Cooking Up a Storm

29 Oct

Wow-the wind is howling outside my little Cape Cod’s parlor window where I sit and contemplate, Carrie Bradshaw-like, “When the going gets tough, why do the tough get cooking?”

Or to put it another way, why, when disaster strikes, do we head for the kitchen?

Hurricane Sandy is hammering the Mid-Atlantic and in particular, Jersey. It started at 8 a.m. with high tide and is expected to cause chaos with our rivers, streams and coastlines well in to tomorrow.

So in addition to buying D batteries, milk, and a tank of gas, how are my friends preparing for this natural disaster?

Goddess Arlene made a ton of pulled chicken and Goddess Joann R., an award winning cook, baked a ham, which, when you live alone, is the gift that keeps on giving. Both ladies are going to be baking today.

Yesterday, in between battening down the hatches and running the screen windows downstairs and running the storm windows upstairs, I made a vat of pea soup and a double batch of hand pizzas. I also made baked apples for good measure. Just before we ate, my cousin Don brought over a pan of lasagna made with his homemade tomato sauce, with meatballs and sausage on the side.

My favorite metrosexual made a batch of five-grain cereal and baked a “Sandy cake.”

So it’s not just a girl thing…men get the urge to cook and/or bake, too. Maybe we are hunkering down into survival mode. Providing for ourselves and our loved ones to ride out the storm.

Or perhaps we are participating in an age old instinctual ritual involving fire and warmth and cocooning?

Either way, who’s up for baked apples!?!

 

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Peter, Paul and…ME!

13 Oct

The call came after a day of high highs (a working lunch with Goddess Joanne R. and my Head of Reference/IT) and low lows (my budget will be cut by at least $84,000 next year).: Did I want to go to see Peter, Paul and Bernadette Peters at the Bergen PAC? An early birthday present. With one of my good good friends, Debbie Tester. And her daughter, Rebecca. It was her 8 year old daughter’s first concert.

I didn’t even have to think two seconds before answering YES!

The Bergen PAC is an “intimate” concert space, probably seating under a thousand. Great acoustics and wonderful ambiance—I’ve gone to concerts there before…heck, one of my x’s played many concerts there. No waiting on line, seated quickly and only had to wait about 20 minutes until the concert began.

I looked around and saw a sea of grey heads and all I could think of was “Hippie Peace Freaks.” There were some grandchildren present who were around Rebecca’s age, but most of us were people of a “certain age”. Let’s face it, this was Peter and Noel Paul’s 50th Anniversary tour, Mary having passed away from leukemia several years ago. That means I was 13 when they first took to the stage! Others present, obviously, were older.

In keeping with my bipolar day, it was yesterday, not tonight that Bernadette Peters was appearing with them. Still, through serendipity, I was there!

Two things kind of caught me off guard.

First was how many hits they had. There were only three songs I didn’t know and it seemed everyone else did and sang along. (Singing along, taking illegal pictures and making illegal recordings were allowed, Peter said in his intro.)

Second was the sentiment behind the songs. Peace. Love. Speaking your truth, no matter how unpopular that may be. Fighting injustice. I remember when, during the Viet Nam War, the first groups of Peaceniks were being chased by mobs of hard hats down the streets of Manhattan. These were the first people I remember standing up against war. And it was not a popular stance.

I’m not ashamed to say when they sang “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” I got teary eyed at the thought that we still are wondering, years later, “Where Have All the Young Men Gone?”

There was one new song by Noel Paul named “Cue the Moon,” which I loved. But as they say, the hits kept on coming.

Blowing In The Wind. If I Had a Hammer. Leaving on a Jet Plane. And each had memories associated with it. The music took me back to gatherings in friend’s basements or rec rooms where someone would get out a guitar and everyone…but EVERYONE…would sing. Probably most songs were written with 4 chords. Some with good voices would sing the back ground, or the harmony, but it didn’t matter how good or bad your voice. We all knew the words and the tunes. And we all sang. These were known on TV as Hootenannies, but to us it was Friday night.

In case you were wondering, Peter and Paul still have that tight harmony. Wonderful voices and fantastic guitar chops. They were joined by another guitar player who also filled in on banjo, mandolin and harmonica and a guy on the bass.

A great trip in a time machine to a galaxy far far away.

Thanks, Deb. And, Rebecca, I hope you will always remember this night. I know I will.

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Unexpected Gifts

10 Sep

“Do you believe in luck?”

The pretty Indian lady who stood before me had come back to my office to ask this question.

I was surprised to see her so soon. We had just spent a pleasant half hour talking about job opportunities in the Public Library sector, and how we would co-run a Knitting Club at my Library. Then we shook hands and she left, but now, five minutes later, she was back.

“Of course~” I said.

She held out both of her fists. She smiled.

“Both of these are for you, but pick one hand first.”

I tapped the back of her right hand.

She opened it to reveal two coins. The larger, she explained was 2 rupees, very lucky and very rare as they are no longer minted. But because it is considered bad luck to give some one an amount of money that ends in a zero, she was also giving me an American quarter.

I took the proffered coins and thanked her, pleased by the surprise. I turned the Indian coin over and it was beautifully made, with characters and images strange to my eyes.

She rotated her other hand and opened it to reveal a small friendship bracelet made out of dark brown twine, tiny blue and white beads and small metal heart-shaped bells. It made a tinkling sound as she placed it in my hand.

I told her how I’ve always loved the sound of those bells on Indian jewelry. She said she was happy I liked it and looked forward to working with me.

I told her the same.

After work, I went to my friend and chiropractor, Dr. T., for a treatment. I have always thought of her as one of the many wise women in my life who give good advice. She also gives gifts. Clothing, basil, Chinese herbs when you are sick.

I walked in after putting an unusually colored mum among the other plants on her front porch. She has a green thumb and not a small amount of feng shui sensibility.

I called into the house, “Guess what I have for you…a magenta mum with yellow centers!”

She greeted me with “Guess what I have for you…Cuccuzza!”

Well, her cuccuzza trumped my flowers, for while the mums are on sale all over the area this time of year, I had given up hope of getting a cuccuzza.

Cuccuzzas are Italian squash. Think of a light green whiffle ball bat and you have an idea of the length and circumference. When stewed with onions and tomatoes, a touch of garlic and basil…well, there are few things in this world that say “Late Summer” more than a cuccuzza.

The reason why I had given up hope was that T’s neighbor, Jasper, grew cuccuzza every year, but always saved one for seeds. This year some thieves (probably Italian goumets) stole the cuccuzza as soon as it became ripe. Jasper even wrote on one of the cuccuzza, “Please do not take. Saving for seeds.” They stole that, too. We thought that was the end of the story; but Jasper evidently found a few left and I was getting the next to the last cuccuzza, the last being saved for seeds.

T was thrilled with her mums. I was thrilled with my cuccuzza.

And all had been given in the name of friendship, the best gift of all.

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A Tear in the Space-Time Continuum

1 Sep

“All of our patrons make us happy…some by coming in and some by leaving.”

All who work in public service know the truth of the quote above.

Few of my regular patrons made me happier by coming in the Hasbrouck Heights Free Public Library than Tom Shackley.

Tom was retired from the executive offices of Grand Union when I met him. He was a stately looking fellow, which belied his friendly nature.

He always had something interesting to say and said many quotable things such as, “Michele, (he pronounced it Meeshell) you will never understand the importance of lunch until you retire”.

He always sent me a birthday card, his birthday and mine both occurring in October.

I will always remember how much he loved the tune “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

I only found out recently that his final bout with cancer had put him in hospice, and then he was gone.

He didn’t move mountains, nor invent the cure for the common cold, but good men like him come along once in a blue moon…and today, on a Blue Moon, Tom Shackley was laid to rest.

And now I will always miss him.

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Toshiro Mifune, Japanese Cinema and the Thunderbolt of Revelation

13 Aug

I love the movies.  At certain points in my life, it’s been movies that have saved me, changed me, sustained me.  I’m not the first to find magic and catharsis sitting in the dark of a movie theater watching flickering images. I can talk movies for hours.  Well, not really.  Actually, I can talk movies for days – weeks – months.  But since this is a blog post, let me spare us all and cut to the point by way of giving you just some highlights of my movie watching life.

El Cid(1961) – This was the first really grown up film I saw in the theater.  I was a very small and romantic little girl bringing herself up on fairy tales that included knights in shining armor.  I had never seen anyone so beautiful as Sophia Loren, nor so handsome as Charlton Heston – and he played a living, breathing knight!  And he died heroically!  I cried and cried.  The images are still fresh in my mind even though I haven’t seen this film in decades.

Lion in Winter (1968) – I adored Katherine Hepburn in classic films I had seen on television.  This was the first time I saw her on the big screen.  Watching her and Peter O’Toole go at each other for over two hours with wit, cunning, desperation, and oddly enough, joy, was a revelation about acting and about being a star.  I was riveted and I thought – “I want to be her!”

2001 – A Space Odyssey (1968) – It blew my mind.  I don’t care what it all means.  No need to analyze.  Just go for the ride.  Sublime.

Star Wars – It’s 1977.  A 70 millimeter screen and a fantastic sound system at the Century Theater on Route 4 in Paramus, New Jersey.  The opening sequence where the Imperial cruiser comes over the screen from behind your right shoulder.  The theater begins to rumble and the seats vibrate, and my first reaction is “Yahoo!!! I love this!!!” Then I say to myself – “The whole movie world has changed, right now.”

Bambi – (sometime in the late 80s.)  They reissue Bambi to theaters and it’s playing in the small theater in the rural, western NJ town where I am living.  The great passionate and tragic love affair of my life has come to an end.  The pain is indescribable and bottomless.  It’s a hot, hot afternoon and I have no air conditioning in my apartment.  I go and sit in the cool dark, in the balcony by myself at a kiddie matinee of Bambi, as I smoke cigarette after cigarette and sob hysterically.  It was my version of a primal scream.*

AND

Seven Samurai – (Directed by the great Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa and released in in 1954.)  My experience of Japanese cinema and Japanese actors up to this point was Godzilla and Rodan.  All bad dubbing, plastic monsters, modern suits and horned rim eyeglasses.  I watched Seven Samurai for the first time in a butchered version on 16 mm print in the basement of the Pease branch of the Ridgewood Public Library.  I was stunned.  This is an understatement.  It was an earthquake in my life and particularly in what I knew about film.  All my understanding of movies, “foreign” movies, acting, cinematography, other viewpoints and the social/historical background of Japan can be dated pre and post this film.  It was a thunderbolt of revelation. It was sometime in the mid-70s.  In those pre-VHS days, I proceeded to hunt and haunt the movie art houses of New York City over the next 5-6 years to watch all the Kurosawa I could find.  (When I first started creating PowerPoints for presentations, I used the screen wipe as my slide transition.  My own little tribute to Kurosawa) I also fell in love with the actor Toshiro Mifune – Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, Rashomon, Sanjuro.  Now, there is more to Japanese cinema than Kurosawa, but he was my entry point.  Recently Turner Classic Movies featured Mifune in their Summer Under the Stars series.  Now I have a few more Mifune movies recorded that I’ve never seen!

The Olympics were over last night.  This week – it’s Mifune and me.  Can’t wait!

*The theater is about ¼ full of children under seven with their moms.  They are chattering away through the film until, danger – “Man is in the forest.”  Slowly, they all grow silent as they realize that Bambi’s mom has been killed.  Then one lone, piping voice rises from the seats below me and wails – “What’s happened to Bambi’s Mommie?!” The theater is now also filled with sobbing children. 

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Next Round of Contestants, Please

6 Aug

Today my neighbor, Julie died. Last month it was my other neighbor, Mrs. McCranor, who passed away. And the month before that, my beloved Aunt Eleanor, the last my father’s siblings. All of these ladies were in their 90′s and all knew me as a child and as an adult.

I will miss these ladies, and not just because the number of people who “knew me when” are dwindling.

I couldn’t have asked for better neighbors, either when I was growing up or when I moved back into the house I was raised in. When I thought about buying the house from my brother, who had bought it from my mother’s estate, I was afraid I was going “backwards” in my life. But I knew the house’s faults and virtues, and in the last category was that I had four of the neighbors I had grown up with: Julie and Mrs. McCranor on either side of me, Mrs. Nagel, one house down from Mrs. McCranor, and my cousin Beverly who grew up and still lived across the street. When there was a power outage the first year I moved back, Julie and Mrs. McCranor came to MY house to see if I had enough candles, or a flashlight, or if I needed anything. And if my cousin Bev saw that my car was in the driveway on a work day, she’d call and ask, “How are you doing my Little Chickadee?”

Now of all the people who moved into these post-war Cape Cods, only Mrs. Nagel and I remain.

My Aunt Eleanor, about whom I have written before in this blog, passed away two weeks shy of her 97th birthday. When you think about it, she truly did see a century of progress. One of her first memories was of sitting on the potty and being encouraged to “speed things up” by her mother, who was eager to see the combination gas and electric lights being installed in the new house they were building next door. The reason for the combination lights? Electricity had not yet come to that part of Garfield, but they knew eventually it would and they wanted to be prepared.

These were women who had lived through the Depression, were young adults during World War II, who were in their forties when JFK was elected.

They also knew that eventually they would own their own homes, be able to send their kids to college and have enough money to retire on. Can many of us say that today?

I’m getting that “Next round of contestants, please” feeling. I am the next generation. I am a senior citizen. I know it’s illogical, but it’s almost as if as long as that generation was around, they provided a shield between me and “being old.”

Don’t get me wrong. All of my parts work, and I fortunately got my mother’s good skin. I am gratefully free from aches and pains, although I do a good imitation of a “Frankenstein walk” when I first get out of bed in the morning. My bucket list is short and I have very few regrets. I still have dreams. And I am still attractive to the opposite sex. I keep up with technology so I’m not that old lady sitting on the edge of the conversation, listening, but not participating.

But let’s face it, folks. I have more yesterdays than tomorrows. Tick tock.

When I do go, I would like to go as these ladies did; living their lives with as much independence and dignity as they had always enjoyed. And surrounded by love.

 

 

 

Remember…Walkin’ in the Sand…

5 Aug

When I am down the shore-and to me it always means Seaside Heights-I am young again.

The same ocean, the same beach, the same smell of sea life and seaweed and creosoted boards baking in the sun.

The feel of the velvet beach sand on your feet or the gentle ocean breeze as your skin is kissed by the warmth of the sun

The same shush, shush, boom, sissssss, of breaking waves, and in the background the melodeon of the Casino Pier carousel bangs out, “After the Ball” in a pseudo march/waltz. “Oom-pah-pah! Clang-pah-pah!”

Neon signs! LCD lights on the rides! Fireworks over the ocean!

And the pepper and sausage and onion sandwiches never taste as good anywhere else than when prepared here.

When I hear and see and smell these things it’s yesterday once more. And I am a teenager one more time.

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