The Great List of things I learned this summer.

1. Don't put styrofoam in the oven. It will melt and evaporate into a foul smelling fume and ruin your dinner.
2. Camping in a marsh may result in a wet sleeping bag.
3. I can make a chicken soup! Sort of.
4. When you start seeing big gray patches where the face of the person next to you should be, it's probably a sign of an oncoming migraine head ache. Going to bed immediately is advised. Running up and down stairs, hills and eating giant breakfasts are NOT recommended.
5. Never underestimate my father's ability to make last minute plans.
6. Remember that when ever you run down a hill, you will eventually have to climb up it again.
7. When challenging your twelve-year-old cousin to a water fight, make sure you have a bigger gun.
8. Beethoven piano sonatas must be listened to with my dad narrating to be fully enjoyed.
9. Maleny thinks she's invincible. When you agree to teach her to ride her bike, be aware of this fact.
10. You can get almost anything you want using only monosyllable words like "ai," "uh," and "umm" and pointing at things, but you have to have have Big Blue Eyes and a mouth full of only five teeth.
    

Jessie

I work for a woman who was born in 1912. Her name is Jessie and she's an "little Catholic Italian lady." Talking to Jessie is like talking to a piece of History. She has an amazing memory. She tells wonderful vivid stories; painting a picture for me of the world she lived in. I have been doing chores for her in the evenings since early June. Now that the summer is almost over I thought you would like to hear some stories from this amazing little old lady who has lived through so much. I'll try to reproduce her way of talking. That will be very difficult cause it's her inflection that does it.

Her father ran a restaurant.
"We didn't have a bathroom in the building. There was one of those out houses; little wooden shed sort of... There was a mean old rooster... He wouldn't let me by to use the out house! I was so afraid of him; he was bigger than me! Well, I was just a little thing... three or four."
"You know, they hadn't invented things like the... freezer. We had a..." -- gestures vaguely with her frail arms -- "We called it an ice box. The ice man would come every morning in a wagon and give us our ice."
Me: "How did they make the ice back then, Jessie?"
--Long pause-- "I don't know! I guess they must have... I don't know!"
Her father lost his eye sight when Jessie was still a young girl. She told me how it happened once but I've already forgotten. Her mother took over the management of the restaurant. It was hard on her father to have his wife running the business but there was a nice German man who lived near by and kept him company sometimes; reading to him and talking. "He was a Darling Man! He had five girls, but they were all grown up. He made the best dandelion wine."
"I wonder how my mother did it; with my brother still nursing and us in school. That wasn't normal in those days; having a woman working like that." There sure are a lot of strong, intelligent women in Jessie's family. Her grandmother, she told me on an other occasion, also defied social norms by running her husbands grocery store while he was working on the railroad.

Jessie grew up and lived most of her life here in my home town and even in my neighborhood. She had watched it grow and change SO much over the years. She showed me an old print of the street where her family restaurant was. It's the same corner I drive by every week when I go to the library but it's not recognizable at all. The photo is of a parade. There are two horse drawn, circus style wagons all brightly painted (you can tell, despite the vague black and white shapes that portray them) and Jessie says there are lions inside. There is a park now where her family business used to be. Either that or a parking lot. I'm not even sure what side of the street it was on. I'm so thankful that my city has persevered some of it's older buildings. I love to hear stories about places I can still visit.
"My brother worked at the Davenport hotel. He cleaned the change." (Puzzled look from Karen) "When you got change from the Davenport it was all shiny and new looking. Cause they washed it down in the basement. I used to always give them my dirty change. I would go there for lunch. When I really wanted a treat there was a tea room upstairs. I loved to go up there and see all the lights and fancy things. I would have (name of some food I'd never heard of.) They don't make things like that any more. Has your mother ever made you that?" No.

There is a very old cook book in her pantry. She told me it was older than her. Then we looked at the copy right date and it was the year she was married but that still makes it pretty darn old. There are lots of strange recipes that I have never tasted. Some of them sound better than others. Jessie loves to cook and has her own way of doing everything. She knew her old stove like a good friend but this new one cooks things too hot and fast so she uses a hanger between the burner and her pot when she makes oatmeal.

She remembers her excitement the first time she got to vote. That boggles my mind. She was not one of the first women to vote but she was eight when the nineteenth amendment passed. So it was still a pretty new thing by the time she was old enough. WOW.

She has all sorts of old furniture in her little house. I get to polish the wood with home make furniture polish once in a while. There are also mirrors to clean with home made cleaner. There is a vacuum cleaner that must be from the fifties which we use for many things including getting dust out of the air. One day she asked me to vacuum some picture frames for her. "And be careful," she cautioned me. "those are about a hundred years old." I wish she wouldn't tell me things like that. I have found after moving around her tiny kitchen and her small house in general that I tend to bump into more things that I should. The china cupboard rattles and I hold my breath. Jessie is so hard of hearing that she doesn't notice but that doesn't make it any better for me.

There are a long list of ailments that Jessie must be careful of. She is always very cheerful about them. But it dose bother her when people make things more difficult than she thinks they ought to be.
"Now see this?" She hands me an empty cardboard box which had an eye drops in it recently. "Look in there." I oblige, not sure what I'm looking for. "There's a coupon printed in there! Now why would they hide it in a place like that. I've been throwing those boxes out. Well, I won't anymore. I could get a dollar off! They just raised the price three dollars. Now, that's a lot of money! Listen to me; three dollars is a lot of money. Well, it is. A penny is a lot of money. I always pick up a penny when I see one on the ground. I'll regret leaving it one day. When your a little old lady like me everything counts."
The next day:
"I called Safe Way and asked them why they took the price of my eye drops up three dollars. The young lady I talked to was very nice --her grandmother was Italian-- but they had to jack the price cause the company they buy it from did. So I called the company. I had to call someone else and I ended up calling a girl in Arizona. She said there is some marketing manager who took the price up. I told her to leave a message for him from me. Tell him, I said, that he ought to think about what he's doing to people. Old people have to get what they need and three dollars gets to be a lot of money. Maybe he should rethink his life a little. I bet they pay him a pretty penny. He doesn't need an extra three dollars but it's a big chunk to some of us."
I guess in the world where Jessie was born, people called each other up like that. You could just ask a business man to rethink his life if he jacked the price on something you needed. I pity the people she talked to that day. But, at the same time, I am glad she called. I hope that guy did rethink his life.

Everything does seem simpler back then. People seem friendlier.
"You know those lines they have all the way down the side walks? I don't know if they do it now. You'd go over them and your skates would go 'clicketty-clack clicketty-clack.' We would roller skate to (very specific street address that probably doesn't exist anymore) where they had that museum. There were all sorts of artifacts in there. We loved to look at them and there was a brother. He was a Jesuit brother, he always wore his habit and all. He was the door keeper. He was a darling man, his name was.... I can't remember his first name. I should go to the archives and look that up. I can't go, I'll have to send someone. He was a hunchback. He was a little shorter than me. Of course, I've lost two inches since then. We would go and ring the bell and after a little while he would come and open it with a big smile." (in her 'little kid' voice) "'Mr. (name) can we see your... Museum?' and he would always go around with us. I don't remember an elevator. We climbed up four flights of stairs. You read about door keepers in books. That's what he was; the door keeper."

Jessies faith is very important to her. For years I would see her in the pews at my home parish. "I'm as old as that church. It was dedicated in 1912 in October and I was born that year in October. They're not getting rid of me. They'll have to carry me out feet first. I think they ought to let me have a say in things."
Whether or not someone is Catholic and practicing always comes up when she describes anyone. (The other thing that gets mentioned is any Italian blood in the family.) Her among her favorite Saints is St. Frances Cabbrini, better known as Mother Cabrini, an Italian lady who immigrated to the United States and founded many hospitals, orphanages and churches including the parish my family currently attends. Mother Cabrini eat dinner at the house Jessie lived in once. She was there before Jessie lived there but Jessie loves to tell me about it anyway. She also loves Blessed Padre Pio, also an Italian. Mostly there are a million people she has known in her long life that she will be very glad to see again when she gets to heaven. Her husband Clyde is waiting there for her. I'm not sure if he was Catholic when they were married or not but it seems he was not practicing. She told me about how hard she prayed for him and how happy she was when he came back to the faith.

Being 96 she has been thinking about death and coming to terms with dieing for a while now. Recently she had pneumonia in both lungs. Somehow she pulled through. "I don't know why I'm still here. I'm just waiting to go home." There are certain things you get to do when you know you want be on this earth much longer. "I read that book. I'ts a great book. All about what you should eat for arthritis. But I like all the things they tell you not to eat so if you know anyone who can use it, their welcome to it." No need to sharpen her knives, they won't be in service much longer. It's worth it to buy expensive meat but not to buy a new dress for her grand daughter's wedding. It makes sense, really. She's so excited to be leaving soon. "I was just thinking about heaven; you know we won't have to do laundry. I'm passed the time when I have to cook for people. No more cooking in heaven." I'm very glad to know someone who is so unafraid and happy to grow old and wait for her call to come home.

This post keeps getting longer and I haven't even scratched the surface. She once saved a baby girl's life when the child's mother left her below the low tide mark on the beach. She owned several houses and has no end of stories about renters. She seems to remember every priest who ever preached at our parish. There are stories of miraculously answered prayers and people she regrets loosing contact with and still prayers for after so many decades. This is my favorite story. After writing several little intro paragraphs to it I decided it didn't really need one.

"I used to be prone to fainting when I was a little girl. I used to go to eight o'clock Mass every morning before breakfast. I would walk to the church before I eat. Once when Mass was just over I could tell I was going to faint and so I hurried out of there and made it to the convent that used to be close by there. I knocked on the door and the sister came and opened it. They still wore their habits back then. I just had time to say 'Sister, I'm going to... faint' And down I went. They took me into the parlor and I remember hearing sister call 'Quick! get the brandy!'"

Opera Spaghetti

Opera tastes like spaghetti. When ever I hear La Traviata I think of my dad and my grandparents and I smell spaghetti. It's so much fun to be Italian.
Opera is an acquired taste. And that doesn't mean it's something you like if you are forced to listen to it and there is nothing else available; like freeze dried meals. No one really likes them but you definitely acquire a taste for it when your other option is a peanut butter flavored power bar.
Opera is like the spaghetti sauce my dad makes with four or five cloves of garlic; it's REALLY good, but NOT for the fainthearted. You have to redefine your idea of what is normal cause it's a little bit extreme but once you do there are whole new levels of enjoyment to be explored.

Wild berry hunting

A few years ago I was leading a girls club meeting in the summer and we had some time to kill so we were out in the yard playing 'refrigerator tag.' That's kind of a complicated game but suffice to say that it involves yelling out the names of random edibles and running around. So I was it and I yelled out "Huckleberries!" and everyone ran around. Turns out one visiting girl had never eaten a huckleberry before. This was shocking. She was from Southern California so it was explainable (you have to have a colder climate and mountains or giant hills) but it was still shocking cause the Huckleberry is a staple of the Northwestern American summer experience. It's just hard to imagine a life without Huckleberries. There is nothing quite like a huckleberry.

When describing a huckleberry it is fastest and simplest to say that they are a kind of wild blueberry. Unfortunately this description falls far short of conveying the full mystery, majesty and beauty of a huckleberry. Huckleberries resemble blueberries only in that they are small, round and grow on a bush.
This is a huckleberry bush. There are many varieties of huckleberries. This bush is taller and greener than some; the leaves are perhaps a bit wider than the average bush. Some have leaves with red and yellow splotches. These are usually lower to the ground. In some places you can find bushes that are so big you can pick on one side and a bear can eat on the other and you would never see each other. Okay, that's a tall tale told to me by a Montanan but I guess they can get pretty big in wetter places, like the middle or west side Washington.
The berries themselves are usually a blueberry size or smaller. In color they can be anywhere from red (like an under ripe blueberry) to deep purple or blue that is pretty much black.
You can walk along a path lined with bushes and every third berry you pick will have a different flavor. Some can be very tart, tangy or sweet. Some are closer to a raspberry or an apple even, in taste. I eat one recently that was spicy like cinnamon or something. It tasted like Christmas. They all have a kind of wild mountain tang to them.
The Huckleberry is a highly valued treasure cause they only grow wild. You have to climb into a mountain and go tromping around in the underbrush to find them. You risk the bears who don't want to share them and the bugs who want to eat you and the other underbrush that wants to get in your eyes and up you pant legs and down your socks. It's quite an adventure.
Savor your Huckleberries. They are good on their own but even better when mixed in something. When we go camping we put them in our oatmeal and pancakes. They are the perfect side dish for freshly caught and cooked mountain lake fish. If you get enough to make a pie, this is also to die for. Huckleberries in vanilla ice cream is my favorite. (Don't fall for the Huckleberry flavored ice cream. I don't know how they came up with that but it is all wrong.) The sweetness of the vanilla cuts through any tartness and compliments that mountain tanginess to perfection.
When a good day of Huckleberry picking is through, you can be proud of red and purple stained fingers and even a small bag full of juicy loot.

How to make and eat a berry smoothie

With your baby brother

This is what happens when you leave the baby brother home alone with Karen.

Step one: Give the baby brother something to play with while you make a smoothie.
Something harmless but in the kitchen so he can watch you and you can talk to him. I should have just put him in his seat but I didn't think of that. I gave him a big loud pot to bang on.

Step two: Gather ingredients.
I used all the berries I could find in our freezer, plus some berry jam, yogurt and a spoonful of sugar. I don't like bananas, and though my dad and sister say this is a must for a smoothie, I refuse to put it in. We didn't have any milk or juice so I had to use water. Then I found the biggest, tallest, smoothie cup in our cupboard to put it all in.

Step three: Put down that baby.
I don't know how he got there. Some how those big blue eyes convinced me that he belonged on my hip. I also had to remind him that his teeth were made for biting food, not sisters. But one cannot make a smoothie with a one year old in ones arms. So he had to go.

Step Four: Mix it all up.
This is a tricky business, as most of the ingredients are frozen solid and our little blender had lived active life already and wishes very much for an early retirement. There was a stubborn block of strawberry ice that would not be smoothied. I had to fish it out and defrost it for a while in the microwave. There was some adding of extra berries and yogurt to thicken things up since I didn't have milk.

Step Four: Keep the baby brother form poisoning himself.
Funny how we never baby proofed our kitchen. The cupboard under the sink is full of cleaners and David was determined to get a hold of some Simple Green or, better yet, some Lysol. I guess he was attracted to the smells. We argued about that for some time.

Step Five: Situate yourself for best possible enjoyment of smoothie.
I ended up sitting on the floor with my back against the cleaning cupboard door. No little explorers could get in that way.

Warning: sharing smoothie with a baby brother may result in stained clothing.
It all went very well until he stuck his elbow in the cup. I took a spoonful and then gave him one. His little mouth was rimmed with purple berry juice within minutes. At first he was sitting in front of me. Then I wasn't giveing him his spoonfuls fast enough so he stood up. And then he was sitting on my lap. And then he was trying to get his fingers in that nice cold purple stuff in the cup. I managed to keep the fingers out most of the time. Like I said, he stuck his elbow in at one point and I had to lick it off before he wiped it on my shirt. He thought that was pretty funny. And yes, I know where else his elbow has been. I should have given up on my clothes long ago. Moments later he wiped his mouth on my shoulder. Actually I think he was trying to give me a kiss for sweetly making him a smoothie but the result was the same; my nice yellow shirt has berry stains.
Other than that we had a nice time.

Step Six: Enjoy
We agreed that it was a pretty nice smoothie.

Time for a Saint story!

There are all these great Saint days in August! There's a Saint for every day of the year but some of my favorites are in August. August tenth is the feast of one of my all time favorite Saints: St. Lawrence! It's also my brother's birthday. I can't believe how fast this year has flown. It seems like yesterday we were all at Aunt Perky's house waiting for news of our new sibling. David didn't get named after his day Saint but I'm sure St. Lawrence will be saying some extra prayers for him anyway. You can't get away from you patron Saints you know. They're looking out for you whether you like it or not.
I love to tell the story of St. Lawrence. So most of you who read this blog have probably heard me tell it at least in part. I retold it based on the account in our Saint book a few years ago for an e-mail so here it is.

St. Lawrence is the patron of comedians and cooks and this is why.

Once upon a time in Rome (in 258 A.D.) there lived a cheerful and devoted deacon named Lawrence. Also in that time the Emperor Valerian published an edict against Christians and sent soldiers to apprehend the Pope (St. Sixtus II) and put him to death. As they dragged St. Sixtus to his death his faithful deacon, Lawrence, followed after him saying, “Farther, where are you going with out your deacon?” The Pope answered, “I do not leave you, my son. You shall follow me in three days.”
Lawrence saw this time as an opportunity to disperse the material wealth of the church before the Roman authorities could lay their hands on it. On 10 August Lawrence was commanded to appear for his execution, and to bring along the treasure with which he had been entrusted by the pope. When he arrived, the archdeacon was accompanied by a multitude of Rome's crippled, blind, sick, and generally very dirty, stinky and poor people. Lawrence stood and and smiled. The prefect was at first bewildered and then thinking that some joke had been played on him by the good natured deacon he turned to Lawrence and demanded to see the treasures of the church as he had been promised. Lawrence speared his hands out to the assembled people. “what are you displeased at?” he said, “These are the treasures of the Church!” The prefect, who had no sense of humor, was furious! He prepared a great gridiron with hot coals beneath it. They bound Lawrence to this hot iron bed and he lay slowly roasting. After a long time of this torment Lawrence looked up at his the men in charge of the execution and smiled. “Turn me over,” He said to them, “I think I’m done on this side.”
Lawrence met his beloved Lord Jesus but a few moments later and lives happily with him and Pope St. Sixtus for all eternity.
Here on earth Lawrence is honored every year on the 10th of August. On that day, catholics all over the world celebrate Lawrence's life by having a barbecue with their families.

Burnt Marsh-wiggle of La Mancha

Dana says she and her friend Tristen talk about what's wrong with the world sometimes. I don't think I've ever done that with one of my friends. Not seriously. No wait, I guess that's what me and Millie did at the library the other day. Anyway. It's just so easy to get depressed with a conversation like that. What sometimes needs talking up is being a decent person despite the overwhelming number of people who will think you are crazy for it. To stand up to the things that are wrong with the world is the hard part. In a lot of ways I can't make much of a difference in the world but I have to try anyway. So, where am I going with this? And what does it have to do with the title of this post? *Karen tries for several moments to remember* oh yes, the next musical on my list of favorites deals with this hopeless situation we find ourselves in when we are trying to live as citizens of the Kingdom of Christ in fallen, corrupt world. The Man of La Mancha smells of Burnt Marsh-Wiggle.

I have never managed to read Crevantes' Don Quixote so I don't know how the book compares to the musical as far as plot and such. I'm not very good at plot summaries anyway.
The whole play is written with all these layers of metaphor. It's set in a dungeon where the pensioners are acting out the story together under the direction of Crecantes. We weave in and out of Crevantes' dream and Don Quxiote's.
This musical is on my list because the message (which everyone ought to hear) is so inseparable from the music and the music from the story. This is the way musicals are supposed to be.

Content warning: There is much adult content in this story. It is not always handled tactfully. Certainly PG-13 rating for sexual content. Generally, I don't like shows like that. Phantom of the Opera could have been a little higher up on the list if it wasn't for all the sensuality in it. La Mancha is an exception because, although it's much worse than Phantom in that regard, the sexual content serves a purpose in the story and is not meant to be a crowd pleaser.

Don Quixote is out on his quest to right all wrongs. Righting all wrongs includes slaying windmills and (in one really fun song) rescuing a legendary helmets from a traveling barbers who has mistaken it for a shaving basin. It also involves defending the honor of a woman whom Quixote calls Dulcinea and everyone else knows as Aldonza. Aldonza makes her living selling drinks and food and herself to whatever man walks into her inn. Not much honor to defend. Quixote doesn't see it that way. He sees Aldonza as she was meant to be (Dulcinea) and raises her up out of the life she has been living to something more worthy of her. Aldonza thinks he's crazy. Okay, he is crazy but maybe being crazy is better than being sane and hateful like Aldonza is. First she mocks him with everyone else, but she finds she cannot laugh at him. Why? He lives in a dream world where good always triumphs over evil and people are moral and honorable by default. What Does He Want of Me, she sings (Gorgeous song)

"no one can be what he wants me to be."

The real world simply isn't like that. Aldonza has a very dim view of the world. She can only hate it and she cannot comprehend Quixote who seems to love it even when it is just as cruel to him as it has been to her. Taking her hate from her leaves Aldonza with only despair (or so she tells him in one of her songs) but Quixote is full of hope even in the face of his hopeless quest.

The only recordings I could find from this show are sung by a British guy. And it's obvious. It might be Peter O'Toole cause he plays Quixote in the movie version. I've never seen it. This is really wrong because the actor who play Don Quixote should at least fake a Spanish accent if he doesn't have one naturally. I hear the movie makers cast with singing ability second to acting. That's a matter of opinion I guess. I don't think I would like it. And I absolutely refused to put Frank Sinatra singing the Impossible Dream. It's just wrong. *Sigh* the recordings I find are seldom what I was hoping for. My apologies, you all need to go find the sound track with Placido Domingo.
There is so much passion in these songs. Some of them, I cannot sing along to because they are not G rated but the ones that are clean are very beautiful. I love the Spanish flavor; the brass and the castanets. Ah! It's so good!

Other favorites of mine from this show are "I Really Like Him" in which Quixote's faithful 'squire' Sancho attempts to explain his devotion to a bewildered Aldonza. Okay, any time Sancho sings it's great fun. While Don Quixote lies dyeing his servant comes to his bed side with 'a little gossip' mostly to cheer himself up, since Quixote is unconscious. He's full of common sense and nonsense.
And there is this little song... Quixote's death scene is very moving and at the end, while Dulcinea and Sancho try to make sense of the mans life the good Padre sings a prayer under their dialog and it might be my favorite part in the whole sound track. Maybe it's just cause it's in Latin. *grin*

The Man of La Mancha opens

Hear me now, or thou bleak and unbearable world
thou art base and debauched as can be.
And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled
Now throws down his gauntlet to thee!

That may be the theme song and opening number but The Quest is really the heart of the show. It pretty much sums it up.

Quixote: It is the mission of each true knight, his duty, nay, his privilege..
{sing}
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chase from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest: to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right, without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause.
And I know if I only be true to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this;
That one man, scorned and covered with scares
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreadable star