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Transportation Man

June 18, 2011 by mountainmornings

He used to play the spoons in our kitchen to my utter delight. And every Saturday he would wash and wax that kitchen’s floor. The smell of floor wax makes me think of cartoons. Many nights, after cleaning up the dishes, he’d dance with me standing on his shoes to the radio. When he came home from work at four o’clock on the dot, he would always have a surprise – a flower, a small toy, a cookie. Every single day. One summer he made me a doll house out of Popsicle sticks. Almost every night we’d play gin rummy, followed by butterfly kisses and “Don’t let the bedbugs bite” good night. If I was sick in the night, he would stay up with me until I fell back asleep. He was the only father I ever knew, Daddy Jim.

My Dad was my hero. He would never spank me, but he would chase me around the house for a good “paddy wackin,” which meant catching me until I dissolved in giggles. He never raised his voice, unless he was house-training a puppy. We would sing I Wonder who’s Kissing Her Now in the car or maybe Casey’s at the Bat. If we drove under a bridge, we’d duck our heads. My foster Mom, Nell, couldn’t drive, so Daddy took me out into the world – to the butcher, and the bakery on weekends. And to Mass on Sunday, followed by a Rocky Road sundae and the papers at Zanelli’s.

I’m pretty sure he never finished grammar school, because he had to get a job to help support his big Irish family of eighteen children. But he was the sweetest, kindest man in the universe. In the few pictures I have, he is sitting reading a newspaper, with me underneath it; or this one, holding me and a puppy.

He didn’t pose, and only knew how to tell the truth. Too old to fight in WWII, he found a job at Picatinny Arsenal, helping trains navigate their labyrinth of tracks. He would answer the phone, “Transportation Man!” He and my biological father, a pharmacist, were buddies back in PA. Robert Norman Lynn died of a brain tumor when I was a baby, and Daddy Jim drove his wife Nell over the Delaware Water Gap to save me from going into an orphanage. My husband Bob always said, “Your Dad’s a hard act to follow!” Our son’s middle name is James.

He gave me a home, after mine fell apart, and most importantly, the capacity to love.

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3 Days of Peace, Love and

June 16, 2011 by mountainmornings

Photography. The Festival of the Photograph is well under way on the historic Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. The highlight of the festival is a series of blown-up photographs strung high between trees by artist George Steinmetz, a world renowned aerial photographer. Steinmetz took up flying motorized paragliders years ago in order to capture his inspiring images of our planet. Titled Wild Air, he reconnects us with nature by  shooting desert landscapes. Here are some pics from his point of view on the Festival’s website, followed by some diaphanous shots I took starting at the Free Speech Wall and sailing to a coffee shop called the Mudhouse, from mine.

Niger

Brazil

Namibia

                                                                                       and in closing, a study in black and white: Ms Beaner Schnitzel and Buddha Bear!

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Simply Scrumptious Salad

June 14, 2011 by mountainmornings

What an absolutely glorious day! 78 for a high and some wind just to please the whip my hair gods. As promised, today is Tasty Tuesday and have I got a salad for you. It’s my Grecian Goddess aka as Mediterranean Salad! Here is what you will need:

  • 1 cucumber – or half if you have an empty nest, I prefer the English, less seeds
  • 3 green onions
  • a box of cherry tomatoes – cut in half if they’re big
  • 1 can of organic garbanzo beans, or 2?  – rinsed and drained
  • a handful of fresh mint
  • 1 package of feta cheese – crumbled
  • about 6 seeded kalamatra olives – halved

Chop up the veggies:

Start to make the vinaigrette:

  • press 2 garlic gloves
  •   3T red wine vinegar
  • salt and pepper
  • 1T Greek yogurt
  • enough EVOO to taste

Toss in the feta (alright use non-fat if you must) and add the fresh mint last. If you don’t have mint, fresh basil will do nicely. Toss with dressing and serve. This salad tastes better the next day!

We added the first radishes from Bob’s garden. And I have to admit, I’ve got him on grill duty from now till the end of Fall. He grilled up some delicious local flank steak ( marinated with thyme and garlic and pepper) from Whole Foods.

Vegetarians, look away!

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Holy Whole Foods

June 12, 2011 by mountainmornings

Liza BanceOur new Whole Foods opened with a bang this week. Really. After negotiating the 3 traffic cops and finally parking, we were trumpeted in by a right fine bluegrass/gospel band. It almost felt like I was in the Music City. The singer/songwriter’s name is Liza Bance, and she could belt out a rich tune like nobody’s business. We liked the group so much we bought their album, How Long Must I Wait. 

Bob said with a smile, “This is shopping as an experience!” He was reluctant to come with me since he is of the notion that real men don’t shop. When necessary, they go into a store with a mission in mind and get out as soon as they possibly can. I have to admit this was my second trip in their opening week, after having lunch there with two knitting buddies. There’s the Brit and then there’s Tracey. I met her at the Needle Lady after she spied my Fair Haven yarn shop bag; “Say, I used to live there, in Red Bank.” Then we found out we both worked at the same newspaper. She was one of the founding members, and I was a lowly reporter who emailed copy in from home for the most part. We talked about our country lives, and Tracey thinks I should keep bees! Small world.

Reclaimed wood

Here are the highlights of both trips to Whole Foods, besides the band: Lavender tea loaves; freshly made sweet potato gnocchi (which the chef recommended I fry!); a wine and beer bar where you can actually sit down and drink folks; four fresh salad and hot food bars; a pizza oven; a psychedelic hamburger truck; and of course more locally sourced food than I ever thought was possible….And because we are in the People’s Republic of Charlottesville, people watching is an artform in itself.

Starr Hill beer

My absolutely favorite thing was the stunning bulk dry food reclaimed wooden cabinets….felt like the ’70s when we participated in a food co-op in the Berkshires!

I have decided to make all future Tuesday  posts “Tantalizing and Tasty” – in other words, there will be a recipe involved. Can you guess what my Whole Foods stash will become?

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Doctor Jessica Lynn

June 11, 2011 by mountainmornings

Tonight my daughter becomes an Emergency Physician. At the Vanderbilt celebratory dinner, there will be a photo montage of her childhood. Here are some pictures that some of you may have seen. Let it be said, that she was born on Windsor Pond, and she was exactly herself.

Martha's Vineyard Bound

My Black Swan

Coming of Age

Medical School

We are so very proud of you, Dr Jessica Lynn! There she is, top row and center  with the boys, her sunglasses pushed up on her head…and here she is at Vanderbilt’s Children Hospital with her hubby and his sister.

in her Long White Coat

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Old Buddha

June 9, 2011 by mountainmornings

In the midst of learning how to increase stitches at the Wednesday morning knitting circle, a woman I barely know looked up from across the table and asked about my older dog, Buddha. The last time I’d joined this group of interesting women was weeks ago, and I was touched that she remembered my rant. Buddha is now 15; and all one hundred pounds of Samoyed-Shepherd, polar bear sweetness is reduced to a quivering mass of  splayed feet and white fur during a thunderstorm. And the problem is, when he falls down on a tile or wood floor, he can’t get up. And because of his arthritis, he won’t let us touch his hindquarters anymore.                        

This is what I have learned from my old man, Boo:

  •  Patience – if I put a small rug in front of him, he can pull himself up;
  • Determination – when we go outside to throw the ball, he will steadfastly wait by my side for Miss Bean to run and fetch it back so he can get his treat too;
  •  Confidence – he knows that only the front door has the right angle of steps he can negotiate, so he waits only by that door to go out and will stop and watch as his family walks out any other door;
  • Courage –  no matter who comes to the door, he slowly pulls himself up and barks ferociously, even if he is the last to hear them;
  • Mindfulness – always a Hedonist, he would do just about anything for a good back scratch or belly rub in the morning

Here he is waiting for us to come inside, it’s too hot to play today.

The Good Steps

I am happy to report that Buddha has a new lease on life. After a long talk with our lovely veterinarian, Dr Barbara Butler at Earlysville Animal Hospital, Boo Bear has completed his first week on Rimadyl Chewables and is actually attempting to run and play again with his little sister. It is an anti-inflammatory, canine arthritis pill and it has changed all our lives. And the woman who asked about Buddha, well she’s British and married to an art historian. We went out to lunch to explore the new Whole Foods, stay tuned!

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A Sea of Technical Difficulties

June 7, 2011 by mountainmornings

In the past 48 hours, my old reliable car died and I’ve had to reboot my computer a total of 6 times. Finally, with tech support Bob on the phone, I unplugged everything, made myself a new pot of coffee, and voila, I’m online after restarting microsoft and firefox. UGH. This morning the Bride called from her new iPhone (why do they capitalize the “P”?) very happy and carefree even though she was about to start a shift with the sickest of the sick, in the MICU. She had downloaded all the medical apps she needs, her music went up into some cloud, and she was hoping the battery could last 30 hours instead of the 3 minutes her old Blackberry might last on a good day.

And I apologize up front for bringing up the obvious Weiner Roast. But while I was unplugged and car-less, this guy’s Twitter Package  seems to be all over the news cycle. I feel for him, really, he too was having technical difficulties. He cried last night and explained that he only meant to send the pix to one girl and not put it out on his Twitter feed. Poor guy, he pushed the wrong button. Married less than a year, he has engaged in this type of techno-dalliance, or sexting virtual affairs with maybe only 6 women. I remember when I thought good, old fashioned phone sex was weird. Now we have to watch some picture of an obviously waxed chest over our morning coffee and think what? Shame on you Anthony?

Then a plea – today is the anniversary of the Bush tax cuts – dropped into my email: “Our country isn’t broke, but if the Republican’s intellectually dishonest claim that we are is met with silence, our country’s moral compass may become broken.  “Hello,” our moral compass congressmen…I am supposed to write to my congressmen and tell them it’s time to tax the heck out of the super rich. I agree, if you’re in finance getting millions or billions for an end-of-year bonus, why not share the wealth? I may also tell them all to find their North Star, keep their cells in their pockets, and their exhibitionism to themselves. Do your job! How is sexting risque photos different from a naked guy in a raincoat flashing someone? Answer, it’s not. But lying about it, to your wife and the public, now there’s the rub. Sorry Shakespeare, I couldn’t help it.

HAMLET:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

A View from the Deck


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Deportment

June 5, 2011 by mountainmornings

As I watched LiNa, the oldest competitor (29) to play in the Women’s Finals,  win the French Open, I was ecstatic. She had that star quality, like Federer or Baryshnikov, to make their sport/art look easy. At one point, as LiNa was tossing the ball into the air to serve, a Chinese fan yelled something from the stands. She let the ball drop. The announcer, with a French accent, said that the Chinese fans have not yet learned “…the rules of deportment in tennis.” Silence, s’il vous plait.

Unfortunately, leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, bankers and traders abandoned their own set of rules of conduct. The SEC and the Feds remained silent as we slid deeper into a recession. Reagan had opened the playground to deregulation, and there was no adult supervision; players became greedy, and lost sight of the bigger picture. Can you tell, Bob and I watched the HBO movie this week, adapted from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book, Too Big to Fail? It is a must read, or see.

Bob's dessert cell pix

But back to the anniversary dinner from the last post. I didn’t take my camera, at Bob’s request. A wedding rehearsal, golfers, and a family of geese were traversing the green outside Fossett’s window. While savoring the Chef’s tasting menu, a woman was arriving late to the table of six next to us. Every single man at the table stood up as she approached, which led Bob to say, “You don’t see that too often anymore.” Well maybe not, but in the South you do. Our head waitress greeted us by name… deportment can most definitely be a cultural thing. An older woman I respect once told the younger Bride to watch how a man treats the wait staff at a restaurant, that and the way he behaves with his mother are the single best, earliest predictors of his character.

LiNa, when asked about her age said, “Age just paper.” Maybe the global financial crisis is just paper, or  maybe the media needs to keep putting names and faces to the problem, to shine some light on Obama’s team, still trying to right this ship of unemployment and debt  statistics that is listing our great country toward a banana republic. Because following Palin’s mystical bus tour around just doesn’t cut it. And we all know that silence and indifference are the two key ingredients to any economic or societal meltdown.

One of my favorite NYTime’s columnists, and like Sorkin, a reporter with a mind and a conscience, Nick Kristoff says it best about “Our Fantasy Nation” today.

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Acrimony and Alacrity

June 2, 2011 by mountainmornings

I made the reservation online with something called OpenTable. It’s our 32nd wedding anniversary and our plan is to feast at a “high dollar” (country term) new restaurant, not that it’s new – just new to us. It’s actually Fossett’s at Keswick Hall, and I’m looking forward to sampling Chef Dean Maupin’s gastronomic wizardry. We like to get dressed to the nines once a year and celebrate this day with alacrity.

Clifton Inn Denied

When the Rocker was small, I’d always come up with a ‘word for the day’ as we drove to school, or hockey, or the beach. I was a dictionary.com for my family, fighting the good fight against too may “likes” and incomplete sentences. “Alacrity” is my all time favorite word. I really thought it was possible, that between the mind-numbing, ego shattering grind that was public middle school, I could insert a small bit of optimism and light into their over-scheduled day. I knew once they hit the age of sixteen, all bets were off.

Teenage Rocker

So when I read, via a Facebook link from a dear Shore friend, about Jonathan Franzen’s Op-Ed in the NYTimes titled Liking is for Cowards, Go for What Hurts, I was intrigued. He proposes that our current immersion in technology is detrimental to our common humanity. In fact all this “liking” in social media, in his opinion, is leading us into a collective abattoir of narcissism. That love hurts, and so we can shield ourselves effectively by all this beeping and humming gadgetry. It made me laugh a little, because the last good fight I had with Bob was about texting in the car – to be clear, he thinks I should be talking with him and not texting while he is driving….

In my defense, I found out about the tornadoes in MA yesterday before anyone else, I knew what was happening in Egypt before the network news knew, and since I am still such a news hound, this technology contributes to my overall sense of happiness. When I found out, the old school telephone way, that one of  our favorite restaurants was “totally booked,” I turned to Google to find something new. Once someone asked us how we managed to make love last, and my response is that we both feel free to say whatever pops into our heads.  Humor and learning to fight fair are essential ingredients in any long lasting relationship. The love part was always easy, it’s how you handle those acrimonious trenches that matters. Marriage is like a roller coaster, you don’t get off till it stops. and ps, I loved reading Franzen’s book Freedom on my Kindle!

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Parlor Mob

May 31, 2011 by mountainmornings

Once upon a time when my high schooler, the Rocker, had a metal band in our garage, Bob and I caught a midday movie called House of Rock, at the Monmouth Mall. With a handful of people in the darkened theatre, in walked a family during the previews with 3 little kids. They sat in our row. They laughed at the same jokes. As we were all getting up to leave, I said to the dad who was closest to me, “Just wait ’till you have a heavy metal band in your garage.” He laughed and said, “I know.” That voice under the cap. While walking up the aisle, I looked at the back of his skinny legs in tight jeans and knew it was the Boss.

Bob's blue light cell pix

Last weekend my son’s band was headlining at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. It’s an iconic music venue that was nearly torn down during a 90s urban renewal craze. The beautiful carousel horses on its Boardwalk were split up and auctioned off. Luckily, the Pony, where Springsteen got his start, remains refurbished and ready to welcome the next generation of Rock and Roll. It was well known that Bruce would even occasionally drop by in the wee hours to play with some astonished young musicians. But on this night, nearly a thousand young people were here just to see the Parlor Mob.

The Rocker endured 2 years of violin lessons, through 2nd and 3rd grade, in order to play his coveted guitar. And once that 9 year old little boy got his first Sunburst Fender, it never left his hands. The Rocker was reluctantly launched  for college, leaving his garage band behind after one of his bandmates had already left for NY to study sound engineering. But a band called What About Frank beckoned, and he left TCNJ to play guitar at the local hot spots. He delivered pizza. This was one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn as a parent, that my expectations for my children are not theirs. That at some point, you have to let go, and let them follow their passion.

Our Rocker on Right

Now The Parlor Mob has recorded their second album (not counting the first they produced as What About Frank), they have a contract with Roadrunner Records, and are getting really good bar food! They played for nearly 2 hours and I could look into the crowd and see kids singing along with them, some even transported into another world by their music. The industry has changed since Bruce started out, but the story and the music remains. TPM is an amazing live act, incredibly tight and anthemic in their range; everyone a brilliant musician with a singer whose voice is rich and strong. And that’s not just one proud rocker mom talking.  I can’t wait for this next record to be released, and to see them at some point of their European Tour next year?

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