Author Archives: Janell

Midwifery

20 Friday Feb 2009

Posted by in Life at Home

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When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I’m feeling bad.

                                –Rogers & Hammerstein

  

Our puppy Max has eaten more rocks.  So I call the vet.  My sister’s dog, Eve, is having puppies under Daddy’s bed.  So I call my sister, Christi..  I watch two lab technicians haggle, before one finally draws the short straw, to draw Daddy’s blood through his paper-thin skin.  Who can I call to fix this?  

 

Sometimes I wonder if  I believe myself when I tell others that Daddy is holding his own.  Dad actually does very little on his own.  My aunt cooks Daddy’s meals, a nurse’s aid helps him bathe and most everything else falls to Christi and me.  Together we get Dad to the doctor, we make sure he has his daily meds, we take care of his housekeeping and his shopping and paying his monthly bills.  So Daddy’s own is really being held up by others, mostly Christi.   

 

While I hate to acknowledge it, time is slipping away from Daddy.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Daddy is slipping away from time, as Dad lives one foot in this world and one planted in a place I cannot see.  Maybe that’s why Daddy’s legs are so shaky.  And though Dad has a walker to help him walk, I wish he had a talker to help him talk.  Dad’s speech is shakier than his legs, as he struggles to string two words together.    

 

One afternoon a week is spent with daddy, where within companionable silence, I do a little housekeeping and we watch a litle television.  When it comes time for me to leave, he hoists himself up from his recliner to send me off with one long hug.  He sometimes acts as if he doesn’t want to let go, as if he’s holding on for dear life.  But then I find it’s my life he’s holding onto, as he struggles to tell me to drive safely.  Last week he had weightier matters on his mind—so he pulled me close to whisper into my ear a string of words spoken so fast they bumped into one another as they tripped to get out of his mouth.  I caught their semblance if not their exact meaning.   And this made him happy.  But not as much as when Christi walked through the door from her day of work. He may hold onto me for dear life, but we all know that Christi is his life.

 

It’s been a day of midwifery rather than housewifery, as I’ve  intervened to bring about or keep life within this world.  Eve is now resting comfortably with six little mouths to feed.  Max has ejected all the rocks but has a surprisingly mild case of Parvo – we are told he will recover ‘just fine.’  And Daddy’s about the same.  With me wrapped in his arms, Daddy’s holding his own.    

 

Happy Haunts

18 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by in Soul Care

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 “Eenie meenie chili beanie,

 the spirits are about to speak.”
 “Are they friendly spirits?”

 “Friendly? Just listen!”

                                                    –Rocky  & Bullwinkle

 

My dear friend Ann has been haunting my thoughts these last few weeks.  So shortly before eight this morning, I responded with a call.  I am fortunate to have friends who remain unfazed by phone calls that I know are too irregular and sometimes indecently early.  This morning, as we talked, I curled up in my favorite chair, still wearing my robe and pajamas, and settled into what I knew would be a highlight of my day, as we madly dashed around the bases of each other’s lives in an effort to reconnect our shared dots.  I know I can call Ann anytime and be better for the visit.  She is so bright, I feel smarter in her presence.  She is so refreshingly real – she doesn’t bother to hide behind a façade of politeness or social conventionality that prevents others from seeing her for who she really is.  And because she is who she is, she invites others, like me, to do and be the same.  It makes me wonder why I don’t call her more often.      

 

Unfortunately, most of my friends live in south Texas, so our visits come by infrequent phone calls.  But as I think about it, that’s part of the wonder of these friendships.  No matter how long it’s been between visits, the strength of the friendship carries us through our times of shared silence.  And when the threads are picked up again, as they were this morning, there is no need for patching or mending of tears with apologies for laxness in calls.  We just resume our conversations seamlessly as if the months of silence were the briefest of interludes.  

 

I met most of my good friends in a Companions in Christ small group almost seven years ago.  Outside of marriage and raising four children, I regard this as one of my most important and treasured life shaping experiences.  The material was great but it was the women that made it unforgettable.  What transpired within our group stayed put – whether it was the sharing of dreams or demons or hopes or fears, it never ventured outside our small circle – and what grew out of that intimacy and trust, was the gift of dear friendships and a closeness to God that still lives with me today.  My friend Ann came from this circle, as did my friend Bernice, a true ‘hostess with the mostest”, who could give Perle Mesta — the namesake of this historic neighborhood where I now live– a huge run for her money.   

 

Bernice dared to ask me a question three years ago, that has haunted me ever since… 

“What are you going to do with your writing?

At the time, I hadn’t planned to do anything with it.  What was there to do?  But out of the seeds of that haunting question have grown two years of private journals which is now transformed into this more public one.  And beyond that, who knows?   Well, maybe my good friends Rocky and Bullwinkle… who I still see are sitting before their cartoon-ish crystal ball, as they listen for calls from friendly spirits. 

 

It’s A Wrap

17 Tuesday Feb 2009

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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ilovelucytitlescreen1It was standing room only in our Mesta Park dining room last weekend.  I was extremely happy to be lighting candles on Kyle’s twenty-first birthday cake.  And to be honest, I was filled with relief.  There had been plenty of calzones in spite of  the near kitchen catastrophe that almost left none.     

 

While an over ambitious menu worked against me that day, it was mostly Sunday’s cooler temperature that set me up for my latest Lucy Ricardo dose of disaster.  Cold weather always sends my bread dough into a slightly heated oven to rise.  And then I always remove it before preheating the oven.  Except….this time…when I remained blissfully unaware I had just set three lovely batches of risen dough to bake at 450 degrees.  Fifteen minutes later, freshly dressed for party success, I unwittingly returned to the kitchen to play the starring role of my very own  I Love Lucy episode.  With my hubby playing his normal supporting role, I opened the oven door to stand trancelike before this huge glob of almost baked dough, while this stream of consciousness emptied unfiltered from my whirling disbelieving mind into a kitchen saturated with the fresh aroma of baking bread.   

“I cannot believe I did this.”

“Can you believe I did this?”

“What are we going to do now?”

Being the very intelligent man that he is, my husband said absolutely nothing — unlike Desi Arnaz, he knew no splainin’ from me was going to avert this dinner party crisis staring us in the face. And as for me, destined to play the part of the witless heroine, I desperately grabbed for my own happy ending as I removed the heavy glob from the oven to carefully peel the baked bread away from its bowl.   Underneath the golden brown crust, still soft and gooey, was about a third of the dough… enough for me to stretch into small calzones for everyone, with two to spare.  Well….make that one.  Because as we were all celebrating in the dining room, our standard poodle Max was having his own private party in the kitchen, woofing down the calzone he’d swiped off the countertop. 

 

With kitchen mayhem finally under wraps, it was time for the spotlight to shine on Kyle and the lovely little traditional birthday cake so fitting for February birthdays.  Made from a hand-me-down recipe of Grandma Betty’s, but baked in the shape of a heart, the cake did not resemble the famous I Love Lucy satin heart logo.  But it should have. dsc01219a2    

 

Grandma Betty’s Birthday Cake

Best made 8 – 12 hours before serving

 

Cake: Bake one white cake mix prepared according to package directions in two 9” cake pans.  Allow cake to cool on baking rack.

Frosting:  In a small bowl, blend 1 ½ cups of whipping cream with the boxed contents of one Betty Crocker Home Style Fluffy White Frosting Mix.  Chill one hour.  Then beat until stiff peaks form.

Filling & Topping:  1 can of Wilderness Cherry Pie Filling

 

To assemble, spread 1 cup of frosting on first layer with ¼ of the can of pie filling.  Add top layer and frost sides and top of cake.  Add remaining cherries to top of cake.  Keep refrigerated between servings.