Starting the New Year

Now that the book stuff is all sorted -- old challenges put to bed, new challenges accepted, and books chosen -- I can turn my attention to a wrap-up of 2025 and maybe a look ahead into 2026.

I'm not very good with predictions, but I am noticing some trends.

Overall, 2025 was a good year. I celebrated my birthday by making some decisions to expand my life and my circle of friends. It seems to be a pattern right now that I have plenty of friends, but they live far away. I also have plenty of acquaintances, but they, too, live far way. 

I moved to this town as a consequence of my relationship with Kayak Guy. I won't say it was a mistake, but . . . the connection was tenuous. We probably should have thought it through more carefully. Now that relationship has settled into a cordial but distant friendship. For a while we were spending a lot of time together, even after calling it quits romantically. It was casual -- meeting for meals and working on a few projects together -- but it wasn't healthy, so I gradually put a stop to that. 

I don't regret buying my house here -- I got in when good prices were still to be had, so I have equity -- but it locks me into a geographical area that's fairly remote from the places I frequent. I should put down some roots here beyond owning a home, but so far, nothing doing.  

And so, apropos of my birthday, I spent some time thinking about the best times and best friendships of my life in the past, and discovered that they revolved around horseback riding and Dungeons & Dragons (a tabletop roleplaying game or, as I like to call it, collective improvisational storytelling. Sounds fancy, right? If you're not familiar, here's a good introduction: What is D&D.). 

Riding and roleplaying: an odd combination, right? But both are niche hobbies that require a serious time commitment and both attract a certain type of person . . . so I decided to give it a go.

I already started riding a few years back and that has been fun and fulfilling, but it hasn't created much socializing outside of my time at the barn. The barn is an hour away, and the people who meet there for riding and camaraderie live in various directions from that central point. We are all busy and further socializing seems unlikely to happen. 

That left D&D. I played many, many hours in college and enjoyed it immensely. My friends and I formed deep bonds, both within the game and in real life; we ate meals together, threw parties together, and went to events like the local Renaissance Faire together. Then the centrifugal forces of graduation spun us off into various directions at different intervals. We kept in touch for a while afterwards and although the bond remained, our contacts and visits faded with time as we got busy with jobs, marriages, children, and all the details of everyday life. This was years ago, before email, texting, and social media made keeping in touch so much more doable. 

Deciding to pick up the game again, I reached out to my local game store. They were nice people and welcomed me with sound advice about how to get started again. The game has changed a lot since I played in the early 1980s! Their help was very welcome, but that circumstance didn't really gel. There were no beginner-friendly games starting and there were no openings in their existing games, so I looked further afield. About an hour away I found a game store with a very active, beginner-friendly community and signed up immediately to participate.

That turned out to be a fantastic choice! I immediately met a game master who plays exactly the way I liked to play, lo, those many years ago, and several other players who also clicked with his approach. Suddenly I was involved in a Tuesday night game and a Saturday night game, every other week . . .  and my D&D life ramped up to an exciting, enjoyable level.

Things have shifted a little since then. The Tuesday night game ran into some personality conflicts in-game and in real life, and imploded (not uncommon in D&D, which is ultimately a game about people); fortunately, a different Tuesday night game has taken its place. 

I'm also playing in a Saturday night game and having a ball, especially considering how 7 strangers can coalesce into a fun-loving, adventurous party that laughs a lot and also gets things done! We have a wonderful mix of characters and an exciting storyline that challenges us to be heroes every time we play. It's everything I wanted in returning to the game.  

As part of this exploration, I tried on-line play but it didn't work as well for me. I enjoy the camaraderie of sitting around a table with friends, without a lot of tech stuff to navigate. I'm also playing occasionally on Sundays, in a very high level game, but time conflicts are starting to phase that game out.     

I haven't made any strong friends yet, but I'm definitely getting a dose of in-person interaction that enhances my life. I've also discovered that some people at work also play, which gives a different dimension to our water-cooler talk.   

Overall, I'm extremely glad that I took the plunge to start playing again. A little reinvention is good for the soul, you know?

Nostalgia Ain't What It Used to Be

Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Daybook provided a nicely retro diversion from the sort of thing I usually read. It reminded me of the books in my grandmother's library, the ones I used to read "in self-defense" during the month I spent with her every summer. 

As an Illinois girl marooned in Florida by my father's job and his rejection of snow, my mother often lamented the climate (our house did not have air conditioning) and the impossibility of buying or growing a decent tomato. She counteracted those deficits by taking me to visit her family in Illinois every summer for the month of August. For many years of my childhood, this arrangement was divine -- in many ways, absolutely, bar none, the best way to spend a summer vacation ever. 

I realize now that the many traditions implicated in this arrangement probably deserve a post of their own -- so I will stick with the book review.    

Because those summer weeks included a lot of downtime, I read a lot of things a child perhaps would not read. Some of those books have stayed with me all my life. I'm sorry to say this would not have been one of them. 

No doubt I am a different reader of books now. This could have been a pleasantly bland diversion into country life -- full of important dilemmas such as whether to move the sofa away from the window when it has become the dogs' favorite lookout perch -- but it left me cold. 

I'm sure others love this book, so I will simply say, "Not for me, thank you." I prefer my nostalgia with a little more grit these days. Maxine Kumin, I'm looking at you.

Less is Plenty

I gave up having a full-size Christmas tree years ago, when my then-husband and I grew tired of having to tie it to the wall to keep our young cats from toppling it. The cats loved sleeping underneath it among the presents and occasionally rambling into the boughs, but it was just too much effort and worry. Once we made the non-traditional choice, it was a big relief and the world did not come to an end.

Then-husband has moved on, as have I, and the kitties lived out their lives in love and safety as the years rolled on. I confess to "tree envy" now and again, and even succumbed to using an artificial tree for a few years. But now I'm back to a tabletop tree and happy with that choice. (Shout-out to Connie over at Connie Cooks and Contemplates for her small-tree solidarity.)

My Christmas decorations are down to two boxes of my very favorite things, with Kayak Guy's favorite things added to the mix. I spread everything out on the entry buffet, with votive candles to take up the bare spots, and work the small presents in. Larger presents pile on the floor nearby. It creates a festive holiday display -- on a manageable scale.

The tabletop tree, peeking around the gifts 

NOEL candle holders from Kayak Guy's childhood

My ornaments from Russia, plus a few others

On the front door, some classic yarn
kitsch made by Kayak Guy's dad

Of course, things could be different next year. One never knows.

At a public library in Sulęcin, Poland, shared on Facebook

Posted on Facebook by Jonathan W. Pote

This Bit of Summer

I could have styled this photo better (just a slight turn would have covered the sink drain with a leaf, right?) but I just slapped and snapped. Obviously.

And so you get a microcosm of early summer: a surprise hydrangea, backed up with some organic tomatoes in a blue bowl, and a sweet potato and an onion in one of my favorites, a blue-and-white polka dot bowl.

The hydrangea isn't native and so I am inclined to look askance at it, except when it fluffs up these pretty pale blue or creamy white flowers, as if to woo me into having more positive feelings about it. When it's not flowering, the only reason I tolerate it is that Kayak Guy's dad probably planted it, an unknown number of years ago.

The tomatoes come from the nearby CSA and the downtown farmers market, and are so much more deliciously local than what the grocery store offers. The CSA is almost done for the year -- once this run of summer squash ends -- because the Florida growing season is essentially backwards from traditional garden timing.

The farmers market will soldier on through the hot months, but will switch over to okra and collards, two things that I like even less than hydrangeas and store-bought tomatoes. It may be a long summer.

I remember buying the polka dot bowl on a "junking" trip with a dear friend, about 25 years ago when I collected blue-and-white pottery and displayed it in an antique cupboard. Now all I really collect is books, being more inclined to shed most other possessions whenever I can. But I've kept a few of my very favorite pieces from the decorating days, and I've kept the friend, too.

Such small things, and so much pleasure from each of them. There's a lesson there somewhere.

Around Town

My future home town prides itself on being an old-fashioned Florida small town with a contemporary attitude. Someday soon I'll write a profile that shows off the notable sights.

For now, here's a pseudo-postcard. I'm sorry this market is no longer open. I would love to be able to say, "Here's where I buy my fish."

The downtown farmer's market was bustling bravely on Saturday morning. It tries hard to please, but is still a little heavy on the crafts side of things. My friend Bill laments the fact that Mr. Pickle doesn't come 'round anymore. I am too new in town to understand his feeling of loss, but I am missing the Cheese Man. He hasn't been seen since June, and I am sadly in need of a white wine cheddar fix.

Desiring neither a bamboo flute nor some handcrafted soap, I settled for fresh French bread, tomatoes, chocolate chip cookies, and rainbow carrots. The rainbow carrots alone were worth the trip. So pretty!

Tasty, too.

There Must Be a Camera Around Here Somewhere

Do you ever feel like you're inside a movie? I had one of those moments the other night at the mall.

I was dashing through Macy's when I passed a tall good-looking gentleman about my age. I wasn't doing that kind of shopping, but I noticed he seemed to really make and hold eye contact with me as I whisked by. And he looked vaguely familiar.

After I passed him, I turned and looked back. He had turned and was still staring at me. He had on a jacket and he had his hands in his pockets. More than his face, there was something about his posture . . . but I shook it off and kept going around the signage and onto the escalator.

I could tell that there was going to be a gap about half way up the escalator, and I couldn't help but look over. He was still staring at me, still with that stance. Suddenly I recognized him and called out his name, with about 6 question marks after it. And he called out mine in the same questioning tone.

And then I had to ride the elevator the rest of the way up, go around, and ride back down. Where he was waiting at the bottom with a big hug.

Surely there was a camera nearby. It was just like a movie scene.

Amazing. He and I were great pals in high school and hadn't seen each other since the 20-year reunion, which was about 15 years ago. I met his wife then, and she was with him in the store, too, so we got reacquainted.

Back in 1977, he and I strenuously competed for the role of Editor-in-Chief of the annual staff. He was chosen and I was his right hand all senior year while we sweat blood to produce a great yearbook. I don't think I've ever admitted this, but his idea for the theme was way better than mine, and I'm glad he won. He was a much better EIC than I would have been.

We never dated, but we did go to the homecoming dance together that year. To this day, it's the most fun I've ever had at a dance.

I had a boyfriend who had already graduated, and he didn't want to go to homecoming and didn't mind that I went with someone else. (Note to self: this sort of behavior is a real red flag. No wonder things didn't work out.)

My pal picked me up in his battered, decidedly uncool midnight blue station wagon. He had been held back a grade in elementary school, so he was of legal age. We stopped by a liquor store for some vodka and a quart of orange juice, mixed it up in the car, and shared it straight from the carton in the school parking lot before going in to the dance.

Seriously, it is one of my fondest high school memories. No tension, no pressure, nothing but just plain fun.

I wonder if he remembers that the same way I do. We didn't talk about it in the store -- apparently it wasn't in the script.

Telephone Man, uh, I Mean Woman

I recently decided to get a home phone. I was threatening to go over my cellphone minutes and it worked out to be less expensive to get a landline than to upgrade my cell plan. Such is modern life.

The phone guy came to install the phone.  He made kind of a big deal about having to drill through the wall to run in the cable, so we agreed to hook the phone up to the internet box.  That meant the phone had to live in a cabinet, which was not that big a deal for me.  In fact, I kind of enjoyed the Green Acres/Funny Farm echo of having a non-standard telephone experience.

I had purchased a basic phone for the occasion.  I had not purchased the batteries the phone required for caller i.d.  The day after the installation, I changed to a longer cord (to reach the couch from the cabinet, natch) and installed the batteries.  Guess what?  No dial tone.

Several sessions of on-line help followed, without success.  Finally a quality control person was dispatched to fix the problem.  He explained that it wasn't a big deal to drill the wall, and that doing so would allow every phone jack in the entire residence to work. Imagine!  A phone anywhere in the house!  That suddenly seemed rather attractive.

I also decided I wanted the phone to hang on the wall in the kitchen.  Apparently no one does this anymore.  Once they got the connection going, the quality control guy and his partner were stymied by the fact that the slots on the back of the phone appeared to be upside down. Luckily, I remember the days of wall phones and discovered how to flip a removable piece, which solved that problem.

Then the screws on the jack didn't fit into the slots on the back of the phone, so they added an extra screw to hang the phone on.  I appreciated their effort and the fix worked fine until they left, whereupon it fell off the wall.

Fortunately, I also remembered that hooking up a phone used to be a one-plate-fits-all experience. Apparently it still is, when you know what you're doing.  A trip to Home Depot produced a $6.00 fix: a proper wall plate with the right kind of screws.  After I installed that, the phone snapped onto it with such vigor that I could probably do pull-ups on it if I needed to. 

It kind of surprises me that the phone guys had no idea how that all was supposed to work.  I guess my status as a technology dinosaur has been confirmed, yet again.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I definitely enjoyed solving the problem myself.  Where else would I find that kind of satisfaction for only six bucks?

 

Whirlwind Update

I could blog about these individually and have enough posts for a couple of weeks, but good grief, then I'd still be two weeks behind. So here we go, all at once and in no particular order.

1. I went to see Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker, and Jerrod Niemann in concert. Niemann had kind of a Rob Thomas thing going under what we used to call a Mao cap, but he's clearly still getting the hang of performing in front of a large live audience. He was a passable warm-up for Rucker who still has every bit of that voice, my oh my. Rucker didn't wear anything identifying him as a country star (t shirt, jeans, baseball cap) and his set included the hits from the Hootie days, which visibly puzzled some of the fans sitting near me. Paisley was worth the wait, arriving via a very cool Jaws take-off video intro that featured the neck of a guitar slicing through the water instead of the shark fin. He played all his hits and his personality reached all the way to the back row. I didn't know he was such a guitar virtuoso, so that was a pleasant surprise. He's got talent to burn, whether you want clever and funny, classic country pop, a great story, or a wrenching ballad.

2. For a drastic change of pace, I also saw A Midsummer Night's Dream. I think I'm done with our local Shakespeare company. Their productions have way too much going on; I think the artistic director likes things frantic, and the result was pretty much a Three Stooges version. Not my taste. I had the same problem with Hamlet, and if you can't make old Hamlet even a little bit contemplative, really now, what are you up to?

3. Rounding out the ticket-buying experience, I took in a one-man tour de force of Beowulf, which was absolutely riveting. The actor adapted it himself, and it had just the right amount of modernization, retaining all the big themes. Stunning. I was very glad he kept my favorite line intact ("Heaven swallowed the smoke"). And I was only a little distracted when he described but did not name Hrothgar's hall and it took me a wild 5 minutes of thinking "What the HECK was the name of the hall???" before I remembered it (Heorot) and could settle down to being spellbound.

4. I saw the shuttle go up. I wasn't the only person who pulled over this time.

5. The garden had to be transplanted on short notice. I put in for a sunnier bed and it came through, but then someone else wanted the old one, so I had to move the recent plantings pronto. So far everything has survived. Photos are taken. Now if I can just find the camera cable for uploading them . . . and get Blogger to cooperate. (Blogger, what is your problem?)

6. Yoga is back in my daily routine and my back feels better already. So much for the gym and/or classes. A DVD seems to be working just fine.

7. Blasts from the past continue, as I had dinner with one of my college roommates, who I hadn't seen since (gasp) 1978. I'm happy to report we haven't changed much at all since we started our own social club called the Buzzards at our Deep South all-female university. I was such a fish out of water there, I only lasted freshman year before fleeing back to my home state and a much more, ahem, modern college experience. (There's a matter for another post, for sure!) Anyway, she and I have a few more miles on the odometer, but the shared history still works.

8. Reading Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People has been progressing at about 35 words per day, and so I am strongly considering putting it down in favor of something (anything!) more compelling. I will hold onto it, though, in case my insomnia returns.

9. I need to decide within the next week or so if I'm going to move or stay in this apartment for another term. The bloom is definitely off the rose here and I have a lead on a house through a friend's mother . . . and the management here has very helpfully informed me that I can renew early, or the renewal rent goes up $10 per month every week after a certain date until I lock in. With tactics like that, I'm even more inclined not to renew. Just what I need! Something else to do!

10. I'm working with a student who is writing his thesis on 19th Century French literature. Flaubert I know a little about, but how is it that I have missed Zola and Balzac all these years? I'm really tabula rasa, but I figure if he can explain his ideas to me-who-knows-nothing, his professor will definitely be able to tell what he's talking about. (Not to mention: more for the TBR list.)

11. Not much baseball lately, but that is due to change soon. I managed to catch a game over the weekend and it was a cancer benefit. Pink uniform shirts and pink bases!

Whew! With all that I've been up to lately, no wonder I'm so tired. Good thing I have some vacation days scheduled soon.

A Small World

An amazing coincidence took place at the garden this past weekend.

Often I am there by myself, but now that the weather is so nice (in the low 80s these days) and the spring planting season is here, I've started bumping into the other plotholders. This weekend I introduced myself to a woman who was working on her plot when I arrived. We called hello from a distance, and then I walked over to get a closer look at what she was planting.

It took a minute for her name to sink in, and when I got a better look at her, she looked very familiar. Incredibly, we first met in kindergarten, and hadn't seen each other since high school!

As soon as I asked her what her full name was ("Did your name use to be . . . ?") and told her my name, we both had a wonderful shock of recognition, followed by a big hug and a long trading of shared memories and updates on what we're doing now.

We are only about 45 minutes away from the small town where we were in school together, but what are chances that after 30+ years, in a city of 230,000 people, we would wind up sharing the same community garden of 26 plots? And that we would meet up there on a sunny morning?

What a happy spring surprise!

Remember the House?

I tramped around my favorite remodeling site again recently, and had another nice chat with the husband-owner-builder-contractor-chief laborer. Prior info and views are posted here and here, if you want a quick refresher and comparison photos.

What would it be like to get up every single Saturday and Sunday for a couple of years and go to work on your future home, with only your dad to help? A true long-term labor of love.

Double that because it turns out that while the remodeling is underway, the husband-owner-builder-contractor-chief laborer, the wife-owner, their 10-year-old son, and their new baby are living in what used to be the playhouse/guesthouse on the property, in only 300 square feet!

Of course, when this project is done it will all be worth it. It was so nice to hear the husband talk about their vision of this as a generational family homestead. He and his wife plan to live there for the rest of their lives, and they hope the kids will keep the house in the family, too. Gosh, I hope that works out for them!

Roof going on, with addition to the right
Front facade, with garage to the left
Front entrance to the garage, a completely new structure
"Floating" porte-cochere between house and garage(Isn't the cross detail great?)
Another view of the front entrance--each space between column groups will be filled with an arch compatible with the arched windows in the facade
Back entrance to the addition, with porch
More or less matching porch and grilling space off the back of the garage
Standing in the original kitchen, looking into the addition, back entry porch to the left--there will be an island separating the kitchen from the living space
The front room of the house with the fireplace--entering by the front door will land you in this formal living and dining room (that's a glimpse of the garage through the window on the right)

Doing It Right

I stopped by my favorite remodel the other day, just to check on its progress. There were a couple of very sweaty men working (it's in the 90's every day here) so I walked up the driveway and called out, "I'm just taking a picture, if that's okay." One of the men came up to the fence, drew back the gate, and said, "You can come in and take your picture, if you want."

Turns out he was the owner! I explained that I was just being nosy, but loved the house and was interested in seeing how the remodeling was going. That loosed a flood of information.

He and his wife intended to remodel the house to make it more suitable for a modern family, but never expected the "remodeling" to go this far. (I kind of suspected that.)

They tried very hard to design the work to qualify for the historical register, but it turns out their plans would meet all but two of the very specific criteria. Unfortunately, they felt that one of the problem areas was simply non-negotiable, because they intend to live in the house with their children.

As it is, they are going to rebuild on the original footprint, plus an additional room on one side, and in the middle of the house, a partial second story that will include two bedrooms. They are determined to keep the original style of the house, with all the bump-outs, pop-ups, nooks and crannies that a Spanish style house requires. But the second story was a dealbreaker: they couldn't give it up, and the historical people wouldn't approve if they kept it, so no go for the official seal of approval.

The rooflines are so crazy, the plans call for 108 unique trusses. There were only about 3 trusses in the whole job that were the same.

When finished, the house will be above platinum certification standards for LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) building.

The house was built in the 1920s. They bought it from an 80-year-old man who'd moved into the house when he was only 5 years old, and lived there all his life until now.

It had a porch on it, but that wasn't original to the house so they are not going to replace it.

They got "hate mail" (his words) from people when they started the teardown phase. I guess I'm not the only one who is sentimentally attached to the house.

They saved all the original wood floors and will be laying them down again when the time comes. There weren't any tile floors in the house. I forgot to ask if they saved the doorknobs, doors, moldings, etc. (But I bet they did.)

They have 3/4 of an acre and a guest house on the property, which is prime real estate in that part of town. I can't imagine what that would cost in a neighborhood of $300,000 homes. Meanwhile, the husband and a friend of the family (the other sweaty guy) are doing a lot of the work themselves.

They are not blogging the remodel because they don't have the time.

All this info was volunteered while I was walking across the foundation-in-progress on a very narrow, somewhat slippery plank walkway and getting into the center of the house, which is where these pictures were taken from. Sturdy subflooring was installed where I was standing, although the platform was rather small and a lot of the space was taken up with sawhorses and a power saw, where they were cutting boards for the rest of the subfloor.

This is looking toward the front facade of the house from the inside.

This is looking at the side wall of the house, by turning slightly to the right. They are keeping the fireplace. Directly behind me is where the addition will be.
Here's a partial view of the addition from the outside.

Back inside, this is another slight turn to the right, looking at the back wall of the house. The fireplace is just to the left of this picture, so if these photos were all in a row they would form a panorama. The sawhorses were also behind me in this picture. No way was I walking out on those little narrow boards . . . .

I didn't do a great job on the photos, but will definitely be going back for more as progress is made. The owner said I was welcome to visit anytime, as long as I didn't get hurt and sue him. For a sweaty guy with a lot of hard work ahead of him, he had certainly kept his sense of humor.

I'm thinking the house is in pretty good hands.

Go While You Still Can

(photo from Berkeleyside.com)

If you have any interest in books whatsoever, and if you're anywhere near Berkeley, or if you have some vacation time you haven't allocated yet, you really shouldn't miss Serendipity Books.

C.S. and I stumbled upon it purely by . . . well . . . serendipity when we were in Berkeley a few years back. Our conversation in the car went something like this:

J.G.: Oh, wait, stop, there's another one!

C.S.: Nah, that's nothing but a head shop.

J.G.: Well, it says "used books." We should stop.

C.S.: Probably a waste of time. But, okay, if you insist.

(a few minutes later)

J.G. and C.S. in unison: Oh. My. God. This is the greatest bookstore ever!

After that, we just said "Wow" about a thousand times.

We were lucky enough that the proprietor himself decided to show us a few things. C.S. was looking for Nelson Algren books and Howard took us to a whole section of his works. Many were "signed" with Algren's distinctive cat drawings. They were all just there on the shelves to be taken down and perused. No locks, no keys, no glass cases.

In fact, I remember that one side of the building, or maybe one of the connected buildings that make up the store (once you get inside, all orientation to space and time slips away, and you're simply wandering a maze of books on shelves that reach to the ceiling, high above your head), had a roll-up door on it and in that corner there were little sticks and leaves that had blown in through a little gap at the edge of the door. This sounds kind of icky but it was completely charming. It certainly added to the sense of unreality created by this fabulous place. If I ever get to wander around in my own unconscious, this is what it will be like.

Anyway, Howard has been diagnosed with cancer and the future of this marvellous collection is uncertain. C.S. is going back to San Francisco later this summer and is hoping he can make it to Berkeley in time.

Here's a nice story about it that gives an accurate picture of the situation and the treasures that are going to disappear soon from their assembled place at Serendipity: BerkeleySide story. Another good article is available at Americana Exchange.

Get there if you can.

"Remodeling" Hardly Covers It

I drive by this house fairly frequently, and I was heartbroken when I noticed it was being demolished the other day. Having grown up in an old Spanish-style house, I have a weakness for others of its kind. I kept thinking, with pangs of sadness, about its beautiful old windows and gracious lines, and imagining the destruction of the tile floors, wide moldings and glass doorknobs that must have been inside.

Despite its proximity to a rather busy road (check out the guardrail and the sharp turn warning apparatus practically in the front yard), this house sits on the outer edge of a very nice neighborhood with a great location. I figured it was an elderly teardown that was being sacrificed to make way for some hideous McMansion, which is all people seem to want around here these days.

But on a later visit, I noticed something intriguing, so I detoured from my usual route to take a better look. It is possible that they saved what they could and will build around it, and recreate what couldn't be saved? Can it be that they are in love with those beautiful old windows and the soul of this house, just as I would be?

It sure looks that way to me. I think what I see is a new footer going into the ground, and the beginnings of corner pillars that match the corners that are still standing. I wish I knew more about construction!

April Fool

April Fool's Day was a free-for-all at my house while I was growing up. It might not rate on the scale of other families, where there were lots of brothers and sisters to take part, but it was a very lighthearted day for the three of us.

If you forgot to be on guard, you were likely to put salt instead of sugar on your cereal, or be served shaving cream instead of whipped cream atop your dessert. My father and I were the main perpetrators, with my mother as a willing or unaware accomplice, depending on the joke. We never played any tricks on her, low comedy not being her strong point.

The most successful April Fool's Day ever went down like this:

I announced at breakfast, having had no trick played on me yet that day, that I was too old for April Fool's foolishness and was not planning to participate that year. My father agreed that was an excellent idea. It was time for me to put away childish things and start acting like an adult.

We kept up this ruse all day long, and laid it on thick at dinnertime, too. Apparently we dissed the family tradition once too often, because my mother lost her temper with us and turned on the silent treatment. That made for a rather strained end to a day without hilarity.

But all was not lost! In the midst of all my pronouncements, I knew that I'd spent a few minutes earlier in the day short-sheeting their bed. So there was a little surprise waiting for my father, who always turned in first.

What I didn't know was that my father had spent a few minutes earlier doing the same thing to mine!

I don't remember who fell victim to the joke first, but much hilarity ensued when bedtime rolled around. And the victim got sweet revenge only a few minutes later, when the second half of the joke was activated. The joke turned out to be on my mother, as well. It was a perfect storm.

That was the last time I celebrated April Fool's Day at home. I was off to college after that, and April foolishness was never quite the same. But I would often get a message from my dad on April 1, even years later, indicating that a "Mr. Lyon" had called for me at my parents' house and could I please call him back at so-and-so number. Which was the number of the local zoo. I fell for it, once, too. "Hello, may I please speak to Mr. Lyon?"

Happy day and happy memories everyone. And don't forget to play a little joke along the way.

Nostalgia Baking

I made my favorite childhood cookies this Christmas, even though I didn't have any children around to help decorate them. I just love these cookies, and my daughters loved making them, too, when they were little.

The recipe comes from this cookbook, which was a gift to me on my 5th birthday. If you look closely, you can see the mustache one of my cousins drew on the brunette. Helpful, huh? (Is that supposed to be the mom, or just an older sister? She looks so young!).

Here's the photo that sold me on the cookies as a 5-year-old.

After you cut the cookies out and put them on the baking sheet, you paint them with paint made from egg yolks and food coloring. They are at their prettiest before they are baked (hence the photo only shows them before baking).

When they bake, they rise, and they aren't quite as attractive afterwards. They are still pretty, though. They are also a great excuse to collect cookie cutters in lots of interesting shapes.

The blob in the upper right is supposed be a dove. And what does a fish have to do with Christmas? Nothing, but he sure was fun to paint!

They also look quite festive, all in a pile. They have an unusual honey taste, which I like but hasn't been a big hit with anyone else, as far as I know. More fun to make than they are to eat, to paraphrase an old saying.

If you have children or grandchildren, these are your ticket to holiday fun. Trust me.

Paintbrush Cookies

Mix thoroughly: 1/3 cup softened butter, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 egg, 2/3 cup honey, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Stir in: 2 & 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt.

Chill thoroughly.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll half of dough out on a floured pastry cloth, using a floured, covered rolling pin. Roll to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut into shapes and put onto a greased (or parchment-covered) baking sheet. Repeat with other half of dough, working quickly so it stays cold or it will get very sticky.

Paint designs with egg yolk paint (for each color: 1 egg yolk, 1/4 teaspoon water, and food coloring as desired).

Bake 8 to 10 minutes. For clear colors, do not let cookies brown.

Unintended Consequences

The Mosquito Incident had a happy side effect. I remembered a song I hadn't thought about in many years. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I discovered it's a Girl Scout song and probably a lot of people know it. Really? Lots of people know "Oh I Wish I Was a Little Bar of Soap"? It just doesn't come up in everyday conversation.

But remembering it and trying out a few verses in the shower did a lot for my mood.

I was never a Girl Scout and I suspect I learned this song somewhere besides sleep-away camp, if only because the version I know includes a verse about "Oh I wish I was a little glass of beer." And I only know the soap, mosquito and aforementioned glass of beer verses. In other words, the vaguely risque verses.

Somehow I think my dad taught me this song. Not that he learned it at Girl Scout camp, either.

Just another family mystery.

If you're interested in the apparently endless verses, here are some.

Eventphul Day in Philly

It seems that whenever I'm in Philadelphia, which is two or three times a summer, I encounter something that rattles the senses. A couple of years ago, while leaving the ballpark after a game, I saw a young woman punched in the jaw when she stepped in the middle of a drunken brawl involving her boyfriend. A year later, I saw a homeless woman collapse and die in front of the downtown Macy's. A couple of weeks ago, I witnessed a cruel mugging on the steps of City Hall in which a group of teenagers threw a homeless man to the sidewalk, punched him in the face, and left him bleeding as they ran off.

Then came my last trip in, when the City of Brotherly Love finally lived up to its name. By chance, I ended up on the same hotel elevator with several members of the Ohio Players, the 1970s funk outfit best known for their provocative album covers and song hits "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster." They were in town for a concert of R&B and funk groups from the '70s.

As our rooms happened to be on the top floor of a high-rise hotel, I had just enough time to tell them my story. The Ohio Players were my first concert. It was the mid-70s, I was 15 or 16, and my buddies and I bought tickets. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes were the warmup act.

Junie Morrison, the Ohio Players' leader and keyboardist, stood in one corner of the elevator, balanced on a fancy cane and nodding somberly at my story as we climbed to the top. I could tell he had heard it all before, some fan reminiscing about one of their long-ago shows.

But I knew what I was about to tell them would be something fresh, might give him a rise:

"I'm ashamed to admit this," I continued, "but my friends and I, thinking we might be the only whites at the show. were concerned for our personal safety. It was the South, and you have to understand that we weren't exposed to African-American culture where we lived and went to school. And so all of us decided -- out of sheer ignorance and not some deep-rooted belief -- to wear tennis shoes, just in case we had to make a run for it after the concert."

Well, Morrison and his bandmates received it as I hoped they would. They burst into such laughter that I thought the elevator cables would snap and we'd plummet the 30 some odd floors to the bottom.

I couldn't let them go, though, without asking them about the rumor going around at the time about "Love Rollercoaster." If you listen to this version of the song, you'll hear at the 2:33 mark a woman's scream in the background. The buzz in the hallways at high school was that a woman was stabbed to death during the recording of the song and that the engineers failed to dub out the unintended noise.

In fact, legend has it that the woman in question was the model who appeared on this album cover:

"That wasn't true, was it?" I asked Morrison just before we went our separate ways.

"Nah," he said, adding that the group didn't deny the rumor because it helped to sell records.

This is Your Brain After Midnight

Our pal Hula had a post recently about her favorite childhood food, corn and mashed potatoes mixed together and doused with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Which, naturally, me being overtired and all, reminded me of my favorite childhood poem about food.

I eat my peas with honey.
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife.

I've never actually tried this, but I know a good poem when I hear one.

As for my favorite childhood food? Baked potato with plenty of butter, and then with milk poured over it. Delish. If it wasn't so darn late, I'd be making one right now.

Old School Computering

I'm reading Pynchon's latest, Inherent Vice, which takes place in the late '60s or early '70s and is jogging the memory like you wouldn't believe. Pynchon makes occasional reference to the computer, which was a primitive device in those days, and it got me to thinking about my high school Fortran class.

Fortran was one of the languages that computers "spoke" in the early years, and in order to operate a computer, you had to speak the language, too. As I recall, you had to have some understanding of the binary code and, after that, I don't know what all else. It wasn't like you could turn on a laptop, call up Google and, at the tap of a few fingers, find the recipe for khorkhog.

Our assignment for the course was simply to write and process a program in Fortran. Only it wasn't simple at all. First you had to map it all out on notebook paper. Next you had to transfer the information onto punch cards, which were tan in color and about the size of legal envelopes and, when punched, created all these tiny bits of thin cardboard that could be used for confetti or wedding rice.

After you got done punching, you stacked the cards in precise order and drove them down to the university, which had the only public-use computer in town. The flourescent-lit room was large and noisy. It contained rows of punch-card consoles, a couple of card readers, and boxes of computer printout paper stacked to the ceiling. The computer itself was an imposing steel contraption with blinking lights and reels of memory tape whirring back and forth, and it was located in a glass-enclosed room sealed off from dangerous air molecules.

You'd stand in line and, when it was your turn, place your punch cards in one end of the reader, push the "Run" button, and wait for the machine to spit out computer paper bearing the results of your work. I'd estimate that at least 50 percent of the swear words I now know came from observing the older college students looking over their fresh printouts. Invariably, there was some glitch in their program -- a card out of sequence, a hanging chad, the number "1" punched instead of a "0" on column 8, row 14 of card No. 1,369, etc. -- and it would be back to the console to fix the problem, return to the reader, stand in line, re-run the program, and wait for the results to reveal more errors than existed the first time.

The computer room stayed open all night and, at some point early in the morning, you would throw up your hands and go home. I don't think I ever got my program to run correctly but received a B in the course for trying. I still don't understand what all is happening in the ciruitry and whatnot underneath the keyboard, and I don't care. All I know is that when I click the "Publish Post" button in a few seconds, you'll be able to see this post.

I think.

Painting and Decision-Making

Hula over at Growing Older But Not Up is deep in the throes of a pre-move remodel on her new house and grappling with the choice of paint colors. Instead of leaving a long, boring comment about paint and decision-making, I figured I'd air my opinions here. Feel free to ignore!

1. DO NOT pick out a house color by driving by a house whose color you like and holding paint chips out the window of the car, even if you are going really slow. Using this method, you are likely to wind up choosing a color that can only be described as Sh-- Brown. The cost of building my first house included a paint job, which was very nicely applied in the aforementioned color. The neighbors were horrified (they kept asking "Is that the primer?"). I was horrified, too.

There was no clause in the contract providing free do-overs based on customer stupidity. So the first order of business after move-in (even before getting curtains, as I recall) was to repaint. To choose the second color, I knocked on the door of the dream-colored house and the homeowner gave me a leftover can of paint to match. Thank goodness.

2. DO go bold if you think you can stand it. I once painted a kitchen Sunflower Yellow to match this Georgia O'Keefe print and it was awesome. Nerve-wracking for a while, but it turned out to be just right.

Later I painted an entire house a similar color and, difficult as it is to believe, that worked, too. The house had a vaguely Mediterranean feel and with the landscaping added, it looked great. All our beige, cream, and grey neighbors were extremely jealous. And the one remaining house under construction in the neighborhood also wound up yellow, when painting time came . . . although I must say, not quite as bright a shade. Fortunately, it was not next door!

3. DO flip a coin when you are making a decision. I'm serious, so hear me out. I have years of experience in dithering back and forth, unable to make up my mind about anything. Too many choices, too many possible results! So here's the method.

Choose two alternatives and flip a coin between them. Say "heads" means the dining room is blue, not aqua. Now, "heads" it is. Are you okay with that? If so, you really like the blue. Or do you suddenly find yourself wishing for two-out-of-three, just so aqua gets a fair chance? If so, you really like the aqua better.

But if it turns out funny, please don't blame me. I'm the one who picked Sh-- Brown, remember?