Category Archives: Life at Home

Odd One Out

27 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home

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It feels odd to be out of the garden today — and for rain to be there in my stead.  Gentle.  And steady — as if we weren’t deep in the midst of a year-long drought.  The very one – if weather fortune-teller predictions come true — that will continue through winter.

I brought the key limes in last night for the second time this season.  Temperatures fell below forty-eight degrees — and what is mild conditions for most is hostile to these thin-skinned trees; no use telling them tonight’s forecast is mid-thirties since forty-eight or thirty-eight spells the same dire end — and what are a few degrees anyway, since they’ve been saved from Jack’s frosty fingers of death.  The sad truth is that they will never outgrow their need for saving.  That come cold weather, they will always need a helping hand to stay alive.  No matter how big they get.

Being in retreat and offering retreat to frigid lime trees from the very place that has been my retreat seems — in the spirit of the day — odd.  Because, for better or worse  the garden has been my private escape-hatch when too much about everyday life has felt hostile; family feuds here and there, that few (if any) could explain to outsiders.  Even those mired in the moment and history of the relationship find it a mystery.

On one side of the tree I’ve observed hot anger take flight in hateful words launched as deadly cruise missiles — while on the other I’ve observed the cutting of life ties from a surreal silence, the barest of words offered between two at odds.  Was the first rooted in jealousy over the attention of a dying loved one, as some have said?  And can it be the second began in forgotten cupcakes for a birthday party?  Oh, who but God knows?  All I know, is that after months of hurt, it’s probably good that some things remain a mystery.  Because what if it was really about forgotten cupcakes?

All this brings to mind a Robert Frost poem I first ran across in college that I didn’t then understand.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Does anyone need to hear that I “get” the poem very well these days?

And does anyone find irony in that this truth was written by a poet named “frost.”

Of course, life is full of ironies.  Life is full of finding truth in odd places — like retreating from a retreat to stay alive, as in the case of my too-big-for-their-pots lime trees.  And two, that a family feud is never just about two at odds, because it ripples out like a whirlpool to catch those beyond its edge in its spiral, so that everyone at family gatherings walks on egg shells, doing their darned best to pretend all is well when it’s not.  And three, that it’s not just lime trees that are too thin-skinned and in need of saving from the hostile conditions they find themselves in.  And that few, if any, choose to jump into the midst of their squabble — perhaps out of good intentions, they see it as none of their business — yet, why is it, that even now,  I hear these words of Jesus’ that beg otherwise: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Did I just play the Jesus card?  Well, I suppose those Southern Baptist roots are still down there under the soil somewhere.  But if my words feel blunt, they hold no anger.  If anything, I’m only weary.  And oddly enough I’m grateful too — for the silver lining that’s come with this round of rain clouds — both the life lessons learned and the joy experienced in watching the beauty of the garden unearth from hard clay.

Sometimes I wonder if the size of my garden grew in proportion to the size of my sorrow.  Had my year been happier, would my garden have been smaller?  What I know for sure is that the garden has had her way of reducing me to size:  after a day of gardening I know the world doesn’t revolve around me and petty arguments and that some day, we’ll both be reduced to a speck of dirt.

In spite of disrupting my too-much-to-get-done tight garden schedule, today’s rain  — along with this outpouring — is a welcomed relief.  I pray it’s not temporary.

Lemon Thyme Tea Bread

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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This Lemon Thyme Tea Bread — a recipe I’ve made for years — will become a fine if unconventional birthday cake tomorrow.

My husband helped make it because he staunchly believes in one life absolute:  NO ONE should have to make their own birthday cake.  But really, I don’t mind making my cake.  And with a preference to NOT be the center of attention — ever — I also don’t mind the absence of the usual big family gathering held in my honor.

Just as well since my two middle children are out-of-town and my endearing youngest is almost always out in left field, especially when it comes to knowing who’s on first and the important what’s, where’s and when’s of life.

On the other hand, my oldest will be in town and is always on top of her game.  However, she has a very important O.U. football game to attend with her husband, which in Oklahoma, don’t you know, is the sacred cow that trumps all else going on during game day.  This is absolutely true no matter how punk or sorry the competition is expected  to be.

Like all addicts, come hell or high water, a Sooner fan MUST have their fix of O.U. football every time the team plays.  Heaven knows I learned this from the cradle —  about an hour after my birth, in fact  —  from my dear daddy who left my mother and me to rush to the radio to find out whether O.U. would continue its winning streak by beating Colorado on October 22, 1955.  In case you’re wondering, they did.  And also — in case you’re wondering — my father never thought he had his priorities out-of-order.

I will not tune into tomorrow night’s game.  But surely if heaven is as good as its name, they will have subscribed to the Sooner Football Network so Daddy can.

Other than knowing THE game will not be part of my celebration, I’ve no plans yet.  Where possible, I prefer to live life without a game plan.   But I’m pretty sure I’ll be enjoying some of this lovely Lemon Thyme Tea Bread.  And of course, since my husband IS a Sooner football fan, I can’t help but think I’ll be hearing the sounds of O.U.’s fight song playing over and over, beginning around 7 pm or so, courtesy of The Pride of Oklahoma, which in case you’re wondering, is O.U.’s band rather than its football team.

How in heaven did THAT happen I wonder.

Go figure.

go o.u.

Lemon Thyme Tea Bread

3/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Combine first three ingredients in a saucepan — bring to a boil, then remove from heat.  Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.  Then cool.

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy.  Gradually add sugar, beating well.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Combine dry ingredients and, alternating with milk mixture, add to butter mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.  Mix after each addition.  Stir in lemon rind.

Pour batter in a greased and floured 9×5 loaf pan.  Bake at 325 for 50  minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan, Pour glaze over bread and cool completely.

Lemon Glaze

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

Combine and stir until smooth.

And the Marry-Making Begins

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by in Life at Home

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I woke to the rough sounds of my youngest son’s retching.

“Too much merry-making last night,” my husband muttered.

My better half has an understated way with words, and these, even laced with sleep, were delivered in  his calm, matter-of-fact way, while lying within dark unfamiliar surroundings of a downtown Tulsa hotel.

“Poor Kyle.  Will he be all right by tonight?.” I asked this with my mind racing ahead, thinking of that Best Man’s speech which laid crumpled on the window sill by his bed.

“Yeah.  He’ll be fine.”

I needed to hear these words from my husband of twenty-five years: Shoring up life with a few comforting words — when things go bump and barf in the night —  is what my husband does best.

Of course, thinking of tonight’s wedding festivities, I hope Kyle will be better than fine.  I hope he will be at his tip-top ‘best’, living up to his spot in tonight’s wedding party line-up.  But then, I hope we are ALL at our tip-top best, full of joy, indulging in more than a little harmless merry-making since this is my oldest son’s wedding day.  Have I mentioned — somewhere in a post along the way — that at six o’clock this evening. Bryan and Amy are getting married?

So what will this day bring?  Many merry-making guests dressed in their finest finery.  That’s a given.  Walks down the glamorous lobby aisle, which this morning, was still littered with rose petals from last night’s wedding.

To be sure, a few happy tears — courtesy of moi —  to accompany the speaking of age-old vows of “better or worse.”  Then lovely music.  And probably some that will not seem so to my way of thinking.  A first dance in a grand ballroom will follow  — and a second dance between our bride and her father will lead to the third between my son and me.  And if the DJ has been able to locate it, we’ll dance to these sounds of Carly Simon.

And then the “just marrieds” will cut the cakes baked by the bride’s oldest sister. a pastry chef in Kansas City.  And who knows what else?   Except that like the rest of life, the best moments will come unexpected and completely un-rehearsed.

I write this line thinking of Don’s mother who longed to be part of this evening’s marry-making, who instead is home in her own bed, weak as a kitten from a three-week ordeal that began in ICU and ended in a hospice center.  True to the worst of life, this was not unexpected.  Janice’s battle with cancer entered its ‘fourth-stage’ earlier this year — and this, solely out of love for Janice, who prefers to speak of the ‘betters’ than the ‘worst’ of life,  has been one of the ‘unmentionables’ flapping around my life of late.

Better and worse.  Light and dark..  Life and death..  In health and sickness — even the sort self-imposed from too much merry-making.  These opposites help define one another, don’t they?  And like in the case of my husband and I, who like Bryan and Amy, are a couple of “opposites-attract”, perhaps they also refine one another.  And who knows but that maybe, one day, this soon-to-be married couple will regard the other as their ‘better half.’  As I do my husband.

I do I do  I do.