beans and peas.

Becca gave me a wonderful large canvas bag with a hand-drawn cardinal printed onto it. Cardinals are my very favorite birds! Imagine my falling over from the generosity and beauty of these two gestures. Even their mom, my non-cooking, non-gardening sister, voted enthusiastically that Auntie was really meant to have these treasures

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a meeting of our gourmet dining group. The theme was veggies. Rachel’s tablecloth was central on the table for that occasion.

Zyrra

Shout out to the hosts of one of the most pleasant networking event I’ve ever attended. Friendly people, good food, wine and water. Thanks, guys, for making evening a comfortable one.

It was a dark and stormy night, and the Captain said to the Mate… Well, it was a dark and stormy night. But the 14^th floor of this Marina Park building glowed warmly and enveloped us, a small group of intrepid, but dissatisfied bra wearers who came to listen

to the New Way of thinking about brassieres.

Zyrra is a relatively new company that brings to market a different way to analyze and size (Ooh I like that) a woman to ensure she has a bra custom-fit to her body, not for everyone who theoretically wears the same number/letter homogenous combination.

We saw some woman-friendly changes, such as where the strap adjustments are relocated. We learned about how to look for better fitting garments in the wider marketplace.  

Once a word person, always a word person

Says You has just begun its 15^th season! Two frequent team members stand out, Tony Kahn (whose personal story is quite remarkable) of The World and several other radio ventures and Barry Nolan –  now national figure whose reporting and presentation teeth, way above the usual,  were cut in Boston. They are so bright and so quick.  

We were pleased to be part of the Saturday audience last weekend as taping for the season began. The audience experience goes from the wickedly funny to the sublime with a few deserved groans thrown in for good measure. Says You asked for a show of hands for those who had been listening and attending the tapings for 10 to 15 years. Fully a third of us had our hands in the air! That’s like remembering when the answers for the puzzles on WESun went from postcards to email. Oh yeah.

Regarding the suicides of seven gay men in the last couple of weeks

As the mother of a gay son, who was secure and supported enough to come out when he was 15, I have to say suicide is a fear I kept in the back of my mind for a very long time. The stats are there. This rash of suicides shouldn’t surprise anyone who reads. My son, Ben, and I took to the road, talking with any local group about what our experiences had been. I always made the point that my largest concern was Ben’s safety. We were/are a safe house for any gay person feeling threatened, bullied or unsafe. Though things DO get better, I never lose the fear that I could get “that” phone call… Please talk about this with everyone you know. Find and call your GLBT organizations, offer your support and become a safe house in your neighborhood.

Please take a look at this short piece from Ellen Degeneres. Her message to you: “I just can’t be silent about this. I hope you won’t [be] either.” Length: 1:45

Thanks for reading this. Jp

After words

Goats do Roam has been joined by Bored Doe. These wine folks in the southern hemisphere don’t have enough to do

Reunion one year out – OMG!

The stunning beauty of Hubble photographs. As a sweetie who shares the appreciation of such things, said, “Are we really going to just let this telescope die?  Where are our priorities?” Well.?

NPR reviewed the new Michael Franti album - Bottling the Sun – over the weekend. Good listening. He has a wonderful range of interests and they show up in his music. We’re the better for that.

Line by Line

The NYTimes is running a wonderful series, Line By Line, on drawing. It began a couple of weeks ago with Getting Back to the Phantom Skill, an introductory article by James Mcmullan. Here’s the intro to the intro:

Drawing, for many people, is that phantom skill they remember having in elementary school, when they drew with great relish and abandon. Crayon and colored pencil drawings of fancy princesses poured out onto the sketchbooks of the girls, while planes and ships, usually aflame, battled it out in the boys’ drawings. Occasionally boys drew princesses and girls drew gunboats, but whatever the subject matter, this robust period of drawing tended to wither in most students’ lives and, by high school, drawing became the specialized province of those one or two art geeks who provided the cartoons for the yearbook and made the posters for the prom. 

The series began on Thursday, September 16 and will run for 12 weeks. The second week, September 23^rd  is, The Frisbee of Art, and we are working on seeing and drawing ellipses.

When I found this article –  and it is an online series, not in print!! – it really hit a nerve. Every couple of years I drag my charcoal, colored pencils and sketchbooks out and draw what I see from the window or sitting somewhere at ground level – mostly the natural universe, rarely the built. But never for long enough to get the rust off. This series is a gift if you want a structured course on your own terms. If you are a frustrated artist – even if only in your mind – give it a try.

Quilts

There are 5 of us in the quilting group. Some call us ladies. I think that’s way too much credit! We may be ladies in other circumstances. (Note careful qualification.), but not there. Others call us the eating and quilting group, because we’ve taken to making and sharing dinner together on many of our meeting nights.

This is our third quilt. We’ve evolved from two crib-size quilts to a queen size beauty with a theme. Full disclosure: this is a wedding quilt for one of our members – who has now been married for more than a year!!! She came to us with some bed linen that was part of some things her late mom really loved. That piece became the central part of the larger design of the quilt and our search to find material that would both challenge mom’s design and pick up all the colors.

We all worked out what’s become The Pattern and it is beautiful. We’re all freelancers here. We all bring different skills to the table. Kathy is our HS math teacher. She likes to have order in a quilt. To her that means all the striped squares go the same way. Being the bad girl, as we laid the squares out, I would sometimes turn just one striped square 90°. Ooops! To no one’s surprise, she figured it out and carefully scanned any part of the quilt I was working on. I would just look at her and shrug my shoulders. BTW – We knew where the squares belonged because Kathy documented the pattern in colored pencil, square by square, on a piece of graph paper. I am still in awe of that level of diligence and ability!

Did I mention that this is a queen-size quilt? Eventually, we reached the stage of sewing these pieces together into long ribbons of colors and designs. We sewed the squares together and Kathy took to sewing these rows together in our absence. In one stage or another, a striped square switched its orientation, was sewn into a row, incorporated into a section, and discovered later. Ya know, I would have done that – if I had thought of it! But I didn’t. I wasn’t at that meeting to find out which of my compatriots discovered this error. Damn.

So, at the next one I asked Kathy, if she didn’t feel much better now that the unthinkable has occurred and NOTHING happened?  I got The Look. I can only imagine she used the same one on her students and her kids. Instantly I turned around and put my hands on the fridge in police pat-down position. I’ll bet she thinks I run with scissors, too…

Umm, did I already say this?

I worry terribly about becoming one of those people we always made fun of as kids – the ones who tell the same story over and over again. We used to say, “Why don’t they get a life?” Hmmm. If I do that, please take me gently aside and tell me or just put your hand over my mouth – I’ll get the hint. Maybe we can work out a signal system. If you wiggle your nose or open your eyes very wide, or you put your finger over your own mouth, I’ll get it.

See, I always wonder if the person really can’t remember to whom s/he spoke or if the real issue is that s/he doesn’t have anything more to say.

After words

The avalanche of fall and, gulp, holiday catalogs starts arriving in late summer. Not that the rest of the year is catalog free! As I picked through them, making a mental note to generously tip my mail carrier at Christmas, I saw a t-shirt that spoke to me: I’m not short, I’m fun size

Woo Hoo.

Tomatoes AWOL

The tomatoes have come to a dead stop! All of them. All six types. Yep.

Last year was a lousy year for size of tomato crop, but it was overflowing by comparison. We’re asking ourselves lots of questions about our planning and execution during the season. Both last year and this we noted trends or difficulties in the garden log book. We thought we had solved the issues that “came up” last year.

As I mentioned in the last Dispatch, the squash and pumpkins, potatoes, beans, and cukes have just astounded us. But the main event is always the tomatoes. And now it’s down-right cold. Definitely not helping. We’re almost out of ripe ones for our own use. We’ve put almost nothing on the “please take” table in front of the house. Only cukes and beans.

Having the table umbrella stolen mid season doesn’t help my world view. This is the first time we’ve lost anything of value. One of our flamingoes was taken earlier this summer. Now that’s not of great monetary value, but the lone remaining one is pining away for its mate. BTW, these guys are the real deal. Made by a company originally located in Leominster, MA, and manufactured since the 50s. This is from Wikipedia:

During the 1980s, sales increased dramatically because of the successful television show “Miami Vice” where the birds gave a strong but understated and uncredited performance as show regulars. Today, they are purchased for uses as varied as wedding decorations, house warming gifts, or to humorously mark a birthday. Authentic Leominster pink flamingos have Don Featherstone’s signature under their tails, a yellow beak with black tip, and are only sold in pairs. Union Products, of Leominster, Massachusetts, stopped production of pink flamingos on November 1, 2006.

 However, HMC International LLC, a subsidiary of Faster-Form Corporation, purchased the copyright and plastic molds of Featherstone’s original plastic flamingos in 2007, and will be resuming production of them in Westmoreland, New York. Note: They are available now.

As I was saying, this has been a mixed year for produce and at 66 degrees, it’s not getting better. Tomatoes ripen with warmth. We’ve been taking the orange ones and bringing them into the house and settling them in sunny, warm window sills.

Those other veggies

I baked an acorn squash the other day and the taste was spot on – slightly sweet, nutty and buttery. I lift my eyes to the Earth Mother and thank her for her generosity.

We’ve had a steady supply of broccoli (above left) for stir fry, munching and - when they go to flower - part of the ever-changing “flower” arrangement on the dining room table.

The picture of the butternut squash with farmer’s hand “for scale” (above right) is real and unphotoshop-ed. The squash grew through the rose bushes in front of the house. It is 18″ long and weighs 10 pounds. Same squash, with same farmer (post kickboxing class) several weeks after, when it was deemed ready to pick (center).

Holy Moly - the collard greens have been harvested twice and they are now larger and thicker than the first batch we harvested. I think we have one more harvest after the coming one. I hope they freeze well!

Does it meet the sniff test?

Coming back from Worcester and the younger niece-ling (now 9!!! my little spitfire)’s and her mom’s birthdays, we had a text message from one of our tenants saying there was a skunk asleep on the front porch. (Yes, we did move back to the city from the ‘burbs.) Specifically in the bottom shelf of a little table that holds napkins, a can of writing implements, plastic forks and knives, hand sanitizer and lotion. Nothing very exciting. Our ETA was about 20 minutes and we kept in touch. Graham delivering the news from the ground and me trying to figure out what we would do if it was still ensconced when we arrived.

It’s now after 10PM. Do I call Animal Control? Perhaps the local constabulary. Maybe a pest control firm. I was concerned that the skunk was doing something truly out of character and I wondered if it was sick. We had seen a skunk in the yard well after dawn. That was our first indication that we might have a sick animal.

By the time I arrived the skunk had awakened and wandered off - but how far? I went over to look at the stuff from the shelf that was scattered around the porch and discovered a bag of ginger cookies I had hidden away from the elements. It had been ripped open and its contents largely eaten. The sugar high must have lead to a super low; hence the nap in situ. Did not make me feel appreciably better because the skunk had come onto the porch anyway, and that was odd behavior on its own. Clearly the animal is fairly close by. Under the porch? Under the planting shed in the back yard? What next?

After words

It was the perfect low slung, sexy antique roadster. Bright red and with an attitude. I watched, nodding appreciatively as it approached, as I waited to make a turn. Man with driving cap. Add points for that. Uh-oh. Points off. He’s on the phone! Bummer. How disappointing. It was almost a perfect picture of time gone by.

Tofutti cream cheese. Hmm. Are you sure?

And such a Fahm it is right now.

So much to do now that the race has begun to see if I or the tomatoes run out of energy first. Working for the Census really made me think I was destined to be running catch up all season! 

So the great Tomato Cooking event has begun in earnest. Most of the first part of the season is processing plum tomatoes – those dense, 3-lobe tomatoes that cook down into a wonderful sauce. Sweet and tangy by itself, these tomatoes love the addition of our oregano and basil, freshly cut for that purpose.

We are extremely fortunate to have tenants in our upstairs apartment who cook.  This is not mac and cheese and poptarts. These are serious cooks who have access to the garden as they want or need. The collard greens were one of new crops this year. Graham took it upon himself to pick and cook the collards with a ham hock and some serious heat. The jalapenos and habaneros really pack a kick.

Next experiment is cauliflower. I’m planning it in three different cuisines – steamed with cheddar cheese sauce (New England), as an Indian pakora, an appetizer fried in dal flour, and in a puree for fish or chicken (Cuban).

For the first time, last weekend, I made a potato salad with our potatoes – Red and Yukon Gold! – and onions. Next: a Salad Nicoise, with our potatoes, green beans, onions, parsley, and tomatoes. Could possibly grow olives and capers. Definitely hard to grow tuna, and anchovies.

I’ll keep you posted.

People, people who drop from airplanes, are the ________ people in the world.

Fill in the blank with your first visceral thought. A couple of weeks ago I joined the ranks of those who purposefully fall out of planes. It wasn’t a rash decision – except to one who believes it is rash to think about it at all. I do have to say I sat back and rethought the decision for short while. I made a promise that I wouldn’t do it until my kids were all at the age of majority (not maturity). We are 7 years beyond that time stamp. And my biological clock was ticking.

Brighton’s Presentation School Foundation ran a fundraiser with live and silent auctions. One of the items up for bid was a tandem skydive at Skydive New England. I bid on it, keeping my fingers crossed it would be within my means, snared it, and started my research. What I found is – this is going to sound like a commercial – the best place I can imagine for doing something as warped as this.

The dive staff and trainers are very straight with you. The training is serious information, punctuated by instructor humour. How to move your body in the different environments – in the plane, during the jump, as you land. And there’s that 14 page indemnification form that anyone under the age of 40 doesn’t read. (It’s that immortality thing.) During the training you get a presentation by a lawyer to help you understand what you’re signing (requirement before you go). Yes, there are risks.

Before “going up” I spent some time watching staff pull out, examine and meticulously fold parachutes in exactly the same way. No short cuts, lots of double checking, and the packed ’chutes look exactly the same. That’s very comforting.

Everything about the experience is first class. Like many of advanced age I decided to take the video of the dive. This means a videographer jumps with you and records your experience. I finally saw the video today – didn’t want the video to spoil my recollection of the event until it was fully catalogued – once a librarian, always a librarian – in my memory. Wearing a camera on a helmet, this guy gets to dive all day and take video footage of uniformly open-mouthed first-timers. How awful is that? Oh, please, please don’t throw me in the briar patch.

I have flown single-engine Cessna airplanes solo so some of the issues of virgin divers were not mine. Altitude, for instance. A few of my fellow jumpees were having their first looks at the earth from a small plane. I’m used to seeing the ground from 10K+ feet up. My concentration was solely on dropping out the door of that Twin Otter in exactly the way my instructor taught me.

The first dive is a tandem dive. That is, the virgin diver is tethered to a licensed skydiver with lots of time around the track or through the air, in this case. They weigh you. For some, that determines with whom you will be tethered. For others, like me, it’s not really an issue. But it’s yet one more safety practice.

The harness is solid and secure. Once we’re in the plane sitting in formation – virgin in front, instructor in back – the instructor buckles the harnesses together. From then on we match our movements.  As each team dives, another inches up to the door. I tend to be pretty quiet when absorbing new things, so I looked around the plane and tracked how high we were on my instructor’s altimeter watch. Then it was our turn.

We broke free of the plane on our backs, looking up and immediately tumbled around. When asked to describe the feeling, I realized I had no vocabulary for it. The air is thin and dry. You are taught to breathe through your nose to warm and moisturize the air you take in. Makes sense. I thought it would feel like the light sensation one feels when a car goes over long bump in the road. Perhaps weightless, for a nanosecond. (We called those “whoosh bumps.”) But this moment feels endless, “Breaking free of earth,

She floats, weightless, on air…”

You fall toward the earth as though you are, truly, weightless, tumbling and spinning easily and effortlessly, barely noticing that you continue, inexorably, to fall. Not nearly enough time to take it all in.

The wind whooshes through my ears, until the ‘chute is pulled. We are scooped up as though we’ve been thrown upward toward the wispy clouds by some enormous giant. An amazing feeling. It’s quiet now. We are falling more slowly. Time to look around and take stock of the planet. We, in New England, have such an abundance of green – pastures, mountains, huge stands of trees and grassy residential areas. In Lebanon, Maine, the houses and farms are fairly far apart – at least for us city kids – green all around! You can see vehicle and animals, the glint of the sun in big puddles on the various landscapes. After a few minutes, my instructor points to our landing area and tells me what he needs me to do and we begin the final descent.

As the earth begins to rush toward us, I find myself sorry to be on final approach – a feeling I’ve had many times when bringing an airplane down to its tether once again. Have I seen enough? What might I have missed? Myriad sky features, objects, land formations. The clouds? Maybe teddy bears and baby dolls sleep comfortably on clouds, but we slide right through ‘em. They are not cotton candy. We can’t grab onto them!

At the right moment we slide onto the grassy landing area and come to a stop – all completely under control. My videographer has landed before me and meets me, camera in hand, before I can stand up. I find myself smiling at him and the camera, and smiling and smiling. My instructor, a quiet, serious guy amused by this, helps me up. And it’s over. The videographer asks about my music preferences. I request hard rock. And then it’s a wait until the video is put together. Not that I was anxious to leave. I really love the place.

I’ve had time for it to grow on me. This was my third visit to SNE. The first two times I was scrubbed by wind. That is, my jump was cancelled because the wind exceeded the safety margins. If the wind is gusting too high, jumpers might be blown off course – meaning they are in danger of landing in trees and power lines. There’s an old pilots’ saying, “I’d rather be down wishing I was up, than up wishing I was down.”

Skydive New England is its own small village. There are lodge accommodations, camp sites, bonfires, BBQ pit, lounge area, a small plane runway, grassy landing field, and water landing area. And there is food. Oh, is there food!

The restaurant is first class – Try it, you’ll like it. OMG. And they smoke their own barbeque meats! The brisket smoked the evening before was served with eggs the next morning. I couldn’t do that on a good day – and definitely not on a jump day. This is a happenin’ place. It’s a solid music venue with lots of bands you’ll recognize. The campfire is a fixture, and the meals are delectable.

I’ve been asked to describe the experience. Most of what I thought and felt is presented here. Is there one overall thought or sensation? Only one thing really surprised me. I kept waiting to be afraid. It never happened. Adrenaline rushes, absolutely. Several waves. Magical thinking? I don’t think so. I was terrified on the Magic Mountain ride at Disneyworld. Careening around tight corners, steep ups and downs, screaming bloody murder, wondering about the limits of physics and the quality of engineering until the car came to a stop. (BTW – Figured out why they ask at the entry point if you have any cardiac problems!)

After words

Saturday, August 21st National Honey Bee Day – I didn’t get the memo. Had no clue. Was afraid to tell the girls I missed it. How to make amends?

I heard Wilson Phillips’ Shadows and Light a couple of weeks ago. On one cut, Where Are You?, there’s a line that just jumped out at me and has stayed, “It’s been a long time since I had a day I didn’t wish away.” Yep.

Stuck in the Gulag

It was a perfect courtyard. Seating groups of different sorts, no doubt reflecting the needs of the residents. Beautiful green plantings, with a few flowers. Perhaps a lower upkeep cost. I stepped into that environment, momentarily imagining this grotto as my own. The fantasy was pretty compelling.

I confirm on my Census Enumerator Questionnaire (EQ) that there is no unit 11 – just 1 through 10. There is not now, nor has there ever been a unit 11. All right! “Mission Accomplished,” to quote a dolt.

Now to the business at hand. How do I get out of this beautiful, but very thoroughly secured place? Well, that’s pretty straight forward. I head toward a gate that leads to the street. It is, to my surprise, double locked. I can understand not getting in, but not getting out? Now what? The door from which I passed into Paradise clicked audibly behind me.

Silence except for the birds and a gentle breeze. And deserted. No Alter Kockers? How could that be? Well, there was evidence that the mean age might very well be under 50, perhaps a lot under.

By now I’m thinking that everyone is at work, as I am. Perhaps around 5 PM residents will trickle home and someone will come out to sit on his or her balcony or to swim in the pool I’ve just found as I wander Paradise again. I look at the time again. Hmmm. 10 minutes has gone by. Pretty soon, I’m pacing. I’d like to think I resemble a large cat with an attitude. In any case, I am ready to be gone from here.

Hey… Maybe I need to find a snake from whom I can grab an apple, bite it, and get my tush instantly booted out of Paradise. Wait! I did that once and wandered in the desert for 40 years. Alone. Watching a world I couldn’t touch. Why would I do that again?

Another 10 minutes passes. Still no one. Pacing again. Now I’m an antsy cat with attitude. On the other hand, there are plenty of shade trees here. They are noticeably absent on the city streets of Allston. I sit on a bench under a lush tree canopy. The temperature here is at least 5 degrees cooler.

I hear a click behind me and wheel around. It’s the only sound, except for the birds, I’ve heard in a long time. It is a swimmer coming out the same door I used. He looks at me a little quizzically. Before he asks I tell him my dilemma. He laughs and waves me toward the door, unlocks it, and opens it for me. And then he’s gone. As I walk toward the lobby, I glance back one more time. Then I hit the street. Poof! As though it never happened.

Common Touch

If today is Sunday, I must be on Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. There’s a guy on the Common who wants to know if I believe in god. Hmmm. Which one? Now I have an orange pamphlet to guide me. I was so glad that was the whole encounter. The JWs are not nearly so willing to let go. I actually was suspicious when he didn’t follow after me wanting to talk about my faith – not a good subject these days – asking questions about my life and significant life events that should bring me “home.” Shoot, I don’t pretend to know what I think of as home all the time. But I know what isn’t. That is not.

Groucho, is that you?

One of the apartments I visited was occupied by a middle-aged man who was very willing to answer my questions. He wanted to give me his landlord’s phone number and asked me to come inside – it was raining reasonably hard. As I follow him up the stairs to his apartment I realize he is moving very slowly. Perhaps he has a physical condition that makes the stairs difficult for him. He apologizes for his kitchen table, covered with papers and random small objects. He says he has just returned from a trip and it will take him a minute to find his landline phone. It contains the number of his landlord. He disappears slowly into the bedroom while I stand at the open door. (Open, to make sure I can escape, if necessary) Finally he emerges and wobbles slowly to the kitchen counters, picking up this and that. I say, it would be enough for him to give me the management company contact and phone number. He lurches again toward the bedroom. Perhaps that’s in his cell phone. He re-emerges with the cell phone and squints at it. After fumbling with it for a few minutes, he pronounces that impossible. But he has just remembered the name of his landlord. He gives me the name and other information useful to the Census. I have been standing, watching this man for now 15 or 20 minutes. God, he looks so familiar. I thank him for his efforts and the information he has been able to put together. He nods his head slowly and waves me out of the apartment. It was almost a relief to be back on the street – in the rain. I can breathe again.   

Not until I am almost through with my case route, though, do I figure out who this man resembles so clearly. He looks just like Groucho Marx – but on way too high a dose of anti-depressants. Whoa! Now that’s an interesting thought.

Trust the Census to create the opportunity for adventure.

As time goes on

There will be a series of Census vignettes that appear irregularly in the Dispatches this fall. They will be from a series of short stories currently in process. Most of them will show the width and breadth of the people in “our” Boston. Others will show our need for Civics courses for us all.