A Fear Of Cooking

  Jon and I have agreed to learn to cook. I mean really cook. No Hamburger Helper or Ragu, but real cooking with real ingredients.
 Our agreement is, we will each learn a new recipe and serve it one night a week. Then we will cook something together one night a week and if we are successful, we will have a dinner party once a month. It's not a competition, but I am going to win. Jon will cook weird stuff, like his Russian goulash that had cinnamon as a main ingredient. I still think his cookbook had a page missing between goulash and cinnamon toast.
 But, I will have to actually read the many cookbooks I own and try to learn something from them.. Until now, my favorite has been the White Trash  cookbook, where all the recipes begin with canned soup and Velveeta or a cake mix. Although, I would never make the fried squirrel dish it recomends, as squirrels are way too cute to eat. My mother taught me a little about frying. When I was in Girl Scouts, my brother in-law, Si, came for dinner, expecting my mothers wonderful fried chicken and chocolate cake, only to find an eleven year old working on her cooking badge. Hopefully he has forgotten this by now.

 I will have to learn what some of those strange ingredients are and where to buy them. I'll learn about goat and other cheeses, and what they pair well with.
 I know I can do do this. Way back in the 80's, my favorite wine was, well, not wine. I hated wine in fact. One of our good friends was working on his PHD, and wanted to learn about wine so he would not feel so backwoods around the other professors. He started showing up at all hours with different wines for us to taste. At first I refered to all reds as esraser wines, as they reminded me of chewing on the eraser end of a pencil. After time or age, or whatever you want to call it, I developed a taste for red wine. In fact I prefer it to all other adult libations. The only good advice my doctor ever gave me, in the midst of all that fresh air and sunshine crap she harped on was, to have a glass of red wine every night. It's good for my heart in more ways than one.

Baseball and Philosophy

  Last night, in an attempt to get me out of my funk, Jon took me to a Houston Astros game.Nothing snaps one back to reality like a foul ball aimed at ones head.
  I am not superstitious, as I've said before, except in baseball, and it is a fact that The Rangers have lost the last five games I have attended. Therefore, I know I am bad luck to them. But Houston has had such a bad year and they were playing the Phillies, who are having one of their best seasons ever. So I figure I can't hurt the Astros as they were doomed to loose either way. Well, they won! Two of their best players were traded to Philadelphia and still, they beat their socks off. When one of the trades, the former Astro hero, Hunter Pence walked up to bat, the crowd stood and cheered him on. I thought, "how nice they still support him." I soon realized we were sitting in a room full of Phillies fans. Some people are obstinate, others just love a winner. I will never understand it.
Anyway, Jon said this disproved my bad luck theory, since Houston won. I said maybe I have the opposite effect on the Astros. Maybe their loosing season is my fault since I haven't been to a game in so long and have not really kept up with them. Or maybe, just maybe it has nothing to do with me and I have no power over the events of this world. No, that couldnt' be it.
 I haven't been to an Astros game since they left the Astro Dome in the 90's and, I was very impressed with Minute Maid park. I love the Ball Park at Arlington but, Minute Maid is so easy to get around, it's a beautiful stadium and it's air conditioned. Yes, I said Air Conditioned. It was quite cool and, I was wishing I had brought a sweater to HOUSTON! The only real drawback is, it's located right smack in the middle of down town Houston. (Texas is a big ole' state. Why do so many people insist on living in Houston?) For 20.00 you could park practically in the front door but, we didn't. We parked in the 5.00 parking lot with the nice homeless man who insisted he had been watching our pickup for free and could we just give him a little crack money. At first I was afraid, then I remembered my husbands concealed carry and I was very afraid..
 Houston has a terrible homeless situation. I saw a woman with three kids and thought she really shouldn't have her kids around those people, before I realized what I was seeing.
 I've had an easy life. I have never had to struggle or see my children do without much more than daily sodas and basic cable. I've always loved my kids but didn't know how I cherished my time with them until I lost one. God has blessed me. I know I'll be with Lauren again, someday, I have a great family, and it is growing. God gave us Jonathan, with his kind spirit and calming ways. We love him like a son. I know he and Sarah will have a sweet family of there own. I'm also certain God will give Eric the love of his life if he will be patient.
  Thank you, Lord, for baseball and family. My funk is lifted and my heart is full.

A Tropical Depression is Moving This Way

   The kids just left and I'm feeling pretty blue. I guess after planning and so looking forward to our time together, it just went by way to quickly. I watched them drive away and couldn't help crying. I remember how my grandmother always cried when we left her and how awful it always made us feel, so I try to hold it all in until they are gone.
  I think everyone had a good time. Jon and Jonathon got up early and went fishing every morning. Eric usually met them on the beach, as he had been up for his morning run long before. Sarah and I would wonder around the house aimlessly and usually made it down to the beach about the time they were all ready for breakfast. She sunburned pretty badly the first day, so we didn't need to be out too long.
 Maybe I will feel more like writing in a day or so, but right now I'm just to low. I miss my Daddy and I miss my dogs. I want my kids, all of them, to be here. Why can't everyone I love be in one place?

 But, I'll post a few pictures anyway. There will be more on all this later on.

I have sand between my toes and Cheetos dust on my fingers. Now this is a vacation. I'm a little red from being on the beach all day, but it was worth it.
  The only disappointment, so far, is the TV. We only get six channels and five are in Spanish and I have missed three Rangers games. We were down on the Strand on Monday and caught the game in Murphy's Irish Pub, which was not that comfortable and I'm sure Murphy's Irish Mother dosent know about that sticky floor.
  The Kids will be here tomorrow and I cant wait.

Thoughts on Parenting

 I have been meeting with some ladies I went to high school with and planning for our reunion this Fall. Well, last night I walked into the room and stepped back in time. All the smart girls were already there and prepared with their lap tops, I Pads and Smart (ass) phones. I had to barrow a pen. Some things never change.
As we talked one of the ladies handed out a list of names and addresses of our classmates. She said the ones highlighted in orange were deceased, blue were in prison. We talked about high school while looking through old year books and I thought, well, at least I'm not in prison.
 I have fond memories of the time, but I pretty much hated everything about school. It's my fault, I know. I never put much effort in to anything and I made some bad choices. Every club I joined, elected me president for the following school year. And every school year, I dropped that club and moved on to something else. I never had the financial or parental support to compete at anything. My folks did the best they could, but in those days "parenting " was not yet a verb. Had it been, the definition would have read, to provide food, comfort, and shelter to ones offspring.
I'm as guilty as the rest of my generation, of parenting gone wild. It didn't start out that way. Sure, I stayed home with my little ones, taught them manners, read to them and tried to shelter them from the completely unparented  neighborhood kids. I fed them wholesome healthy organic food from my garden and limited sugary snacks. After testing and measuring all her students, a P E teacher at their elementary school, told me my children had dangerously low BMI numbers and needed to eat some fat. Soon afterward, I started back to work and we began a steady diet of Hamburger Helper. That pretty much took care of that little problem.
 But, my point is, this would never have happened to my parents. For one thing, my mom picked wholesome healthy organic food from her garden, rolled it in corn meal and fried it in her big black skillet. So I was getting plenty of fat. Also, had a P E teacher thought to speak to my parents about what they were feeding us, or any other problem she might have with our upbringing, after stepping over dogs, children and toys, she would have backed down with one look from my mother.

Good Night Irene

  This weekend I couldn't make myself stop watching the hurricane coverage. I had other things to do, but I just couldn't concentrate. Right now I'm thinking maybe I should check to see if there is something on the news about the aftermath. I prayed for Katy in Virginia, and I prayed for Callie and Rich as Irene passed over Puerto Rico. However, I was secretly glad it was never downgraded to a tropical storm. Don't be angry with me. Your stories will be much more interesting now,than if you had to say "we were almost in a hurricane".
  What evil lurks, making me see such mayhem as pure entertainment? I believe it's the same thing that makes me love that drummer for Foo Fighters or when the dugouts empty and a brawl ensues. Power and human emotion.
 I don't want to see anyone get hurt. I don't care for violent movies and I hate reality TV, especially when it involves drunk girls slapping and calling each other the B word. I'm really not into human suffering, but the awesomeness of nature is ....well, awesome. To see so much power in the ocean and wind is just overwhelming. It's like God says, "Remember me? I'm still here."

School Days

 When I was a child, kindergarten was not a requirement. It was just for rich kids, and there weren't any in my neighborhood. There was no pre-k or head start program or Mother's Day Out. We stayed home with our mothers until we turned 6 years old, at which time we started first grade at Seth Ward Elementary.
Seth Ward school was a beautiful old red brick one story structure, that only held first through third grade. The principal, Miss Windwehein, was also the third grade teacher and she taught me, as well as my seven older siblings. Needless to say, she became well acquainted with my parents. Miss Windwehein liked some of my brothers well enough, she "red shirted" them and kept them an extra year.
 I remember thinking she must be a hundred years old, but when she died, at the age of 91, I did the math and realized when I was in her class, she was only 57. Even though I was a little afraid of her, I know she was a good teacher. She had no quotas to meet or politicians to please. Her only concern was teaching children.
 I also recall, all three teachers had an American flag in their classroom, but Miss Windwehein's had only 48 stars. She didn't see any reason to waste money on a new one just because Alaska and Hawaii had joined the Union.

The windows of my first grade classroom looked out on the playground, with it's 8 foot slide, tall swings and two jagged metal merry- go- rounds. Those things, along with the splintering wooden seats of the seesaws, would be considered a death trap by today's overly cautious parents.
 I watched the leaves swirl and fall on that playground in the Autumn of my first school year. I saw the windows plastered with black cats and jack-o-lanterns, only to be replaced by turkeys and Pilgrims. I was sitting by that window when my teacher tearfully announced our president had been shot and killed.

 I watched as the sky grew dark and heavy with the Spring storms rolling in. When I think of these things now, I can still hear the hollow clanging of the flag pole and Old Glory flapping in  the wind.

They tore the old school down while no one was looking. I went by there one day and it was gone. I imagined myself chained to the doors in protest, but it was too late.The red brick school house was just a memory now.