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Posts Tagged ‘fiction’

Domestic Goddess

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It’s day 35 of the Great Government Shutdown. Threatening to be the longest in history, this Senate stalemate hits food assistance programs like SNAP, federal workers including TSA agents, and the general economy. Have you felt its effects yet?

It just so happens the Love Bug’s 8th Grade Washington, DC trip was last week. The teachers had to change up their itinerary since Congress and all the Smithsonian buildings were closed. They managed to visit most of the memorials, including the Vietnam memorial and the Holocaust Museum. Welcome to your nation’s capital, a metaphor for death and dysfunction.

And what was our fearless leader doing? Tearing down the East Wing to build a huge ballroom in his honor. Renovating the Lincoln bathroom with marble and gold. Oh, and throwing a Great Gatsby Halloween themed party at his FL residence; why stay at the White House and try to resolve the shutdown after all?

And speaking of parties with a small “p,” Martha Stewart’s original big book, “Entertaining,” is about to have another moment. It’s being reissued by Penguin Random House 43 years later. Truth be told, I didn’t buy it then, nor did I buy her book, “Weddings.” At the time, I was deep into motherhood, pregnant with the Rocker and living on the edge of a bird sanctuary in the Berkshires. I had given up trying to cook like Julia after almost burning my kitchen down making coq au vin! There was no one I wanted to emulate, except maybe Erma Bombeck.

But back to Martha, Martha, Martha and me. My idea of a perfect dinner party in the 80s was two words: Pot Luck! Usually we’d buy lots of wine and I’d cook one entree – a meat in one form or another. Better yet, Bob would barbeque it. Your guests supply all the rest. Genius! It was a time for farm co-ops and breastfeeding babies on the side of a mountain, not trying to impress others with opulent place settings and marble bathrooms. We feminists looked askance at Martha Stewart, what was she trying to prove?

Betty Friedan had published “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963. The problems she addressed are still rambling around our collective consciousness today.

Looking back, Stewart was bridging the gap between two generations of women. Like my 1966 high school yearbook – the girls with bouffant hair and the long, straight hair crowd. While purporting to glamorize home life, she was simultaneously building an empire and losing her farm and family in Connecticut. It was almost Shakespearian. I must admit feeling sorry for her when she was convicted of insider trading. She didn’t deserve that prison sentence. Men had been trading secrets for years after all.

Still, I admit laughing at satirical articles about her magazine. I’ll always remember a full page layout of the different types of DIRT! Four pictures across and four down of different colors and textures of DIRT… it was just near enough to the truth to catch you thinking it might be real.

And here’s the real dirt on our government shutdown – President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act happens to be on the line. Yes, Republicans don’t mind starving Americans in order to tank affordable healthcare. Can I repeat that – REPUBLICANS are responsible for this malarkey! Don’t let the smoke and mirrors fool you. Mr T is absolutely tone deaf and would rather watch women swinging on stars in sequins and fringe like it’s the 1920s.

And Martha, bless her heart, (age 84) is also living in denial. She’s fighting reality with all her might. Post-plastic surgery and a Sports Illustrated cover, she is still reinventing herself with Snoop Dog and stating she was the original trad wife! I almost threw up in my mouth when I read that.

Here is my meticulously curated collection of cookbooks; The Silver Palate for pesto and Applewood and Motherpie for carrot cake. And Ina, always Ina! Mostly I use the NYTimes Cooking App! The Flapper would be proud.

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Speaking of Death in Bed

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Last night Bob and I were just sharing some pillow talk before drifting off to sleep, when the subject somehow turned to last wishes. Bob has seen his fair share of dead and nearly-dead bodies over many decades working in an Emergency Room. I have not. Still, I’m used to his pragmatic approach to end of life discussions; I don’t however, appreciate discussing the inevitable in the cozy comfort of our bed right after turning out the light!

I may have been telling him about the memoir I’d just finished reading,

It’s a novel by one of my favorite writers Geraldine Brooks. She wrote “Horse” which I passed around to all my friends in Nashville. But “Memorial Days” is her latest work and dives into the sudden loss of her husband, Tony Horwitz, at the young age of 60. She was right in the middle of writing “Horse” in fact when he collapsed on a street alone in a Washington, DC suburb while she was at home, alone, on Martha’s Vineyard.

She writes about the resident who calls her at the end of his shift with the news – his perfunctory answers, the background noise, his rush to get off the phone. She writes about having to delay her grief in order to deal with her sons and planning two memorials – one for their friends on the Vineyard and one in DC for his family and colleagues. Tony was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, on a book tour in his hometown. She writes honestly, with words that cut deep into my soul.

Last night, I asked Bob about our insurance coverage, leading us down the yellow brick road to who might “go” first. It seems that Brooks’ medical insurance abruptly terminated the day after her husband died… without informing her. For a month she and her children were not covered, which naturally infuriated her. Like most Aussies, Brooks cannot understand how a medical catastrophe could bankrupt a family. And I thought about meeting a new Republican family member years ago who said to our dismay, “But we have the best health-care in the world.”

I came across this article while drinking my coffee, “So Much for the Best Health Care System in the World,” in the Atlantic. The GOP has not stopped opposing universal healthcare, but they are using a different tactic.

“Republicans haven’t given up their opposition to universal coverage—far from it—but they have mostly stopped singing the praises of American health-care innovation. Indeed, they are taking a meat axe to it, slashing medical-research funding while elevating quacks and charlatans to positions of real power. The resulting synthesis is the worst of all worlds: a system that will lose its ability to develop new cures, while withholding its benefits from even more of the poor and sick.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/trump-republicans-health-innovation/683795/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-9_sqlI0wYN6ADUWpCxNFxU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

My sweet husband sensed that our conversation was veering into dangerous territory last night, and so he quickly pivoted to the twins. From darkness to light. Those baby girls are teething, smiling and eating gourmet pureed foods. They are so eager to crawl. I wonder if they will run before they can walk. They bring me so much joy. They sustained me through my post-fall healing journey. I’m booking a flight right now.

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The Gambler

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“Only in Nashville,” the Bride said.

I was sitting in my physical therapist’s waiting room – I do a lot of waiting lately, and a lot of PT actually – but this place is different. It’s a small, independent, out-of-the-way shop where the Nashville Ballet heals its wounds. Naturally it has a ballet barre. There are no big machines or loud music like my recent California PT located in a gym the size of an airplane hangar. And there are no assistants either, you get one therapist and she spends all her time with you and only you!

Anyway, as usual, the receptionist Mitzie was engaged in a rollicking conversation with another client across from me. The woman was talking about her husband, who is still in the hospital, and the various and sundry visitors he’s had, when Mitzie asked if she’d told him… Told him what? At this point I was simply a bystander, leafing through a magazine and occasionally looking up. I was imagining her husband had a terminal illness, and she was waiting for the right time to break the news.

“Oh no,” the middle aged woman in a knee brace said, “you’ve gotta know when to hold em.”

There was an older man sitting next to me, another point of interest in this PT people’s triangle. He was someone I’d seen before, and actually had talked to about Duke University since he wore a big blue “D” baseball cap. “You mean the school with a basketball team,” he said. I don’t do a lot of flirting anymore, but I would certainly flirt with him. I liked his personality and his smile. And since the woman across from us with her husband in the hospital had mentioned her son was at Duke currently, we all joined in the conversation. That’s the way it is in the South, btw.

As a therapist escorted the man out of the waiting room, Mitzie left her desk and went straight over to the talkative woman, took hold of both her hands, looked right in her eyes and told her that the man in the Duke hat had written those lyrics:

You got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

She said she got goose bumps, but she used some other Southern idiom. Exactly the same thing I get before a frog jumps in my throat! I had to tell the family text chain about this – and the Bride was the first to reply. “Only in Nashville,” a city where music and medicine are always interconnected. And that’s when Camille, my therapist/ballet dancer, came out to get me and teach me a few things about bands and balance.

This was before Mr T decided to join Bebe in a fight to save the world from nuclear annihilation. Or so he says. I wonder what kind of gambler our president is? We already know not to believe his policy by tweet mentality. We know he likes strong men. But just because he says the war is over, doesn’t make it so. He is not Captain Jean-Luc Picard after all. We are now on that train to solve humanity’s oldest war.

“Son I’ve made a life
Out of reading people’s faces
And knowing what their cards were
By the way they held their eyes
So, if you don’t mind my saying
I can see you’re out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey
I’ll give you some advice.” https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kennyrogers/thegambler.html

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Out of Sync

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

Just in case you’re not caught up on my exploits, here’s a tiny synopsis:

Since the last election, when I broke my neck, I’ve been out of sync with my life. My hands were useless, and my head had to be constrained 24/7 in an Aspen Collar. When my neck was set free, three months later, my twin granddaughters were born prematurely. Bob and I have been living in California ever since. Now it’s time to return to Nashville, to return to normal, whatever that means.

A friend once told me I seem to have a lot of adventures! Well, I’m determined to lead a very boring life from now on; I will retreat to my snug and write, I will start swimming again, maybe I’ll venture into the kitchen and whip up a batch of muffins with the Love Bug. And my only big adventure will be to finish reading my very first fantasy novel – “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” by Susanna Clarke.

I’m not a Lord of the Rings type. Even Harry Potter eluded my sensibilities. I’m an occasional fan of dystopian science fiction, but more enamored of historical fiction. Still I figured, why not give this twenty year old fantasy a go?

It all started when I came upon an Insta story from Parnassus Books. Ann Patchett was raving about this book as an escape for our times, but she warned it’s rather long and it will take 200 pages of boring description before taking off. I figured I needed the distraction, so instantly I downloaded the novel to my Kindle and I was hooked immediately.

It’s about the return of English magic – practical magic as opposed to theoretical magic! It takes place during the Napoleonic wars, with ancient fairy kingdoms and talking gargoyles. It’s about love and jealousy. And then I found out that Aunt Kiki loves fantasy novels. My beautiful, kind daughter-in-love, my Irish dancer, knows all about elves and magic!

If you’d like to venture into some modern fantasy, the Atlantic reviewed a new book this month titled “The Last Unicorn.”

“And perhaps all of this is why The Last Unicorn is a fantasy for these times. The novel doesn’t take place in a believable alternate world with clear rules and boundaries, but in a messy one more akin to ours. It’s not epic fantasy, but applied fantasy—which is to say, readers aren’t supposed to get lost in its invented world. We are supposed to import its lessons to our own world. In this uncertain age, when truth and falsehood are just rapidly converging talking points on the same blurry continuum, and wishful thinking is hopelessly mixed up with reality, The Last Unicorn urges audiences to do the things that need doing anyway, muddling through as best we can.” From the Atlantic – “One of the Best Fantasy Novels Ever…” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/last-unicorn-peter-beagle-50th-anniversary-reality-magic/575641/

When Lord Wellington asked Mr Norrell to conjure up some unicorns to ride into battle against the French, he replied there were none left. They’d become extinct. It’s good to know there’s one left!

Oh how I wish I didn’t have to return to reality. My cuddling babies and dog walking duties are done, my tiny twin granddaughters are well on the road to post-preemiehood and getting stronger every day. They’ve just about doubled their birth weight, and they immediately focus and listen when their Daddy plays the guitar. Do you remember those days of young motherhood?

I do. I remember them like they were yesterday.

Hello Spring. The roses and lilacs have bloomed outside my snug’s window.

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Cold Snap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

It’s December already. Bob and I try to walk after lunch since it’s too dark to walk after dinner. Yesterday was a record day for Welsh Corgi sightings on our park’s greenway. We met at least five of both the Pembroke and Cardigan variety, and thoroughly enjoyed talking to one young woman who was walking two Corgis – one a beautiful brindle and the other a tri-color like our Tootsie Roll. You might say I am missing having a dog. Nobody greets you at the door like ‘woman’s best friend!’

Speaking of canines, I have to confess my latest streaming obsession. “The Secret Life of Dancing Dogs” is on Hulu and is throughly worth watching. A reclusive woman from Norway and a young British woman with juvenile arthritis will steal your heart along with their dogs. I guess this is the closest thing to reality TV that I actually like because it combines my two great loves – dance and dogs!

https://www.hulu.com/series/the-secret-life-of-dancing-dogs-4df02fde-ad1d-4b73-97a2-ed52772d3469

The first time I saw a woman dancing with a dog was on the Gram. I tend to follow authors on social media and I’d just read Ann Leary’s book “The Good House,” so I was surprised to find out she is married to actor Denis Leary and lives on a farm with lots of animals. You know when we first moved south to Cville I’d wanted to raise alpacas, and so I envied her bucolic life. Leary’s videos were nearly always outside in New England weather of all sorts showing her horse whispering or dog dancing skills. How hard could it be I thought, to teach a dog to dance?

Very hard as I have learned from Hulu. Another sensational series on Apple is “Lessons in Chemistry.” I absolutely loved reading the book by Bonnie Garmus and although it’s true that the movie version was not quite like my imagination, it was enjoyable and cathartic nonetheless. A love story between two scientists with an actual talking dog – I mean…..

There was no dog featured in the latest Parnassus signed first edition, “The Absolution” by Alice McDermott. If you too are not fortunate enough to have the company of a furry friend, you may want to consider curling up with this book on a cold winter night. A seminar on power both personal and global, and its malignant consequences, it is compelling. She writes from a feminist perspective about our early build-up to the Vietnam War… which had me thinking of those Israeli soldiers, the young WOMEN who tried to warn their superiors about the uptick in Hamas activity before 10/7.

I’m beginning to wrap Hanukkah presents since latkes will be served the first night, this coming Thursday, December 7 (WHAAAA)! We decided to gift the Grands their first present early – warm puffer coats! This year will be a bittersweet holiday season for Jews around the world. We will light candles to illuminate yet another war, another moment in time when Jews were not assimilated or extinguished entirely.

In the second century BCE, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who tried to force the people of Israel to accept Greek culture and beliefs instead of mitzvah observance and belief in G‑d. Against all odds, a small band of faithful but poorly armed Jews, led by Judah the Maccabee, defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G‑d.“

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm

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