Going into my fourth quarter century, you’d think I’d seen it all – mini skirts, gaucho pants, grunge, coastal grandmother. But did you know that short chunky heels are called Cuban heels? Hallelujah! Just when I thought my sexy heel wearing days were over, fashion throws me a lifeline. Of course, Carel traditional three strap Mary Janes have been a staple for French women everywhere. And after years of wearing Keds as a kid, and Asics as an adult, sneakers have become fashion gold for our golden years!
I must admit, I adored the Oscars, for the runway as much as the movies. In a week that celebrated International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day in the UK, talented women of all shapes, colors and nationalities were assembled. But when Jimmy Kimmel gave a shout out to the people behind the scene, the ones who make the movies work and stood in solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA strike – “The Teamsters, the truck drivers, the lighting crew, sound, camera gaffers, grips… all the people who refused to cross the picket lines, there they are. If you’re wearing Skechers to the Oscars, take a bow,” Jimmy said.
Yes Hollywood is a Union Town, and Fran Drescher is the bomb, but I didn’t see alot of women on that stage. Until women are represented in all areas of the industry, and paid equally btw, its point of view will always be skewed toward the male gaze. Except that Sunday night, Ryan Gosling’s show-stopper “I’m Just Ken” was a treat for every gender, from a film written and directed by Greta Gerwig.
Gosling was not even on my radar until I saw the 2007 film “Lars and the Real Girl.” He had the courage to act with a life-size blow-up sex doll then, so his progression to pink sequins was seamless. Home schooled in Canada because bullies picked on him, a tall, skinny and creative kid, his mom took him to an audition in the 90s for the Mickey Mouse Club in California. And along with Justin Timberlake, Gosling’s star was born.
The only strident chord I heard all night was when Kimmel referred to Holocaust films in general as “…rom coms in Germany.” The camera panned to Sandra Huller, a German actress who was nominated for two Oscars, including a part she plays as a Nazi housewife. The look of disgust on her face was evident, the turning away was swift. So why were people laughing I thought.
Barbenheimer Schilmanheimer! For the “Best Actress in a Leading Role” category, women can be found represented as world-class swimmers or as Osage, French, and Hispanic wives of dangerous men. Oh wait, what about the woman who won the category? That was Emma Stone for “Poor Things” playing a woman with a transplanted baby’s brain.
I think I’ll go slip on my pink Skechers and hit the greenway. I don’t have to get red carpet ready, just sunscreen and a hat. It’s sunny and 70s in Nashville today, maybe we’ll hit up the bagel store for lunch? I’ll ask Bob what he thought of Emily Blunt’s shoulder straps and did he think a BIG peplum was coming bacK. Was John Cena really naked under his Academy Award envelope for Best Costume Design?!?!
Have you heard the news from France? They have enshrined a woman’s Right to Choose, her own bodily autonomy is now constitutionally a “guaranteed freedom.” France is the very first country in the world to write this basic human right into their constitution. And why has a Catholic country decided to vote 780-72 in favor of women at this moment in time? It’s because they’ve been watching us, the American people; they have seen how methodically and malignantly our human rights have been stripped away by judges and politicians in the pocket of Mr T.
I caught a bit of Van Jones’ CNN special the other night about what’s been happening in Tennessee. He interviewed the “Justins” and he spoke with Republicans outside of Davidson County. He tried to find common ground, but what if that’s impossible? Here’s the problem. Christian Nationalists are overtaking the GOP. It’s not just that they didn’t want the government telling them to get a Covid vaccine; it’s that they would like the government to censor books in public schools. And along with books, let’s take control of reproductive healthcare for millions of women!
One cult sect of the Christian Nationalist movement, the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), is an extreme branch of Christianity with its tentacles reaching very close to the American White House. I had to dig deeper into their mythology after listening to Terry Gross interview their founder about casting demons out of people. Yes, you heard me right. Demons.
“A central tenet of NAR’s belief system is that it is God’s will for Christians to take control of all aspects of U.S. society—including education, arts and entertainment, the media, and businesses—to create a religious nation.“
Our Speaker, Mike Johnson, has three flags hanging outside his office: the American flag, the Louisiana state flag, and a flag representing the NAR movement that wants to turn the US into a Christian nation. Its design is from a Revolutionary War flag and is called “An Appeal to Heaven.” Many of these flags, sporting an evergreen tree in its center, were seen at the Jan 6th insurrection. That bears repeating – the flag hanging outside our Speaker’s DC office was flying alongside traitors to our country on Jan 6!
Today is Super Tuesday and the landscaping companies are out in full force in my neighborhood. Loud machinery has replaced the annual raking of garden beds in preparation for planting. I wonder how many rabbit nests are being destroyed while my forsythia begins to burst into yellow bloom. A cherry tree has pinked out and the magnificent tulip magnolias wave from bare branches. Spring is here!
Bob wants to vote today, but I’m less enthusiastic. In TN you can vote for blue or red in the primary, which is funny don’t you think? Each state is different, in some you must vote for the party you’ve registered with, but not here. Doesn’t seem very “united” to me. So I could vote for Joseph R Biden or:
Republican Primary Ballot:
Ryan Binkley
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Vivek Ramaswamy
David Stuckenberg
Donald J. Trump
Too bad it’s not November. Right after Halloween, in the presidential elections, Tennesseans will be able to vote for Joe and Gloria Johnson to replace Marsha Blackburn in the Senate! Johnson stood alongside the Justins demanding gun control legislation but wasn’t expelled from the state house, because, well maybe because she’s … a woman? Even Taylor Swift has called Marsha Blackburn “Trump in a wig.”
But it’s only March with a looong election season ahead of us. I’m hoping that TN Democrats will show up today, in the rain, and vote for Joe. We need to vote like our lives depend on it today and in November. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
TO THE BARRICADES, I mean POLLS!!! Here we are on a French island.
This has been the winter for strengthening one of my super powers – SOUP! During the pandemic, while Bob honed in on his sourdough bread, I discovered a delicious Asparagus Vegetable Soup recipe courtesy of Jamie Oliver https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/creamy-asparagus-soup-with-a-poached-egg-on-toast/. I don’t do the egg on top nonsense btw. Now, due to unforeseen circumstances, I’ve been experimenting with more healthy and hearty soups. My take on these liquid elixirs is usually thick, like a stew.
But I’d rather not label these gastronomic efforts; or maybe I should just call everything I make in one big pot “chowder”? Thinking chowder was meant only for fish stews, I went in search of its meaning and yes, it’s mostly fish, but not always – https://www.foodandwine.com/soup/chowder/chowder
The problem with Bob is he’s not happy when I whip out the immersion blender. He likes a chunky soup, he wants to identify the vegetables. Maybe it’s just that we still have all our teeth? I did manage to win him over with a beautiful, cauliflower soup from the New York Times: Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Rosemary Olive Oil!https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020764-creamy-cauliflower-soup-with-rosemary-olive-oil that surprisingly has no cream whatsoever!
I’m probably best known for the soup I deliver to new moms and friends recovering from an illness. We have a cousin who was in need of some Jewish penicillin, so last week I taught his wife, Peg, how to make it, Reform Jewish Style. When I was in the middle of converting to Judaism, the rabbi arranged a cooking class for me. You guessed it – Real Chicken Soup! No matzah balls, no noodles or rice, just the basics. I’ve never felt so professional as I passed on my secret recipe to Peg in her new kitchen! She was a delightful sous chef, while also archiving the lesson for all eternity.
I brought my Starbucks apron and we traded tidbits of of gossip, chopping away, slowly perfuming the air with chicken fat. Maybe the world needs the next Southern Jewish French Irish Julia Child? My cousin is also a writer, a prolific expository health journalist, for major digital and print news outlets. In fact, she already has a cookbook… and I might have major writer-envy… but in a good way. I’m so happy Peg and her husband moved right across the river.
The Bride’s famous Sweet Potato Soup was recently discussed in detail here https://mountainmornings.net/2024/01/24/gray-swan-events/ and it continues to be a favorite in my winter soup rotation. Don’t despair if you don’t have any V8 on hand, you can substitute a can of fire-roasted tomatoes. I love the dollop of peanut butter you add at the end. This might be my favorite soup of 2023, and next on the list?
I’d like to try my hand at Pasta e Fagioli, a classic Italian pasta and bean soup. The Flapper used to make this all the time. I asked my brother and sister if they remembered a favorite soup from their childhood, and they both said Pea Soup. They like to remind me that their early years were much harder than mine. After our Year of Living Dangerously, Kay told me she had to do all of the housework, including cooking, while our mother was “… lying on the couch in the kitchen.” Jim told me if they had a ham to eat during the week, they could count on pea soup made with the bone that weekend.
They had no TV in 1949, and the radio was stuck in a big box in the front parlor, so the Flapper read aloud poems from a little red book, “A Thousand and One Poems.” Kay has all these poems stored away in her brain that she can recite at will. Just ask her! Occasionally a nurse would visit the kitchen in Scranton, trying to stretch out the Flapper’s legs, while I imagine my Mother screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. Poetry and cursing in motion.
Making soup has become my antidote to cursing the media for leading every story with you know who. What about calling anorexia “terminal” so that patients can enter hospice? “In Colorado, a state where medical aid in dying is legal, [patients] would also be eligible for MAID (medical aid in dying) drugs…” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/26/terminal-anorexia-mental-illness-diagnosis/
What about Alabama calling embryos “babies”? “In a recent court case over embryos accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled under state law that all embryos are “children”. However, the global medical and scientific consensus on when reproductive cells become human life says otherwise.”
There were Nazis marching in Nashville this past weekend. They were downtown, near the Capitol building, waving their swastika flags and dressed in black and red, their faces completely covered in ski masks. Not as many as the Charlottesville event that killed Heather Heyer the weekend we moved out of our Virginia mountain home in August of 2017. “Blood Tribe” was the name of this group of men with mommie issues. It’s assumed they didn’t have a permit, since there were no police lines, barricades or counter-protestors.
Just a small bunch of fools that mistakenly made their way towards the honky tonks… where one guy confronted them.
“Video showed a counterdemonstrator following the men along downtown streets, not far from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, challenging participants to show their faces. His video captured the march and his reaction.
“Cowards,”the man chanted, adding some expletives.”
He was actually yelling “F_ING COWARDS” to drown out their hateful speech. The Nazis retreated to a U-Haul and left the county. Sometimes it only takes one brave person, like the black and white photograph of a man in a German shipyard in 1936, surrounded by his co-workers who are all givng the Nazi salute. August Landmesser stands alone, with his arms folded across his chest. “Landmesser was opposed to the Nazis and their racial worldview. His partner, Irma Eckler, was Jewish.”
It seems fitting that the day before the Nazi rally, our family went to see the movie “Origin.” Director Ava DuVernay brought a highly researched, academic book, “Caste: the Origins of Our Discontent,” to the big screen in a compelling narrative.
“Caste is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, benefit of the doubt, and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy.”
DuVernay filmed in Germany, beginning with the love story of August and Irma. Then she moved to the United States with its brutal history of slavery, where we learn that Nazi lawyers actually followed the Jim Crow template in devising anti-semitic rules and regulations. And finally we are shocked to discover the despicable caste system in India; how the lowest caste of untouchables, the Dalits, must live on the margins of society. We are shown, in exquisite detail, the way these three caste systems are similar; not so much rooted in race, but in keeping one segment of society down. Dehumanization is not limited to war, or one particular country.
I thought about how Confederate secessionist symbols are still on seven of our state flags. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/09/10/confederate-state-flags/ How it took a massacre in Charleston, SC to get Nikki Haley to remove the confederate part of her state’s flag. Germany does not allow any Nazi statuary or symbols to be displayed under penalty of prison. Those Blood Tribe miscreants would have been carted away to jail if they were in Munich.
I thought about how when I was a child, I was told by my foster parents that I couldn’t play with a school mate, because she was Puerto Rican. I heard that one girl couldn’t play with me because I was a Catholic. Bob’s best friend in middle school wasn’t allowed to come to his Bar Mitzvah because, you know, something might happen if he went in there. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t. But this weekend has been illuminating.
I can hear mourning doves outside my snug window. Their cooing soothes me into Spring. Are they looking for a lost love, or just announcing their presence? The sprinkling of snow we had last night must have given them plenty to coo about…
The Love Bug ordered heart shaped candies with romantic sayings on my phone with a swipe. She’s making Valentine confections for school. Over the weekend, Leslie left us heart shaped shortbread cookies wrapped in red ribbon, her latest in a series of delightful porch surprise packages. Bob’s ordered a special dinner from our local restaurant for tomorrow, complete with champagne. Cupid seems to be alive and well in Nashville, sharpening his little arrow this week.
And to top off this romantic week, the Rocker and Aunt Kiki celebrated 7 years of marital bliss in their newly renovated MidCenturyModern LA nest, while I thought about their delightful desert wedding in Palm Springs. https://mountainmornings.net/2017/02/14/happy-valentines-day/
The boys in the band flew west from NJ along with friends and family. The Bug was their flower girl while the toddler Pumpkin sported a fish taco bow tie to match his Dad’s. We stayed in a house with casitas, and I’ve longed for a casita (ie DADU in builder’s lingo) ever since. We rode a gondola up a mountain into the snow with cousins, and we fed giraffes at the zoo. California is a fairy tale come true – I felt like I belonged there. Wasn’t I the only girl skate boarding in the parking lot across from my step-father’s office in 1965? How many lemons did I squeeze into my freshly washed hair to dry in the sun? Didn’t I play the Beach Boys on repeat?
I was born to be a California Girl!
I just met a Cali grandmother on our street strolling her recently arrived grandbaby. She and her husband live in San Diego, but they are building a house one street over so they can live on the same block as their daughter. And it is not a small house, compared to our Blue Ridge home. Construction noise competes with a dove’s plaintive call. They plan on becoming migrating snow birds, like the cranes I saw in the clouds. Like us, they have adult creative/children in California. Their trusses are up and the Tyvec is on! And I know I shouldn’t envy them, it’s not a helpful emotion. But maybe it’s bringing up feelings of House Regret?
Bob’s had that feeling for decades. Great Grandma Ada’s family owned a small piece of land in Chester, NJ where her father Pinky had built a bungalow colony. A summer escape from the heat of Brooklyn, it was passed down to relatives over time. When Bob was a teenager, the aunts and uncles sold the Chester property, called Four Bridges. He’s sad about it to this day.
For me it was a villa called Papillon in the 80s. It was an older, pink patio home with a pool on the windward side of an island in the South West Indies. Not too big, not too small. It would have made a lovely vacation home. Bob wasn’t ready to commit to returning to the same place every year. Of course we did, return to that island time and time again. And each time we moaned about our lost opportunity since Papillon’s price, when it went back up for sale, had risen far beyond our reach.
Surprisingly, I don’t regret selling our mountain home, the one we built on 14 acres with a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge. I had plans for a pond, and bunk beds for grandchildren in the basement. But moving to Nashville was an easy choice, I was tired of driving 9 hours for a visit. Plus, you know when your adult children aren’t coming home any more, their work and their children’s education begin to take precedence, and that’s how it should be. Unless you live in Italy.
Then you cannot live too far away from your Mama, it’s the rule.
But our generation of Americans, if we’re lucky enough to have a loving relationship with our kids, we get to pull up stakes and downsize. I knew what I was getting into marrying Bob – a pilot and ER doc who never sits still. His knee was shaking my desk in high school when he first stole my heart. Maybe moving back and forth between two families as a child was preparation for our nomadic life. I certainly don’t regret marrying him. I would do it all over again because my home is with him.
A psychologist said that only 5 year olds have no regrets, and sociopaths. I hope your Valentine’s Day is filled with love, of family, friends and fur babies – and very few romantic regrets.
On my way to the Bride’s house, I heard a strange sound. It was a typical early spring morning, a bit overcast and chilly and I thought to myself, I should have worn a heavier jacket. But it’s a short walk, just two houses down our street to the next block. Their house would be empty, everyone at work or school, and I’d promised the little French Emperor he could visit us and chase rabbits in our backyard. The sound was getting louder, and it was coming from the sky.
But first let me start with the beginning. Most mornings, I’ll sit in my snug for breakfast and scan the news on my desk/laptop – the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Bob and I will attempt to do the Connections puzzle if we have the time, and I might browse through the vegetarian recipes on Times’ Cooking. I may or may not pick up my phone, depending on a few factors; like did it ding and did I remember where I left it.
But that morning, the one with the otherworldly noise, I was looking at Instagram on my cell and saw that Brother Jones, aka TN52 Democrat Justin Jones, was visiting the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge in Alabama which attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl. It seems that the flight path between Wisconsin and Florida takes these magnificent birds right over Nashville. Jones was going to introduce a bill to protect the whooping crane, an endangered species that first migrated here in 2004. Whooping cranes numbered only around 20 in North America in the 1940s. Today we have about 600.
As I swiped left, I could hear a cacophony of noise, like a gaggle of geese had boarded a slow-moving train playing metal clackers with their webbed feet. I’ve seen great blue herons and egrets on the Jersey Shore, but I’ve never seen a crane of any kind.
And voila, not an hour later, I was gobsmacked, craning my head upwards, listening to the exact same discordant/natural/music/sounds I’d heard on my phone… only louder and more urgent. I shielded my eyes. For a long minute the clouds sauntered and the music amplified.
Then they appeared out of the mist in gray formation, scattered Zs so high up, heading north by northwest.
I stood very still. I remembered to breathe. I felt present, as if I belong. Thousands of sand cranes escorting whooping cranes through their ancient flyway. Escaping. Migrating.
When I returned home with the little emperor, I tried to tell Bob about the whooping cranes. I showed him the Jones video, but something was lost in translation. It was otherworldly, it was out-of-body, it was magic! And maybe, it was because of my T’ai Chi classes that I stopped and soaked in that moment. In the past, would I have stopped, or looked up for so long? “Mindfulness is deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you and within you – in your body, heart, and mind. Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgement.” Jan Chozen Bays
Every day I am confronted by delightful experiences; a petulant dachshund named Lucy, rainbow sprinkled biscotti left on my porch by Leslie, a grandchild walking through the door. Or a video of an owl in the wild walking like Charlie Chaplin! I follow a New York City photographer named David Lei on the Gram, and was delighted to learn his pictures of Flaco, the aforementioned Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo, were recently featured in the NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo.html
These small, unexpected delights add up and sustain me through health challenges and news cycles. And I can smell spring. We divided a monster (monstera) plant this week that had been devouring the dining room table. Its roots were like tentacles. Bob is planning to build a raised bed for vegetables. I can only hope the rabbits, chipmunks and birds approve of our choices this year.
Turns out, my fear of falling has not subsided. It was only my fear of leaving the house – when ICE is covering everything outside my door – that was on full display last week. But fear has been creeping up gradually; the hesitation, the tenacity when crossing a threshold, looking down instead of up. It seems that overnight I’ve become really really old after falling off a ladder that resulted in an osteoporotic pelvic fracture. You might say my fear is well deserved! But, a generalized ‘fear of falling‘ is bad for your health.
Dr Jim, my psychologist brother, sent me this article from “Life Spark,” a purely wonderful, mid-western company that delivers comprehensive senior care, in home and out:
“Fear of falling is a gradual, insidious spiral,” said Julie Varno, Physical Therapist – Case Manager with Lifespark Home Health. “It might start with a fall, but not necessarily. Either way, you become less active, which leads to weaker muscles and stiffer joints which, in turn, affect your balance and your ability to react. Then an uneven sidewalk, a misplaced area rug, or an excited puppy can put you at risk for a fall…. According to some studies, having the fear without the fall is actually more limiting than having multiple falls…”
I’ve fallen over Ms Bean. Twice. Once I was carrying a load of laundry and just stumbled right over her, luckily keeping my balance. Did you know that brown fur blends beautifully with wood floors? The other time I was leaving the table on my blind-side, and hit the floor with a plate in my hand. Nothing broke! I’ve fallen off a stair landing in the darkness of dawn after just moving to Nashville. I fell feeding the birds on our Germantown rain-slicked deck. And then, there’s the Malibu fall.
My sister Kay suffers from Meniere’s disease. It is an auto-immune, inner ear problem resulting in vertigo so severe your world could start spinning at any time. She’s had surgery and lost hearing in the affected ear. Pushing 90 years old this Fall, she has had her fair share of falls but she won’t let that stop her. With metal in both hips, and seemingly in her blood, she walks outside with her walker nearly every day, cruising the upper-east-side like a Dowager Empress.
I suppose if I asked Kay if she fears falling she would say something like, ‘I can’t stop moving.’
“I can’t stop moving!” Simple but oh so sneaky. As we age we adapt – we move into a one-level home so we’re no longer climbing stairs, or we put up a grab bar near the toilet so we don’t engage our quads. I’ve been walking more in our neighborhood now that the ice is gone. And I’ve signed up for a T’ai Chi class at Vanderbilt to work on my balance. Plus, I can roll out the yoga mat and go through all the PT exercises I’ve ever learned.
But fear is an emotion. It’s a mind problem, not a physical one. And I’ve read that in order to overthrow a democracy, fear is the first, most potent weapon – fear of others, and fear of the dictator himself. I’ve often wondered what Republicans fear about Mr T, or is it his followers they fear? I heard that a child in a metro school had a swastika carved into his desk. Are we becoming a nation that runs on fear? Fear of good people not voting due to apathy? Fear of being the one guy in the crowd who keeps his arms folded when everyone else is saluting? Does fear make us obey in advance, before being directly told?
Watching E Jean Carroll on the talk show circuit has eased my feminist fears a bit. She hit T where it hurt, 83.3 Million Dollars worth of pain. And when she looked down on him from the witness chair, all she saw was a big, fat “ZERO.” Carroll is my shero. She was afraid to face him in court, but she found his toddler antics and his sycophant lawyers had turned him into an Emperor Without Clothes. My fondest wish is that his followers wake up.
Of course if I do fall again, knock on wood, I’ve got an outstanding medical team!
I’ve finally chiseled my way out of the ice palace. Last week the state of TN suffered from an extremely long, sub-freezing, snow event. Every day was a snow day; schools and most businesses closed down and since we live in a western, residential part of Nashville, our roads were free for sledding. I didn’t see a plow until the day before yesterday, 8 days after the first snow. The truck tried going up our small hill, which was a sheet of ice at this point, then it backed all the way down our road, beeping its disappointment.
Climate scientists call these crazy weather events “gray swans,” meaning they are predictable and still unprecedented.
“…the way to think about climate change now is through two interlinked concepts. The first is nonlinearity, the idea that change will happen by factors of multiplication, rather than addition. The second is the idea of “gray swan” events, which are both predictable and unprecedented. Together, these two ideas explain how we will face a rush of extremes, all scientifically imaginable but utterly new to human experience.Our climate world is now one of nonlinear relationships—which means we are now living in a time of accelerating change.”
In other words, the winds will get faster at a certain altitude as the temperatures rise, and these jet-stream winds will accelerate much faster than predicted. I believe our little storm was a gray swan. The south has never had such a prolonged period of extreme cold – single digit days mixed with snow and sleet. Ever since Covid, I’ve hated using the word “unprecedented” but it certainly applies here.
The heat on the second floor of the Bride and Groom’s house stopped working. My friend, Leslie’s heat downstairs also went out on strike, so we spent an afternoon making soup in my warm kitchen. Turns out Leslie has an old fashioned wooden sled that the Pumpkin enjoyed luging down our street at record speeds.
One night, the Grands had a sleepover – we watched Home Alone 3 with Alex Pruitt instead of Macaulay Culkin. After a slow start, the kids were ROFL. The next morning we had fun watching Watson the Frenchie, aka The Little Emperor, try to retrieve tennis balls we launched into the snow. Also hilarious.
Gone are the days of building snow people in the sun. We had enough snow to build an army last week, but single digit temperatures kept us house bound. Plus, Bob reminded me that nose hairs freeze at 15 degrees. Since I’ve been in full-on soup mode all week, I thought I’d share a most comforting winter sweet potato soup
Sweet potato soup. 1 onion, 2 sweet potatoes and 3 big carrots. 1 big tablespoon grated ginger and half teaspoon cayenne pepper 1qt vegetable broth, 2 cups V8, 1 teaspoon sugar and half cup of peanut butter Chop n Sauté onion and carrots Add ginger, cayenne pepper a dash of salt Add broth and V8 and peeled cubed sweet potatoes Cook for 25 minutes Add peanut butter and blend w immersion blender after it cools a little.
Thanks to the Bride for this recipe. Today we are warming up in Nashville, and I’m eager to get out and about. My fear of falling has finally subsided a bit. I hope you’ve all stayed warm and safe through our gray swan.
Good morning from beautiful, snow covered Nashville where the temperature is 17 degrees. I looked out at the picnic table in the low dawning light, expecting to see a “light dusting,” but to my surprise there’s at least 6 inches of the white stuff and it’s still squalling. Luckily, the schools were closed for Martin Luther King Day and I’m pretty sure every other business has closed as well.
I don’t want to brag, but this is where the lines are drawn between northeners and southeners. When our kids were little, they’d rush to put on the whole kit and kaboodle – thermal underwear and snow suits complete with scarves, mittens and pom pom hats! Let’s not forget the snow boots. They couldn’t wait to make maple snow and build snow caves with their friends in the Berkshire Mountains. OTOH, I don’t even think our Grands own a sled, or ice skates let alone snow boots, and I know for sure they have never seen this much snow.
Sometimes I wonder if I was just imagining walking through tightly packed snow tunnels on the streets of Massachusetts. Did we really get Nor’easters with a couple of feet of snow on a regular basis? That time Bob’s car flipped over into a snow bank on the way to his hospital in Northampton, was that real or just part of a narrative I’ve told myself so many times? The Bride was sitting in her highchair and I was feeding her oatmeal when Bob walked back into the house covered in snow. I didn’t hear a car coming up the driveway; hadn’t he just left for work?
Cognitive dissonance isn’t enough to describe such a feeling but I’ll bet it’s imprinted on us for life. It’s what some patients describe after a dose of ketamine for a procedure – like they are there…but not there. Like the time we heard that Hillary lost the 2016 election. We had to ‘suspend our disbelief’ for the next 4 years, we had to get comfortable with chaos, followed by a tornado and a pandemic. It was a lot to ask, and some of us did better than others.
I thought we’d be talking about Iowa today, but the snow has cocooned us and dampened the GOP. I thought we might look back at the legacy of MLK, Jr, but memorials have been cancelled. When I heard that the principal of an Iowa school had succumbed to his injuries from a school shooter, I was ashamed that I barely remembered the massacre. But I do remember the Covenant School shooting here in Nashville.
When I saw that our own TN Democratic representatives, the Justins, were sanctioned and silenced in the State House because they wanted to talk about gun reform, I was infuriated. Now, Republican-led members have changed the rules for public entry to the people’s house. Getting a ticket to sit in the balcony now, unless you are a lobbyist, is harder than getting a seat at a Taylor Swift concert. That is their scheme; the pleas of Covenant parents to protect their children be damned. Someone once said, “Cruelty is their point” and I’m starting to believe that maliciousness runs in their veins.
As a card carrying Democrat, I was proud to be called a “snowflake.” And I’m just as proud to call myself a Yankee. We know how to deal with a little snow, and we know how to start an avalanche.
Happy New Year to you! We’ve been getting off to a good start this year. There are no resolutions to feel guilty about – “I am enough” may be my next best mantra. The Bride and Groom have returned unscathed and refreshed from a trip to New Zealand and Australia with the Grands. And the Rocker and Aunt Cait returned from the East Coast, totally missing that rogue wave in Cali. And if you’re wondering what book is on my 2024 nightstand, it’s a nonfictional look back at the Golden Age of abortion.
I’m not talking about the 60s. I’m currently reading “MADAME RESTELL: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist,” by Jennifer Wright. Madame Restell, who lived and worked in the mid-1800s, would advertise her services in all the New York newspapers. She had learned to compound a pill to regulate the menses with a mixture of essential oils and paint thinner. And if that didn’t work, for $100 she could terminate the pregnancy with a whalebone. Surprisingly, her patients lived! But male doctors at the time, who were still using leeches, were threatened by her success and fame.
Madame Restell was not a surgeon, in fact she wasn’t even French. She was an immigrant, a widowed mother from Britain who didn’t want to go into service for a wealthy family (and thereby have to give or sell her child away) or become a prostitute, often the only two choices of the day for women alone. She was an entrepreneur who wasn’t afraid to flaunt her wealth with a carriage decked out in the finest livery. The moral crusaders of the day found such arrogance and lack of shame intolerable. And so Restell found herself in court often, even serving a year in Blackwell Island’s notorious prison.
Ah, the good old days of a medical procedure that is as old as the oldest profession. And since SCOTUS overturned Roe, physicians in some cases are having to reevaluate their care of pregnant women. In other words, The Bride, who is practicing Emergency Medicine in a red state, may have to choose between saving a woman’s life and being exposed to liability, including criminal charges and loss of license. How could that be true? Enter “EMTALA;” a federal law that was passed in 1986 and is the bedrock for Emergency Medicine physicians everywhere. Surely this law would save my daughter from criminal prosecution?
EMTALA is short for the “Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.” Think about it, most doctors in their offices require insurance or payment up front before your appointment; this law requires ER doctors to treat everyone and anyone who walks through their doors – or rides through on a stretcher – regardless of their ability to pay. Ever since the Bride was a young girl, EMTALA has been the law of the land, just like Roe v Wade. ER docs are quick thinking, fast acting specialists who are not willing to wait for a team of lawyers or administrators to decide if a patient is worth saving because she happens to be pregnant!
SCOTUS is scheduled to rule on this “contradiction” in April… I refuse to hold my breath. Texas has already taken the lead in banning emergency abortions, so sorry, if you find yourself carrying an ectopic pregnancy in TX. Your state has sentenced you to a death penalty already if something should go wrong.
“In the early years of Madame Restell’s business, abortion was classed only as a misdemeanor if performed before quickening, around 20 weeks. Over time, the punishments grew, along with the risks. Madame Restell advertised not just her services but her belief in their necessity. Lifting passages from the social reformer Robert Dale Owen, she likened abortion and contraception to a lightning rod — an invention that was “unnatural,” perhaps, but sensible and lifesaving. She published letters from grateful clients, who proclaimed, “God bless you dear madam, you have taken off the primal curse denounced upon Mother Eve in Eden.”
Lightening rod indeed, from the 19th to the 21st Century and women are still left dying by the hands of red legislators. Today, a third of our country, religious zealots for the most part, because of certain SCOTUS selections, may get their way. It’s not enough for them to ban abortions and outlaw morning after pills as if it were the early 20th Century, now the GOP wants to prosecute the physicians. It’s not just the Ob-Gyns, it’s the ER doctors who are being asked to violate their Hippocratic Oath, and EMTALA.
Here is a throwback to the 80s with my little Bride in her Daddy’s ER.
MountainMornings 