The House That Jack Built

14 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , ,

What would I do if I won the lottery tomorrow?

It was a question I was asked several weeks ago by my spiritual director.  I had been talking about feeling stuck.  Maybe I was whining, because God knows, I have been struggling a little of late.  All the activities that once brought me great joy no longer do.  Whether its writing, spiritual direction training, even gardening – all has lost its luster.

That question has proved life-giving.  So maybe it’s not so bad to be stalled, since I’ve taken the last two weeks to take stock of where I am and where I want to be, five years down the road.  I’ve asked myself questions like, would I travel around the world?  Would my husband and I retire to some little lake house a little further south?  Would I continue to garden and to write?  Can I see myself sitting as spiritual director for fellow seekers?  Oddly enough, I can respond ‘yes’ to all of these questions.

But strangely, the thing I would most like to do in the world, if money were no object, is to buy old unloved houses and restore them.  And would you believe I said this to Curt, with no thought whatsoever, on the very night he first posed his ‘litmus’ test question.  And the answer is really no different now, after two weeks of pondering.

So imagine my surprise, when a week ago, my sister told me that she wanted to try to keep rather than sell my parent’s former home.  The house that my father Jack built twenty-five years ago is going to get rebuilt from top to bottom; my sister plans to  replace the roof, windows, kitchen appliances and redecorate surfaces, like walls, flooring, ceilings.

This property that my sister inherited has been in my mother’s family since the late forties — my sister and I ran across the warranty deed when we were clearing out the house last week.  I believe my grandparents bought the house from one of my great uncles — though, originally, I understand the house belonged to the parents of two great-aunts.

The original home purchased by my grandparents was demolished over ten years ago, though the front porch of that original home still stands.  My mother began a garden around that old porch and a new grape arbor I had built nearby.  And my sister, being the gardener that she is, will likely refurbish and add to the small garden our mother left behind.

My sister will be a wonderful caretaker of the property.  Christi knows exactly what color she wants to paint the exterior — and she has so many ideas for the inside.  And yesterday, while Christi and I were painting the front sitting room a lovely shade that can only be described as the color of homemade vanilla ice cream, Christi asked me to help her.

All I can say it that even though the house is my sister’s and not mine, I feel as if I’ve just won the lottery.

German Potato Salad

12 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home, Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

I like to try new recipes, though at best, most of my trials are one-hit wonders.

But occasionally, one runs across a recipe like this dish that has been in our family for almost forty years.  It became part of our lives, and part of Mom’s permanent supper rotation, when she brought the recipe home as a souvenir from one of the many trips my parents made to Houston to visit my Uncle Melvin and Aunt Wanda.

Mom and Wanda were the female response to The Odd Couple, who like Walter Matthau and Tony Randall, enjoyed a proverbial love-hate relationship; they enjoyed each other when they were on good terms and they thrived on dissension when they weren’t.  The quality of my mother and aunt’s relationship actually seemed to improve with physical distance — when separated by 500 miles, they were the best of friends — when separated by a fence, these next door neighbors often carried on a cold war — the fence might as well have been the Berlin Wall.

When a relationship like Mom’s and Wanda’s is encountered in fiction, it makes for hilarious reading.   The fictional situations that ensue inspire tears to roll down my face and the sides of my chest to hurt from overdosing on laughter.  But I can assure you it’s no laughing matter when these colorful and highly combustible relationships invade real life.  Life grows surreal, taking on the quality of a daytime drama.

When ‘things’ between Mom and Wanda were good, life was sugary sweet, to the point of making most everyone else sick from too much artificial sweetener.  When things grew ugly, tempers flared, they drew a line in the sand and both rallied support for their cause of ‘being right.’  Each would call the other the worse names they could think of — and the words whispered behind one another’s  backs would come home to roost, by the time the gossip mill churned it around and around.

One thing I learned from watching Mom and Wanda’s revolving door relationship over fifty years is this:  No matter how good a writer becomes, there’s no way any author can ever dream up the sort of outrageous situations that naturally transpire in real life, especially between two women that love and hate one another so well.  And when you throw into the mix that both women professed themselves to be God-fearing Christians — well, the irony of it all is just so delicious, it becomes hard to resist  —  just like this potato salad — sort of sweet… sort of tart.

Try it and see how easy sweet and sour can come together so nicely.

German Potato Salad

Serves 4    Preparation Time – 15 minutes   Cooking Time — 2 hours

Ingredients:

2 strips of bacon
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cans sliced new potatoes, drained

Dressing:

1/3 cup sugar (original recipe call for 1/2 cup)
1/3 cup white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 to 3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
 

In a cast iron skillet over medium heat, fry bacon crisp.  Drain on a paper towel.  Drain oil from pan and add olive oil.  (Original recipe does not call for the substitution).  Over low heat, saute onion until soft and translucent.  Add potatoes and cook for a few minutes, crumbling bacon on top.  Mix all skillet ingredients and add dressing until just covered.  There will be enough dressing for two applications.  Let the potatoes cook down, uncovered, over low heat, stirring occasionally.  Then add second round of dressing.  Once liquid has cooked into potatoes and thickened, remove potato salad from heat.  Cover with foil.  The salad can be reheated prior to serving.

Gardener at Work

11 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, ,

Earlier today, something black and fast caught my eye from my upstairs window.

It was my Scottish Terrier, Cosmo, hurrying as fast as short legs could carry her.  Trotting with purpose, as if on a mission, Cosmo was heading  toward her favorite garden spot.   I don’t normally keep close tabs on my garden loving dog, but it is spring and I’ve plenty of garden chores to get through without any extras from Ms. Cosmo.

That Scottie of mine digs holes where I don’t want them.  She’s severed every one of my drip irrigation lines in the last three months — most were completely ripped out.   And in spite of my close watch, Cosmo gnawed quite a few edges off my new back porch steps.

But Cosmo’s specialty is thinning out garden plants.  Last year, I caught her eating my Spilanthes, commonly called the Toothache Plant.  Another one of her forays left several giant Cosmos and Cleome  dead — these showy flowers stand four to five feet tall, but that didn’t deter Ms. Cosmo, who chopped them off at their ankles.  Poor little flower victims didn’t know what hit them.

Once Cosmo harvests a plant, she works more like garbage disposal than composter —  which would be fine, if her definition of plant debris was the same as mine.  I don’t mind Cosmo pruning back last season’s perennial growth — or pulling up the dead annuals by their roots — but Lordy, that girl hasn’t figured out one from the other.  And really — I ask — is it necessary to chew holes in my ‘invisible’ fence wire that keeps my poodle garden stampedes in check?  If I didn’t know better, I might wonder if Cosmo was in cahoots with the poodles.

Cosmo’s favorite spot in the garden lies behind the garden shed at the back of our small city lot.  In the summer, it offers a cool drink of shade, something that comes in handy for a little dog with coal-black fur.  In the winter, it offers shelter from the cold north wind, a good place to carry out her terrorist activities, chewing to heart’s and jaw’s content without fear of being disturbed.

While Cosmo is out ‘tending’ the back gardens, I’ve been slaving in the front, giving a hundred head of  Lirope or Monkey Grass a nice spring ‘haircut.’  The cold winter dulled their ‘heads’ to an olive-green full of dry split ends.   Though some gardeners use lawn mowers and weed trimmers to groom their ‘Monkey Grass,’ I prefer to cut each one by hand with my pruners, to prevent the weed trimmer from injuring the tree bark.  I could use Cosmo’s help if she were willing.  But when in the front, Cosmo has a tendency to visit with her favorite neighbor — Jessie the cat.  If neighborhood gossip is right, Jessie doesn’t like Cosmo’s visits.

Working outside this time of the year does bring plenty of visits with the neighbors.  Folks are always walking by our house since we live near to Mesta Park — even the ones I don’t know call out a greeting.  Then, my next-door neighbor is always interested in what I’m doing in my garden.  After a few minutes of questions, I’m usually left to my task with some final word of encouragement, like —  “Looking good.”

I know they’re talking about the garden  rather than me, since I never look good when working in the garden.  But now Cosmo — that girl always looks good — even when she’s being a very naughty Scottie — which may help explain why I keep her on the gardening payroll.