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The Kitchen Table

October 9, 2012 by mountainmornings

Finally, Fall has arrived. Someone once said that a person’s favorite time of year is related to their birthday, which makes sense. Our whole lives we have been celebrating our birthdays, or at least until we’d rather forget them, and so we’ve become conditioned to “like” that time of year. It’s true in our family; the September babies love the Fall and the August babies adore Summer. Thought I would share this little kitten’s morning picture. She was born on a seasonal cusp, but I can already tell she has a preference for furry sweaters.

I wonder, will the Love Bug’s birthday party happen before school starts or after? This is a very big question since school levels the playing field and expands potential invitees. It will most likely depend on which part of the country our children decide to live in, whether school begins before or after Labor Day. I have pictures of birthday parties in 1950s Victory Gardens, they were small affairs with everyone wearing pointy hats, sitting around the kitchen table. Think about your Mother’s kitchen table. You’ve started back in school and the days are getting shorter. You joined a bunch of kids off the school bus, kicking leaves and slowly meandering your way home. You walk into the house and it’s warm, almost too warm compared to that crisp Fall day. But the smell of cooking is the first thing to hit you. It surrounds you and you melt into it.

My foster mother Nell stayed at home. Her generation was almost required to stay home if the husband could provide for the family. She once told me she worked for a short time at a store before she married, but she never learned to drive and so she was marooned in our little house. She seemed happy to me, but I wonder now. Her gift to me is priceless. Taking me in, loving me like I was her own child. And her comfort food can still make a bad day better. She made “Haloopkeys” (I have no idea how to spell it) – a Slavic dish of stuffed cabbage with pork and rice and cooked in sauerkraut, served up on a formica table with chrome legs. Every culture has a stuffed vegetable delicacy. And every person on earth has a memory of their mother’s kitchen table.

My Fall Table

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Style Guru

October 7, 2012 by mountainmornings

Bob and I were in Starbucks the other day, and as I waited for my pumpkin spice latte I picked up the Washington Post, Style section. Imagine my surprise to find its front page article was featuring my favorite co-host of “What Not to Wear” Stacy London. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/stacy-london-fashion-guru-discusses-insecurity-in-new-book/2012/10/03/5aeaeb6e-0be4-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html

Photo Joseph, TWPost

One of my first articles for the Berkshire Eagle back in the ’80s was about fashion. Believe me, I’m no expert on fashion. But the editor liked it so much, she actually posed some models to illustrate my tongue-in-cheek points. There was the “Native,” who usually wore jeans and flannel. There was the “Big City Tourist,” the visitor from NY or Boston to ski or take in Tanglewood in the summer. These women usually wore black, and had their nails done. And then there was this sub-species of “Transplants,” like me. We needed help. We were trying to fit in, we bought homes and cross country skis and dressed in strange outfits. We needed our own style, and I proposed a fashion hot line.

Today, we have Apps and bloggers and reality TV. We can watch Stacy on TLC’s popular fashion show where she ambushes poor, unsuspecting fashion-challenged women and in one hour transforms them body and soul. Really. Well, it actually takes a week in NYC but the final show is a magical hour and how she does it without psychotherapy is beyond me. Needless to say, I adore her and tune in whenever I am home alone for lunch. It is my guilty pleasure and we’ve become lunch buddies. But we have one other thing in common – we both have Psoriasis. http://www.psoriasis.org/about-psoriasisStewart+Brown wearing

Stacy delves into her childhood diagnosis in her new book, “The Truth About Style” and she has also started a website “Style for Hire.” http://www.styleforhire.com She was extremely insecure as a kid, never knowing when her skin could break out in debilitating, red scaly patches. Then, when she started woking at Vogue, an eating disorder kicked in, leaving her ripe for reinvention. Three years ago, my dermatologist told me that normally 30 year olds experience Guttate Psoriasis. Guttate means small rain drops of eruptions, instead of full scale patches…so I was unusual…my arms and legs looked like pepperoni pizzas. I felt pretty unusual. I was told however, that small doses of sunshine would help this auto-immune disease and I declined taking any strong, cancer fighting drugs. These steroids had been approved for skin treatments, but I’m just not a pill person.

So unlike Stacy, I had always felt pretty comfortable in my own skin. Getting all pimply in my late-middle-old age was just God having a good laugh at my expense. “OK now, let’s see what you can do with spots!” A famous Stacy quote is: “Style is the quickest shorthand to who you are.” I guess I’m now a sun-loving, nana? And I’d say I’m an Eileen Fisher, organic Stewart+Brown wearing, yoga pants comfortable type? Stacy was speaking this weekend at a synagogue in DC, and I almost drove up there to see her. After all, she saved me from wearing pedal pushers (aka capri pants) since they shorten the leg, and who needs shorter legs right? Because if change can really occur from the outside-in, a What Not to Wear mantra, I’m ready to tackle this transplanted nana, Southern-style.

And no, I didn’t save everything I ever wrote. But I’m glad I saved this one:

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Flip Flops vs Fleece

October 4, 2012 by mountainmornings

No, I’m not referring to the Presidential debate last night. In fact, I’d just as soon forget it.

Kabuki theatre at its best, stylized and predictable; one character claims the other’s ideas as his own, while the other looks down and then lectures the audience. The problem is, running a country isn’t like performing in a play. Leadership depends on character and commitment. We Dems know who to believe, we know who we can trust. The GOP also thinks they have the man for the job. The guy who thinks of healthcare as an entitlement program, and 47% of American citizens as freeloaders.

“What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.”

The point that rattled me in the debate was when the topic turned to healthcare. Listening to Mitt, one might think he did a splendid job in MA, crossing the aisle and actually “working” with Dems to get his version of affordable care passed. You know that version, the almost identical one to Obamacare, which thanks very much for not meaning any disrespect by using the term…which was the point at which I really started wondering who was in Mitt’s body. Shapeshifters beware, this guy is a natural, he even takes on Big Bird.

Mitt said Obamacare has, “…killed jobs,” and what he would do is “…craft a plan at the state level that fits the needs of the state.” Sirens started going off in my head, state’s rights and all. OK, so introducing all those little ultrasound bills, and TRAP regulations are just fine with him. What’s really fine with Mitt is taking us back to a clear, third-party payer system – getting government out of the doctor’s office and back into the hands of the health insurance industry with everybody making lots of money. Never mind that every other G8 country has a form of universal health care in place for its citizens, Mitt knows that we Americans take care of our poor.

Remember when Mitt said on “60 Minutes” that we Americans don’t let people die in their apartments – we call the ambulance? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-watson/in-ultimate-display-of-ig_b_1910259.html Emergency Rooms (or Departments, as Bob calls them) are his plan of last resort for fixing the problem of the uninsured. Under EMTALA law http://www.acep.org/content.aspx?id=25936 anyone who presents to an ER must be seen, whether they can pay or not. This was one of those smack yourself in the head moments. Mitt thinks it’s perfectly OK to pass those costs on to taxpayers, who presumably can afford medical insurance, but just barely because those costs are skyrocketing…because we have so many uninsured people who cost hospitals and ERs 4-5 digits worth of care per visit, that gets passed onto taxpayers…and the Catch 22 continues.

Listen carefully over the next few weeks. Listen to their debates in the context of what they have said before, so you can see beyond the Kabuki make-up. And while I was going to talk about the weather, and how one day you’re wearing flip flops, and the next you’re wearing a fleece jacket, I seem to have gotten off track. “It’s not good being poor.”

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A Modern Poll Tax

October 2, 2012 by mountainmornings

A big Thank You to the great state of Pennsylvania! My birth state hasn’t exactly struck down its voter ID law, but a PA Commonwealth Court Judge had the good sense to put it on hold until after the election. It’s such a blatantly racist, and ageist piece of legislation, I had to wonder how it managed to get as far as it has in so many states…oh, yeah, the Tea Party. If foul language offends you, don’t watch Sarah Silverman’s video.

“Supporters of the measure, passed by a Republican state legislature and Republican governor, said it would help prevent electoral fraud. However, the state government conceded that there has never been a known case of in-person voter fraud.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19804500

Now if you live in PA, you may be asked for your valid, state sanctioned photo ID before you vote, just to intimidate you a little more, but have no fear. You can still vote even if you don’t have this particular piece of paper. But if you live in Indiana, Georgia, New Hampshire and possibly South Carolina you will have to comply with these new voter ID laws in order to solve a problem that doesn’t exist in order to get Mitt elected.

Please know your rights this November before you head out to the polls. In VA, we have until October 15th to register to vote…13 days from now. Make sure your name (did you marry or divorce and change your name?) and your address are current. Sarah’s nifty website can help you figure out if you’re good to vote: http://letmypeoplevote2012.com

Let freedom ring people!

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It Takes Two

October 1, 2012 by mountainmornings

Birthdays can be blissful, or birthdays can be forgotten. When I was approaching 50, I decided to go backwards. So instead of 50, I celebrated my 49th birthday. Reaching 40 never phased me, but I was dreading that half a century mark for some reason. Now I’ve reached the brink; an age that is still too young for Medicare, too old for Twitter (though I do love Instagram) and just right for becoming a Grandmother. I am now the same age as Bob, our birthdays are about a month apart so I can stay younger for exactly 35 days. Because my generation thought we had to make dinner every night, I’m still feeding him.

When we moved to the Piedmonts of Virginia from the Suburbs of the Jersey Shore, I only had two conditions. We would build our house, a not-so-big house with a view, and we would learn to tango. It wasn’t easy. Our realtor said that she showed us every single thing there was for sale in the county over the course of a year, when I found the right piece of land online. Our dance instructor told me that Bob had to lead, so you can imagine how that worked out. But tango we did and here I sit, in my aviary typing away, watching the mountains turn from dark charcoal and lilac lines into a citrine and burgundy masterpiece every day.

And although the book I want to write about the Flapper is still in pieces on my desk, I do have something else, besides the Love Bug to celebrate this year. A woman I met through a serendipitous route – let’s see, it started with knitting and ended with a new friend who was becoming a grandmother on exactly the same date – has edited a group of essays by bloggers…and asked me to contribute. So when dearest Aunt Bert asked, “Where does your blog go?” I can now answer her, “Why, into a book of course!” And it’s titled, “Tangerine Tango.” I’m thrilled, and hope you like it.

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The Libra in Me

September 27, 2012 by mountainmornings

“What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman’s mind?” Don Quixote

The Bride and the Groom are very evidence-driven. While I was visiting for the Love Bug’s birth, a Food Truck festival just happened to coincide with her first weekend on the planet. What better way to introduce a newborn to her Nashville environs! But I was conflicted. Do you dare take a 5 day old out among thousands to a public park, in 90 degree heat? My first thought was “No.” Absolutely, positively no…and it reminded me of our first ‘almost’ outing with the baby Bride in the Berkshires.

A friend was hosting a big end of summer party that was going to have a hot air ballon tethered to the ground. Bob was very hot on going and taking our newborn up, up and away. Or somewhat away since the ballon was tied to the earth. I was hormonal and irritable. The more pilot Bob was insistent, I became more intractable. It was my first sign, married life with this man was going to be one long negotiation. But I dug in my heels, and we stayed home. There is nothing quite like parenthood to bring out the mama grizzly in a once perfectly calm, sane woman.

So I stepped back. The Groom was in my camp; thankfully his first reaction to the Food Truck idea was similar to mine. My daughter, however, desperately needed to get out of the house, and of course Grandpa Bob was all about food en plein air, with trucks! It was a stalemate. But, I was also on a many year quest to find the Grilled Cheeserie Truck! Like the famous windmill, this particular phantom truck was widely known throughout the Music City, and I had either just missed it, or passed it by unknowingly, or on one particular occasion, it just never showed. All indications were that the Grilled Cheeserie truck was going to be there. http://thegrilledcheeserietruck.com

What to do? Well, back in the day we didn’t have google with expert opinions on childrearing at our fingertips. We had grandparents, and aunts and friends we could call; I would sometimes consult Penelope Leach’s book. Instead of Apps, we had age-old parenting myths to rely on. In some ways, I think that may have been easier. But after a quick search and texting some friends with a 2 week old baby about meeting up, we hitched that Love Bug up, way up on her Daddy in a Becco baby carrier and headed out to slay the dragon of food trucks. The Grilled Cheeserie truck was there! Unfortunately, the lines were so long and the heat was so hot, we only managed a quick walking tour and went home. My quest continues. On balance, I always like to weigh the good with the bad and the grilled cheese, which I am determined to find on my next trip!

The Fall Menu

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Farm to Table

September 25, 2012 by mountainmornings

Tomorrow night the shofar will blow in Jewish temples around the world, calling Jewish people to prayer and to end their fast. It is an ancient tradition. We have emptied our pockets of our sins, done a fair job of asking forgiveness, even asking God to forgive us of those sins we may not even know we committed. I remember thinking that was brilliant when I first started studying Judaism. You don’t have to pony up to the confessional every week and recite your sins to a shadowy priest, then kneel and say a few Hail Marys, or maybe the whole Rosary. Jews get just one chance each year to make things right. And if you forget something, it’s OK, no worries. God will forgive you anyway.

But here’s the thing. You are supposed to fast for 24 hours, from sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow night. There are of course exceptions; pregnant or nursing moms, children before Bar or Bat Mitzvah age, and ER docs. No really, in the Talmud somewhere it says if you are busy saving lives you can eat! So we feast tonight, fast (well, some of us fast), then feast again tomorrow night…followed by Sukkot. A Jewish Thanksgiving that lasts for 7 days, where you not only feast, but you do it outdoors, in a tent.

While the rest of us are planning our kid’s Halloween costumes, you may pass by a house with a makeshift tent in the backyard covered with palms and fruit, a Sukkah or “…a hut of temporary construction with a roof covering of branches.” http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/4457/jewish/How-is-Sukkot-Observed.htm It figures that food plays a staring role in Jewish holidays, but eating your food outside is really special. Sukkot preceded the farm to table movement by about 3,800 years.

Which is why, on one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar, I must call to your attention our country’s little problem with the Farm Bill. You may not be aware that Congress failed to pass the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act aka the Farm Bill. Disavow yourself of the notion that this is a fight between the huge agri-business conglomerates and smaller organic farmers, or that it’s just a bid to throw more money out to the heartland only to waste resources on growing corn and soybeans that we cannot possibly consume. Only about 14% of the funds would go to farmers to subsidize their crops.

“More than two-thirds of the Farm Bill has nothing to do with farms. It funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—formerly known as food stamps. Spending-phobic Republicans see that as fat to be cut, and the House Agriculture Committee proposed drastic reductions in food assistance for the 2012 legislation. Both sides dug in their heels on the issue this year, and we’re looking at no Farm Bill at all until the next session.” http://www.c-ville.com/on-the-fate-of-the-farm-bill/#.UF3GLEL3CfQ

So dear God, while some of our cities are now allowing food stamps to be used at Farmer’s Markets during this recession, I’m asking you to forgive our legislators on Capital Hill. They are more concerned about saving money and an out-of-date tax code for the wealthiest among us, than they are about feeding the poor.

Leaving the City Market

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The Art Connection

September 23, 2012 by mountainmornings

My glamorous older sister, Kay, would always call our Mother, the Flapper, on Sunday mornings. It was pre-arranged. Right after CBS Sunday Morning was finished, during the wildlife roll call, my sophisticated New York City sib would dial up the Doyenne of Lake Minnetonka and they would discuss life in general, along with a few topics from the TV show. When the Flapper died, Kay started calling our brother Dr Jim, who lives right by that same MN lake. Or maybe he called her? I was too much of a news junkie, so I’d tune into the political talking heads on Sunday morning, if I wasn’t out at a farmer’s market or walking a dog or two. Now I sometimes join their Sunday morning calls by miraculously “merging” our numbers via iPhone.

And speaking of my “old” iPhone, I am a very spoiled and lucky new grandmother. Because due to the wonders of technology, and maybe karma, almost every morning I receive a text picture or video of the Love Bug. And I cannot wait to hear that cell phone beep! Happy 1 month birthday beautiful baby girl!

I guess for this mama and daughter, it all started when the Bride went off to college. I’d email her a “morning message” every single day. Email was pretty new in ’97, and my short sentences were meant to inspire and inform, I hoped the way a teacher might have something written on the blackboard as students walked into her classroom. I’d write things like, “I know you can ace that exam,” or “How can I make another article about the Garden Tour seem interesting?” I asked her if it was too intrusive and to my relief she said no, she loved getting them; I just may not get a reply every time, because you know she’s busy being a Duke college student and all. I understood, because it wasn’t really about politeness or manners with us. It was about the connection. The connection I lost in our family’s Year of Living Dangerously.

Perhaps it’s because I am fed up with political diatribes, or maybe because Bob is saving lives this morning, I found myself entranced with CBS Sunday Morning http://www.cbsnews.com/sunday-morning/ and I was touched by the story titled “The Healing Arts.” It’s about all the contemporary art lining the halls of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in LA. Who knew? But communing with art can lower your blood pressure and give a patient battling a crippling disease a different perspective – if just for the few minutes stroll down a hallway. Hospital as Art Museum – I like it! And it made me think of the art lessons Kay gave the very young Bride in her NYC apartment, and how much our young doctor loves to paint. She finished this painting in college, where she spent a semester in Paris, drawing and studying art. Cue the nature noise!

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Pentimento

September 20, 2012 by mountainmornings

My Mother, the Flapper was also known as Grandma Gi. In order to provide for her family, she worked as a bookkeeper for many years. Widowed three times, she adored President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In fact, his picture hung in our kitchen, right next to the Crucifix. When she traveled to the Berkshires to help me with the newborn Bride, she was a retired 70 year old. Because Gi was a radically committed, life-long smoker, and Dr Bob knew about the hazards of second-hand smoke before the Surgeon General, she was banished to the porch for her bi-hourly habit. Now Septembers can get mighty cold in MA. This is why you see her holding my baby, over 30 years ago, wearing a face mask. Gi, aka the Flapper, had contracted pneumonia and had to return to her Condo on the Lake.

Lucky for me, I never smoked and my only banishment, while visiting the new Love Bug, was to my beautifully appointed, upstairs suite for sleep. I’m recounting those first few days in Nashville, because yesterday I had lunch with friends and happily offered up the replay. How I looked into my Grand Daughter’s eyes and saw the Bride. Like a beautiful work of art, after decades of overpaint, varnish, dirt and maybe even cigarette smoke is removed by a master restorer, I could glimpse the brush strokes of the original artist. Dark, and soulful, inquisitive and beckoning, her eyes spoke to me. And looking back through the lens of time, I could feel the steely determination of my Mother, to walk again when she was told she would be in a wheelchair for life. The utter devotion of my Nana, who held me tight, saving my life when a drunk driver rammed into our car in 1949. The unequivocal righteousness of my Great Grandmother, who sheltered coal miners and marched for their rights, even though she herself could not yet vote. Little Love Bug, I am happy to report that our President is soaring ahead in the polls on the women’s vote in this battleground state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/to-claim-virginia-obamas-hopes-rest-on-women/2012/09/19/8413388a-026a-11e2-9b24-ff730c7f6312_story.html?hpid=z1

And it’s not just because the President knows our Constitution backwards and forwards, and wants to keep government and religion separate, thereby protecting our reproductive rights. “Women registered voters trust Obama more than they do Romney to handle the economy, 52 to 39 percent.” FDR came from a wealthy family, yet he understood that government needs to care for 100% of its citizens and he almost singlehandedly pulled our country out of the Great Depression. I’m thinking I may have to frame a picture of Obama for our kitchen. L’Shana Tovah to our Jewish friends and family too.

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TRAP

September 18, 2012 by mountainmornings

Breaking news; “Board of Health Rejects Grandfather Amendment in Vote to Apply Proposed Regulations to Existing Women’s Health Clinics.” Wait you never heard of it? http://www.naralva.org/media/press/20120914.shtml

TRAP is a new word or acronym for me. I’ve only recently fully understood what it means. To be trapped, one thinks of being caged, like a wild animal. And in fact, that is exactly what many of these TRAP laws are trying to do – keep women in their place, barefoot and pregnant, and out of abortion clinics. TRAP stands for “targeted regulation of abortion providers.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/virginia-abortion-clinic-regulations_n_1884897.html

Last week with very little fanfare, in my fair state of VA, the state for lovers, our Republican Ultrasound Gov McDonnell and Republican AG Cuccinelli shoved their TRAP regulations down the throats of our Board of Health. After voting to declaw the regulations by allowing existing clinics to be exempt, or grandfathered in, and only adopting the TRAP laws for NEW building, the BOH did an about face on Friday. It makes me wonder what type of leverage the 2 most powerful men in the state used on the Board so that they would change their decision? Oh wait, you can find anything on the internets:

“Funny thing is that the board made this decision after board members received a letter from the attorney general informing them that the state wouldn’t represent them if they were sued in response to the decision: Board member James Edmondson Jr. said that they were ‘warned’ that they could be left to defend themselves on the decision, and may have to cover their own legal fees.”

Now VA may have to close most Planned Parenthood clinics rather than totally retro-fit every facility in order to meet building codes previously only used for hospitals….
“The board’s 13-to-2 flip-flop provoked an outraged chorus of “shame, shame,” from abortion rights advocates gathered in the meeting room. Security swiftly ushered protesters out of the room, as one woman yelled, “‘You don’t give a shit about women living in Virginia!‘” http://feministing.com/2012/09/17/friday-vote-on-new-trap-law-may-decimate-abortion-access-in-virginia/

T – Target
R – Republicans
A – About
P – Patriarchy

I like that better. Stand up to these bullies. Private, out-patient surgical buildings owned by doctors or hospital groups that provide mammograms, colonoscopies, dental surgery, and even plastic surgery are not required to submit to TRAP laws, which should tell any discerning person something. The Director of VA’s NARAL, Tarina Keene said, “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is an attack on Roe, you can ban abortion by making it inaccessible.” If you want to take action, start here: http://www.naralva.org

If you believe that our legislators have the right to tell our doctors and nurses and the women of this country how, when and where they may access health care, well then I hope you are reading this. Maybe, since all of this targeting seems patently illegal, in the future the urologist who is about to perform a procedure on you in her office will have to switch you over to a hospital’s OR…and maybe make you wait awhile to contemplate your vasectomy?

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