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an everyday life

an everyday life

Tag Archives: Friends

About Face

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Everyday Life, Facebook, Friends, Window Washing

My face is no longer on Facebook.  Last September, I wiped my wall clean — much like my windows will be by the end of today, thanks to a lovely window-washer named Katherine.

I “met” Katherine by phone this past spring break, when she was on vacation, taking it easy in the Caribbean.  She ended up spending a day and a half washing windows at our Mesta Park two-story the following week — and as it happens with many contractors that work for me — my relationship with Katherine became a mix of business and pleasure.

It’s not that I know Katherine all that well.  What I know I can count on less than ten fingers.  First, she’s a single mother of two older boys.   Two, she’s a hard worker.  Three, she likes historic homes well enough to own one.  Four, she’s conscientious — when she’s running late, she calls.  Five, she takes pride in her work, and in leaving my home better than she found it.  Six, she’s attractive.  Seven, she injured herself badly somehow and sometimes, when working, she’s in pain.

It’s puny knowledge, truly.   But even this is more than I knew about the current lives of many Facebook friends.  Yet, it was something all together different that triggered my departure, because I quit soon after wishing my grandson a happy birthday via Facebook — which happened when I couldn’t reach him on his cell phone — which happened since we no longer enjoyed an everyday relationship —  due to reasons beyond his control.  And mine — or so it felt at the time.

The act of writing that solitary birthday greeting on his wall left me sad.  And it made me wonder:  Is this what my relationships — with those I hold most important in the world — is being reduced to?  Sending birthday greetings through a social media service — to follow up an old-fashioned greeting card delivered by others.  Though it works for some, I’d rather breathe a prayer in the silence that separates me from those whose lives I cherish.

It was one of those decisions made in an instant — the kind which often lead to regret —  where I clicked a button before I could change my mind.  And without mention to any of my friends — except for my husband — my demise on Facebook, I think, was not really noticed.  One minute I was there — and in the next, I wasn’t.  As far as I know, no obituary or announcement was delivered to my friends.

I’m looking forward to clean windows today — the kind so clean, one can see the reflection of their own living face within them — that one can look beyond their own face to a world full of trees and flowers and sun and moon and real people, with legs and arms and backs and hands to wave out a greeting.

But sometimes — I’m not gonna lie — I regret that rash decision of mine.  Why it happened yesterday, in fact, when I set out to address Christmas cards, when I realized I no longer have my good friend Litha’s new address, which she shared with her friends via Facebook.  But not enough yet, I think, to do an about-face.  I’ll just have to call our mutual friend Wynona.  After I catch up with Katherine.


Egg Salad Revival

22 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by Janell in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Apple's Way, Everyday Life, Friends, In the Kitchen

The first time I tried it was at Apple’s Way, a cute little tea room in Lake Jackson locally famous for serving plates of assorted triangle-cut triple layer sandwiches full of salad mixes — chicken, tuna, ham, pimento-cheese and egg — mostly to women.

Being unsuitably impressed, I avoided egg salad with something akin to religious fervor for fifteen years.  My mantra, when ordering my favorite assorted plate of sandwiches during frequent stops at the tearoom became  — “Anything but egg salad, please.”

But somehow, in the twenty years of residing near Apple’s Way, I grew a change of heart.  Perhaps it was living amongst friends who had roots in the deep South which caused me to give egg salad another taste  — or maybe it was a certain Methodist preacher who shamelessly hinted for egg salad sandwiches to be brought to every church function that made me wonder if there was a certain charm about egg salad I had previously missed.

Whatever it was, and whenever and however it happened, I now confess to loving this simple stuffing.  My redemption was so absolute that when my good friend Ann and this certain preacher-friend and I would gather for our weekly book study on Wednesdays at Noon, it was me bringing in the sheaves — carrying individually wrapped egg salad spread on fresh-baked white bread as repentance.

Five hundred miles away and who knows how many years, egg salad has found a permanent  spot on my rotating lunch menu —  though no longer  limited to Wednesdays.  And while there are many recipes for egg salad — I believe my father favored one including chopped olives — I like this one the best.  Appropriately, it hails from a recipe I found in the pages of Southern Living, which I’ve adapted to my own taste.

Thank goodness our hearts do soften toward new ideas and tastes when we keep minds and mouths open.  Care to confess your own food conversion story?

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Makes 4 sandwiches

5 large hard-boiled eggs, grated
2 Tbsp. finely chopped celery
1 Tbsp. sweet pickle relish
1 Tbsp. finely chopped onion
2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. sour cream
1 tsp. dried salad seasoning
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. pepper

Combine ingredients in a bowl. Cover and chill for an hour or two to allow flavors to mix and mingle.

To serve, spread evenly on a slice of white sandwich bread — fold it like my father would — or make it a holy trinity sandwich, by topping it with another slice of bread and another layer of spread and another slice of bread, slicing that triple-decker sandwich into tea-room triangles.

Mystery Smiles

21 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Friends, Grandchildren


“I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling…”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
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“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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