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Posts Tagged ‘Memoir’

A Life Story

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2015| 5 Comments »

Hold the applause and pass the champagne for our little coterie of writers in Cville. This past weekend I attended another writing workshop on Memoir at The Writer House. Our fearless leader, Sharon Harrigan, helped us dig into our past, crystalize our vision and discover a theme that might shape the story of a life. This town is a veritable estuary of literary types, it seems I have found my people!

Although I’m not crazy enough to think my life story gives me the right to run for President, for instance, I wondered if it’s worthy of a book, I thought that delving into my past could help me structure the fictional story I’ve been working on for years based on the life of my Flapper. You see, I didn’t really get to know my biological Mother until I moved in with her at the age of 12, and I never knew my birth Father. He died of a brain tumor when I was seven months old.

I could write a scene about the automobile accident three months later, on July Fourth weekend in 1949, our family’s Year of Living Dangerously, only through the eyes of my sister Kay. It might start like this scene in a drugstore in Scranton, PA:

Robert P. Norman’s name was emblazoned on the door and he was always happy to see us. I’m the oldest, and only girl at home, so I’m the sugar in his coffee. Only lately, Daddy was having trouble moving his left arm, and sometimes he had headaches, headaches that sent him stumbling towards his office in the back. I was heading there to see if he needed me when I heard my name.

She was fourteen at the time and is currently my living archive. She helped our Father pound chemicals into pills in the back of his pharmacy. After the accident, she was in a coma for a month. She had to care for me that summer and her brothers, and eventually the Flapper when she was discharged from the hospital, her dancer’s legs broken in so many places she would never walk normally again.

But first I had to get to know myself better. Sharon had us make a list of our quirks, which was a fun exercise and kept me busy jotting down things like:

  • “I need to keep my hair short, or I’ll twirl it all the time;”
  • “Small talk is painful, but I’m told I’m good at it;”
  • “Sleep will sometimes elude me for no particular reason;”
  • “I stop for stray dogs.”

I was getting discouraged, my quirks didn’t seem quirky enough. Then someone said we should ask a friend or family member to list our quirks. Genius!

“You have to load the dishwasher a certain way,” Bob said. Now that is true, and it did show up at the end of my list. I’ve even been known to return to a dishwasher only to reload it, if someone else was kind enough to “help” with the dishes.

I’m also pretty particular about hanging clothes out on a line. One of my very first memories is of getting stung by a bee under clouds of crisp white sheets floating above me on a clothesline.

And I love to dance. The Flapper signed me up for ballet at Phil Grassia’s studio in NJ. I chased a dream in high school and commuted to Martha Graham School in NYC to study modern dance. I continued to study all types of dance under Bill Bales at SUNY College at Purchase.

And when Bob, who never liked to dance, wouldn’t take me to our Junior Prom at sixteen, I asked our good friend Bernie. Because I was that girl who had two Mothers and was never afraid to ask for what I wanted. I guess that was pretty quirky in 1965.   Junior Prom 20151111

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A Mom for All Seasons

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2015| 2 Comments »

I’ve been thinking about my foster mother lately, Nelly Bly. She was born in Scranton, PA, the only girl out of 18 boys! Yes youngsters, before the Duggers, poor women had large families simply because birth control was unheard of, and/or you happened to be Catholic. Nell’s parents had immigrated from Czechoslovakia, and I distinctly remember her crying when we watched Russian tanks roll into her ancestral home in 1968.

The Warsaw Pact invasion of August 20–21 caught Czechoslovakia and much of the Western world by surprise. In anticipation of the invasion, the Soviet Union had moved troops from the Soviet Union, along with limited numbers of troops from Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Bulgaria into place by announcing Warsaw Pact military exercises. When these forces did invade, they swiftly took control of Prague, other major cities, and communication and transportation links. Given the escalating U.S. involvement in the conflict in Vietnam as well as past U.S. pronouncements on non-intervention in the East Bloc, the Soviets guessed correctly that the United States would condemn the invasion but refrain from intervening.                                            https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/soviet-invasion-czechoslavkia

Like the Ukraine today, the Czech and Slovak people were leaning toward the West, instituting reform and banning censorship. Communist Russia put her big bear fist down and that was that. I wonder what Nell would have thought of the Velvet Revolution, when Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two states for purely political motives on Jan 1, 1993? She died when I was pregnant with the Bride, and we still thought a poet might be elected President.

Nell was a proud Slovak, but she didn’t like to cook. For special occasions however, she would prepare Halupkis ( pronounced ha-LOOP-keys). This is a mouth watering stuffed cabbage, simmered for hours on a big bed of sauerkraut. Nell’s father used to make his own sauerkraut in the basement in barrels, but she was happy to buy it pre-packaged. I like to imagine her as a child, picking a cabbage out of their garden, helping her mother grind the meat in the kitchen, and tenderly folding the leaves around the rice and meat mixture.

Maybe because she had so much responsibility in the kitchen, as the only girl in her family full of brothers, she loved modern day conveniences – or should I say “mid-century modern?” One of my favorite dinner nights was “Chinese.” I think it was La Choy, but in the ’50s you could find a box in the grocery store with everything you would need to make dinner. The original Hamburger Helper, only you didn’t need to cook anything, just warm it up!

I translated that to “Taco Night” in our house. I’d add the packet of Mexican seasonings to ground turkey, stand up the hard Old El Paso tacos and let the kids pile whatever they wanted on top, which usually meant lots of cheese. It’s almost wistfully tender to think back about the days when we didn’t need to know where our food came from, so long as it showed up on our table.

And today I admit, I will occasionally cave and whip up an organic Annie’s Mac and Cheese for the Love Bug. Am I willing to order one of those Blue Apron type dinners that would be delivered to me in the mail, with instructions on how to prepare all the fresh ingredients? NO.

Because grocery shopping is my God-given right. I want to smell and feel the fruit, and know when the salmon was delivered. But I understand that working women, and men, are still looking for time-saving ways to serve a meal to their family, even if it’s not two dozen people at the dinner table.

Maybe I’m thinking of my Mother because next year, Bob and I are planning to visit Prague. But today I’m heading to the ballot box in VA because I do believe in birth control and I don’t believe in censorship. And I want guns out of the hands of abusers, and the mentally ill. And I have to think that Nelly Bly would agree.

This is my cauliflower au gratin – made with sweetened condensed milk and goat cheese. Nell put canned milk in her coffee, so I always have it on hand!IMG_3401

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Tales From the Crypt

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on October 31, 2015| 1 Comment »

Halloween this way comes. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of my Facebook friend’s grandchildren dressed up like little pumpkins, monsters and Olafs…and if you don’t know who he is, well he’s like Frosty the Snowman. Only he’d rather be sunbathing.

After years of buying mini-candies and waiting for some Trick or Treaters, we’ve given up hope. Our dirt driveway is too long and too far off the beaten path for children. I would usually stuff my face with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and call it a night. Admittedly, these delightful morsels are the best thing ever invented as a chocolate delivery system, which is exactly why I never buy them. You believe me, right?

When I was little, my Slovakian foster mom Nell would dress me up as a gypsy. I didn’t really know what that was, but I enjoyed putting on make-up and wearing jewelry. At some point, usually in Middle School, our children all rebel and want to design their own Halloween costume. This should make life easier for the parents, but actually it becomes much harder.

I hate to sound stereotypical, but let’s get real – the boys all want to be villains or zombies, and the girls say so long to the princess look and decide to be sexy starlets. Not all, but certainly you’ve seen gangs of pre-teens roaming your neighborhood dressed like Whitey Bulger and Taylor Swift? You can see I’m off by a few decades; the Bride would chose to be some version of Madonna, and the Rocker?

He could get creative. A pirate, a gangster, a zombie. Surprisingly, never a rock star.

But this is their chance to try out being a “bad boy.” Because once they hit high school, the road narrows and their destiny can get kidnapped by peer pressure and the need to belong. Boys learn to ignore their emotions, they are taught not to smile. In most public high schools they have two paths – the sports route or the party route. And the party route can be dangerous. Some can never recover from that road. They wind up dead at 27.

My Rock Star was voted “Most Changed” in high school, probably because he didn’t fit into a neat category for this preppy, suburban school. He went his own way, he stayed true to himself and played guitar at every dive on the Jersey Shore. He found other outliers to jam with and by the time he graduated from school, his original metal band, Hypon, was in high demand, and he was their business manager and website developer. I only offered them snacks in the garage.

Did I wish he’d play baseball and want to go into finance? Sure, but that’s not our job as parents. We have to sit back once our kids become teenagers and marvel at who they are becoming, and continue to nurture their dreams. Not ours. If we did our job right in those critical early years, we can pat ourselves on the back. The pirate, wizard and Star Wars character will morph into the leading man of their own unique story.

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Wild Wild West Nile

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on August 18, 2015| 2 Comments »

Over the weekend we had a friend come for dinner. While sitting on the deck at twilight, sipping VA wine and gazing out at the mountains, she noted the lack of bugs. Which of course led to my narrative on life at the Jersey Shore, how Monmouth County was the epicenter of tick/thug life, and eventually my experience as a West Nile survivor.

It was the summer we were packing up the Rocker for college. We lived in a tony swamp, on an estuary of a river. I’d have to swat mosquitoes off my hands in the middle of the day while hanging laundry outside on my clothesline. Let it be said, I love hanging towels, sheets and everything else in the sun and wind for that smell. It’s become a meditation of sorts.

For a full week I suffered with a blinding headache and a fever. But I carried on, never seeing a doctor because why bother, I lived with one.

Not until my eyes had turned as bright red as stop lights, and I could no longer read. That’s when I went to the first eye doctor. The one who told me to go home and wash my hands, I had conjunctivitis…

Then Bob took me to the “good” eye doctor, my savior, the one who realized right away what was going on. I remember distinctly his feeling of – what? Pity, sympathy – no doctor has ever looked at me like that before or since – and I was off to Bob’s old ER on the river for tests. Dropping steroid drops in my eyes every hour, swallowing steroid pills while packing up my son for his next great adventure. And eventually, I was an empty-nester who had lost my right-mid and lower-quadrant visual field; the peripheral vision of both eyes. My daughter’s favorite medical term, I think just because she liked the sound of it on her tongue, became my final diagnosis; Homonymous Hemianopsia. Say that five times fast!    

When i think about it, that’s most likely the reason I fell to the right in the bounce house. It’s the reason I jump when someone approaches me from the right. Most likely I abhor crowds because of my brain injury and it’s why I turn my head to the right so much while driving. All because of a little bug.

Which is why this recent headline caught my eye, “Orange horse is first West Nile equine victim of the year.” 

Orange is not the color of the mare, it’s a county one field away as the mosquito flies. “In 2014, there were seven cases of West Nile virus in humans in Virginia and three equine cases, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The human cases occurred in August and September and the equine cases occurred in September and October.” http://m.dailyprogress.com/news/local/orange-horse-is-first-west-nile-equine-victim-of-the/article

So even though we live in the mountains now, in a relative bug-free zone, I guess these are the months to spray bug repellant and light citronella candles. Makes me long for the Berkshires.  IMG_3030

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Bad Girls

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

While watching part of the GOP debate, I started to feel like that Angry character in the movie Inside Out. The one with fiery hair and a voice like Lewis Black. In the continual news coverage of Trump’s performance, I thought something is missing. Now we hear Hillary calling it out, the unbelievably, unimaginable gall of Rubio to tell us all that his Catholic faith informs his public policy – ie sorry no abortions ladies, life begins at conception, oh and btw, that he would make no exceptions for rape or incest.

And so we see again, ten men discussing womens’ private parts. But as Elizabeth (yes we’re on a first name basis) said, did they fall down and hit their heads and wake up in the 1950s? Because I lived through those years, when young women were butchered in backyard alleys, when they were sent away in shame to deliver a baby and hand it over for adoption, when they were rendered infertile and sometimes died. When women had no voice at all, none. Some women did the “good” thing and married the guy at 17, if he was amenable.

Today, young women are supposedly given condoms in school at a certain age and told how to use them. Of course this is all according to a state-sanctioned sex-ed/health curriculum, that varies from California to New York. Some states prefer to teach about waiting for marriage. But, girls can walk into a drug store and buy a Plan B pill if the condom failed…in fact, they still could walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and get a shot a patch or a pill to prevent conception. But not if these ten men on stage have their way, clinics will cease to exist for reproductive health care – in other words, it’s the poor, the marginalized, the girls who could never in a million years talk to their parents about sex, these are the girls who will suffer.

Then this morning I read this: “Letter to Our Daughters: Do Not Be Good.”  The author, Megan Bergman, is writing about becoming a teenager to her pre-school daughters: http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/letter-to-my-daughters-do-not-be-good/

You are entitled to the Dark Poetry Stage, and although it’s going to hurt like hell when you push me away, it’s necessary. (I hope I’m there to be pushed, and return doggedly.) I’m raising you to be independent beings, not fleshy basement-dwellers who play video games and pound energy drinks while the sunny world goes by. Or girls who try to appease my ego by being conventionally “good” and who then have to forge a secret rebellion. No! Rebel in the open.

I want you out in the world getting the good stuff. I want sun on your skin and banned books in your backpack, and when I’m old and diapered I want you to walk into my house, turn down the George Michael songs, and tell me about all the incredible discoveries you’ve made about the planet and yourself. I want you to tell me about your mistakes, heartbreaks, dreams, and plans. Those things are your engine. In my life, failure has been a much better engine than success. Artistic and personal.

George Michael doesn’t do it for me, maybe the Stones? My generation of women wrote the Book “Our Bodies Ourselves” because if we can’t control our body, how can we take control of our own lives?  We don’t need to cover our hair, we can dye it blue. We can go to a movie like Trainwreck and celebrate our badasses.

Because being good isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: when it limits our choices; when it keeps us subservient; when it cancels our dreams.

We don’t have to take typing in school and end up in a Mad Men office anymore. We may even get equal pay for equal work soon! I went to Catholic school AND camp. I was taught to be good above all else. And believe me, throwing off those shackles felt amazing. Rubio and his ilk would like to put those chains back on, but he doesn’t know that young women today will never allow that to happen. After years of being dressed in a beanie and uniform, I allowed the Bride to wear whatever she wanted to school. It was the late 80s, think Dirty Dancing, and she was killing it!

Note to my daughter – remember your grandmother was a Flapper, remember this when the Love Bug turns 11, it’s a magical age.  Cute Kids

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Travel Writing

Posted in books, Wedding, tagged , , , , , , , on July 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Today I’m off to take a workshop on Travel Writing! I’ve been thinking about the topic since I managed to find an email about the class yesterday. Bring “pen and paper” the instructor said, since we will be passing our work around the class.

Learn to write compelling and engaging travel narratives (personal essays, articles ,or memoir pieces), which combine the eye of a journalist with the flair of a storyteller. In-class readings and exercises will address pertinent craft issues, and we’ll also discuss the practical matters of how to submit your work for publication.

I’m off to a good start since I already have the “…eye of a journalist,” but what kind of stories should I tell? Should I write for the soon-to-retire Boomer generation, the grandparents among us with more free time and a long bucket list? Or should I focus on memoir, and write about our trips to Martha’s Vineyard with friends when the kids were very little?

After we moved back to NJ, and because we could never travel in the summer – all those newbie residents in July needed Bob’s attention – we fell into the habit of visiting one island in the French West Indies over and over again nearly every winter. It was perfect for Bob because he could lay on a beach and decompress from his intense and busy work life. It became less than perfect for me. Being Irish, with red-headed skin, I wanted to avoid the sun, and…

I wanted action! I wanted adventure! I’d listen longingly to friends who were biking in Vietnam, or hiking across Ireland. I know, complaining about going to the same island every year sounds like a First World problem, but believe me, I was done with the beach. Here are some of my ideas for our next chapter:

A riverboat cruise along the Danube

A cooking school in Tuscany

A photographic safari in South Africa

A hot air ballon trip over France

A writing workshop in Iowa (OK, that’s just me)

A knitting excursion to farms in the UK, or maybe Wales

And I just want to see Iceland!

But for now our next trip will be to Charleston, SC this Fall. Before the devastating mass shooting at the AME church, Charleston had been voted the best US city to visit in Travel and Leisure’s survey, and the second best in the world!! http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/30/travel/tl-worlds-best-cities/

We’ll be going with the Bride and Groom to check out the city and have some fun with the grandbabies. I’ve rented an ocean view home on Home Away, so I guess it will be cooking and sunscreen for me all over again. Still, I love to cook with the Bride and could never complain about combing sand out of the Love Bug’s hair. It will be like deja vu all over again.

The next island generation

The next island generation

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

EE Cummings

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One Giant Leap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2015| 2 Comments »

Yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and last night Bob and I watched the “Apollo Wives” documentary on PBS. It was a fascinating trip down memory lane for anyone old enough to remember where they were on July 20, 1969.

I was in a basement apartment in Cambridge, MA with a my roomie Alicia. My own wedding was on the horizon, and the moon landing was on a small black and white TV in the corner of our apartment. I remember feeling awed and wondering if the footage had been slowed down, because the effect of zero gravity didn’t translate to my brain.

Bob called me soon afterwards, to see if I had watched. There were no DVRs or recording devices to play back such a monumental moment in time. If you missed it, you’d have to wait for the next day’s evening news show. I had to remind Bob I was marrying someone else. I wonder if he remembers?

That August, Bob had to chase his own stardust at Woodstock:

The story of Woodstock, slice it how you will, is anti-Darwinian; nature suspended her processes of selection, and everyone more or less lovingly muddled through. Such menaces as there were seem to have been collective—the dodgy brown acid, the lack of sanitation, the rain that left concertgoers huddled under (packaged in?) sheets of clear plastic. When Sri Swami Satchidananda, ochre-robed, inaugurated the proceedings on August 15, he proclaimed the imminent oneness of everything: “America is becoming a whole!”  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/woodstock-nation/307611/

America became whole when a man landed on the moon, but we didn’t know much about the military/astronaut wives back in the day. The press paraded their pretty faces in the back pages of newspapers. The drinking, the Valium and the divorces were kept under wraps. It was a watershed year for women, do you go all “Stepford Wife” or do you continue your education and put off marriage? Burn your bra, or pull up your girdle and soldier on?

Well there was a little known woman, an MIT scientist, behind the design of the software that made that Apollo mission possible. Margaret Hamilton and her team wrote the code for the computer’s guidance system on board the rocket. When NASA thought they may have to abort the landing, she figured out the computer’s memory was being overloaded with too much inconsequential data – she taught them how to prioritize! Landing went to the top of the list – isn’t it ironic?!

And this was when computers used “core rope memory” which was woven in a laborious process by hand, by women in factories…hence the male engineers called these memory programs “LOL Memory.” And it wasn’t because it was humorous. LOL stood for “Little Old Ladies.” http://www.vox.com/2015/5/30/8689481/margaret-hamilton-apollo-software

So here’s to you Margaret Hamilton! For going where no woman had gone before. And here’s to every girl who takes a science or a math class and loves it! In Catholic school, and later in high school, I was never given that opportunity. It wasn’t until college that I discovered I loved science. Back in 1969, I thought my future was secure. I’d be the wife of a Harvard lawyer and create cocktail parties to beat the band. Luckily, I woke up.

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton

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Smoky Mountain Drive

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 12, 2015| 2 Comments »

Here we are again, on the road to Nashville. Trucks pulling into the left lane just as I approach another hill, Dollywood in the rearview mirror. And I know y’all are wondering what in God’s name is she listening to now, in that wilderness between Cville and Nville, what’s the latest podcast all the young’uns are tuning into?

While loading up the car this morning, the Bride called me to say I just HAD to download Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. She said that time would just fly by, and I had to listen to his interview with Terri Gross. Maron is a comedian, granted one I’d never heard of, but I love Terri Gross. Her voice could put me into a catatonic state, and I mean that in a good way. She is arguably one of the best interviewers on the planet; little did I know her life story would mimic mine in so many ways.

Terri is a bit younger. Hailing from Brooklyn, I had no idea she was Jewish. She graduated high school just two years after me, in 1968. But she dropped out for awhile to hitchhike across the country! Now I used to hitchhike up at Camp St Joseph in the Catskills, but to San Francisco for the summer of love? She talked about being on the forefront of the feminist movement; her first radio job was on a feminist radio station. She had a starter marriage too. She even tried teaching – check, check, check!

I found it interesting that she chose not to have children, because she felt she couldn’t accomplish her career goals. I vaguely remember those days; young feminists thought you couldn’t have it all, the fantastic career and a family. It was either one or the other. We thought children were our responsibility alone, that marriage was a construct with little chance of success. If we wanted the whole package, it was best to give up our dreams for awhile and work at supporting our spouse, Stay barefoot and pregnant, baking cookies. For alot of women, the dream deferred ended in divorce.

Remember that crack about cookies from Hillary? Not every woman had a Harvard law degree and nonstop childcare.

Listening to Terri talk, it took me back. My brother, sister and I were just on a conference call last Sunday talking about what our lives might have been like if our Father didn’t die in 1949, and our Mother wasn’t hit by a drunk driver later that summer. Would we all still be living in PA? Would Kay have been an early airline stewardess/lipstick feminist? Would Jim have become a psychologist? Would I have chosen to stay at home with my children, and write for a local newspaper? Would I have raised a daughter who thinks she CAN have it all? Or a son who wants nothing more than to make music?

Ms Cait and the Rocker sent me an interesting test to gauge my political persona and help me decide who I should vote for next year. I thought for sure I’d be a staunch Hillary supporter, but surprisingly my political leanings are toward Bernie! Now  Bernie Sanders is not even on my radar since he continues to sound like an NRA lobbyist; and even more than feminist issues, gun control in 2016 will be my litmus test. Still, if you have the time the test is fun – http://www.isidewith.com

And to find out more about Bernie’s life in the Green Mountains of Vermont – http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927.html#.VaGtoYuCaFI

Bob in the Blue Mountains

Bob in the Blue Mountains

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The Hat Trick

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on July 7, 2015| 2 Comments »

When the Rocker was two years old, we moved back to our home state of NJ. It was a tricky transition. I loved and still love New England. I love the kind and fiercely independent people; I love the weather, a little like the Emerald Isle; I loved Martha’s Vineyard in the Spring and Tanglewood in the Summer. And believe it or not, I loved the Winter. We would ice skate on frozen ponds and go cross country skiing out our back door, through a bird sanctuary. And the Fall foliage was like no other.

It’s true you can’t go home again, but I wanted to keep something of the Berkshires for my transplanted babies in NJ. Instead of driving to the Big Apple Circus in Lenox, we took the train to Lincoln Center. And instead of skating on a frozen pond, I signed the Rocker up for ice hockey when he could just barely carry his own equipment bag. I would sit and freeze at the Jersey Shore rink, watching him skate like he was born with blades on his feet.

That was the first time I heard of a “Hat Trick.” And for the rest of my days I thought it was a hockey term.

Until Sunday night. World Cup Soccer was the cap on a dismal Fourth of July weekend – my Fourths are almost always dismal – (Bob working the Fourth and our Year of Living Dangerously culminating on the Fourth with the Flapper’s car accident combine to make this holiday less lovely for obvious reasons).

Anyway, I was kvelling over Carli Llyod’s third blistering mid-court goal in the Women’s World Cup Soccer game, and I heard the term again. She had scored the first three goals in the first 16 minutes of the game! I missed the first one because I was feeding Ms Bean, but immediately caught the replay. Bob then returned home from the hospital to find me hopping around the living room, twirling my dish towel like a banshee!

The U.S. was the superior team through and through. Not content with four, it scored yet another goal — an easy finish by Tobin Heath in the 54th minute. It had had seven shots on goal to Japan’s four.

Much of the credit goes to the U.S. goalie, Hope Solo.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/football/womens-world-cup-final/

Before ice hockey, I was the Rocker’s pee wee soccer coach. I cut up the oranges before games and tried not to act like ALL the other male soccer coaches. Sometimes cruel, often not fair, and loud as only NJ coaches can be, I was the Yin to their Yang. Since I had to look up this complimentary Chinese philosophy, to make sure I was using the phrase correctly, I was amused to find the feminine form “Yin” is the negative force?! Huh? “Yin is negative, dark, and feminine, Yang positive, bright, and masculine. Their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it.”

Believe it or not, the term Hat Trick originated in 1858 by Brits playing Cricket, whenever someone got three wickets, whatever that means, they scored a Hat Trick. Fans would collect money to buy the champion Hat Tricker a new hat back in the day. http://mentalfloss.com/article/65863/where-does-soccer-term-hat-trick-come

Well ladies, my hat is off to you! To the Scarlet Knight from Rutgers, Carli – to the Huskie from U of Washington, Hope, – to the Gator from U of Florida, Abby. To the two UVA Cavs on the team, my heart has been officially won! And anyone with a little girl in love with soccer, here are the top colleges for future World Champions, and UVA is number 2! http://college.usatoday.com/2015/02/20/these-are-the-10-best-d1-womens-soccer-schools-in-the-u-s/

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The Art of Living

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on June 6, 2015| 4 Comments »

Every now and again we go all out. Usually it’s for a big event, like our wedding anniversary. To celebrate our early years in the Berkshires, we would travel across state lines to Hillsdale, New York for an excellent French meal at L’Hostellerie Bressane, a country inn. According to a review from the 80s, the rooms had a “rustic charm” and the kind of attention to detail that is similar to a French “auberge.” Of course I thought of an eggplant, but auberge comes from an old Germanic root and means an inn or tavern.

Now I was not entirely new to this type of laid-back luxury. When I was young, some of my earliest memories are of my older sister Kay taking me out to “dine” in New York City’s finest clubs and restaurants. Long before food network stars, there was a certain understanding that Lutece was the best of the best French bistros. It was THE place to be seen in the 60s, and has been recreated on the set of Mad Men. I always felt like such an impostor, a country mouse taking the bus from NJ to my big sister’s upper East Side apartment; being scolded corrected about my burgeoning Jersey girl accent; being taught what fork to use when, and how to eat a baguette like a lady. She was my Auntie Mame and I was her willing student.

Lutece was in business for 43 years, but alas has fallen prey to the new cuisine of a new world. Andre Soltner was not just the chef, he was the owner and greeter at the door. He swept the floors and ordered the flowers. A choreographer in the kitchen, he never opened another Lutece, there was only one and will be only one. Maybe it closed because of that, because its entire existence depended on just one man.

I could never have opened a second restaurant, though many people suggested it,” said Mr. Soltner, who missed a grand total of four days of work between 1961, when Lutèce opened, and 1994, when he sold it. “I had to take responsibility for each person’s pleasure and well-being. It was my job.”

http://observer.com/2013/04/an-evening-at-lutece-andre-soltners-famed-restaurant-resurrected-for-one-night-only/#ixzz3cI7cpZu0

A luxurious meal of old may be hard to come by today, with restaurant “themes” and chemical gastronomies of celebrity chefs who open multiple eateries around the country. But Bob and I managed to find that old world charm again for our 36th wedding  anniversary dinner in Virginia. From the moment we pulled up to Chef/Owner Patrick O’Connell’s The Inn at Little Washington, we knew. https://www.theinnatlittlewashington.com

We were greeted at the door, by name, and asked if we’d like to sit in the dining room or on the porch overlooking the garden. I could imagine secret liaisons between the ghosts of political power couples lurking in the corners, so I chose the garden room because I loved the light. Chef O’Connell transformed this sleepy town into a world-class destination, in the most gorgeous rolling countryside an hour from Washington, DC, just a year before we were married.

O’Connell has been referred to as “the Pope of American Cuisine”. His orientation is different from most chefs today primarily because he considers himself to be a restaurateur and as the title implies, his goal is to actually restore and heal people – the preparation and presentation of food being but a single element in the process. Selecting The Inn at Little Washington as one of the top ten restaurants in the world, Patricia Wells of The International Herald Tribune hails O’Connell as “a rare chef with a sense of near perfect taste, like a musician with perfect pitch.”

What an inspiring, delightful tastings menu! My palate and nearly every one of my senses was awakened The service was impeccable. Our waiter appeared just as we thought we might need something, as if he could read minds. He was professional but not stuffy, prompt but not intrusive. He asked about allergies because the chef was preparing an amuse bouche – it wasn’t called that, but occasionally we’d be surprised by a small bite between courses. Silverware was replaced immediately, and water was poured simultaneously; like a French Foreign Legion drill team. Bob chose the Menu of the Moment and I chose the Enduring Classic Menu, without the wine pairings:

A Shot of Chilled Minted English Pea Soup

Chilled Maine Lobster Salad with Marinated Hawaiian Heart of Palm

Carpaccio of Herb-Crusted Baby Lamb Loin with Pistachio Ice Cream

                          Pan Seared Rockfish with Braised Baby Bok Choy and Softshell Crab Tempura

Huckleberry Marinated Squab Breast with a Crispy Potato Galette

Veal Shenandoah: Local Prosciutto Wrapped Loin of Veal with Country Ham and Fontina Cheese Ravioli

The Inn at Little Washington is a member of the famed Relais et Chateaux. http://www.relaischateaux.com/en/search-book/hotel-restaurant/washington/#.VXMNgKaCblI Long before we heard of “farm to table,” small, exclusive restaurants were practicing and cultivating partnerships with local farmers. Created in France in 1954, today there are 520 establishments that bear the esteemed fleur de lys around the world. “Relais & Châteaux is an association of the world’s finest hoteliers, chefs and restaurateurs that has set the standard for excellence in hospitality. Relais & Châteaux has redefined luxury hospitality by emphasising holistic experiences that transport its guests, taking them on a sensual journey and introducing them to a deeper, truer understanding of the Art of Living.”

IF you were married in June, I wish y’all a very happy anniversary! And feel free to tell me what you do to celebrate your anniversary. IMG_2717

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