Fondue, week 2

I’ve been busy this week, so I’m a little late with this post, but we held our second weekly fondue night Saturday. This week’s recipes: beef fondue, garlic butter, green goddess sauce, and olive sauce.

Hazy red tone courtesy of Instagram’s 1977 filter, of course.

Review: The beef fondue was good, but really, how could it not be? We were deep-frying little pieces of steak. The garlic butter was good — hard to go wrong with something as simple as minced-up garlic stirred into a bowl of butter. The other sauces weren’t bad, but they both involved stirring liquids into softened cream cheese, which is almost always more trouble than it’s worth. That was definitely the case this time. The steak was worth the effort, though, and the dogs were really excited when we saved a bite for each of them.

Greatest cookbook ever, probably.

After our uber-’70s dinner, we binge-watched four episodes of the original Wonder Woman series on HBO Max. (Ron signed up for a subscription so we could watch Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas. The TV show was a bonus.) We are now in agreement that Patty Jenkins definitely needs to give Lynda Carter a significant role in the next movie, because she is awesome.

It was interesting to see where our respective lines in the sand were with regard to suspending disbelief: Ron was distracted by the bad special effects, which didn’t bother me because I’ve watched enough Classic Who for dodgy production values to feel like home. I was distracted by the anachronisms: The first season was supposed to be set during World War II, but the producers didn’t always pay close attention to what was happening in the background of a given scene — so at one point, Steve Trevor pulled his car into a decidedly newer-than-1942 right-turn-only lane, and in another scene, the signage on an otherwise period-accurate storefront in the background was printed in Helvetica, which wouldn’t exist until 1957.

Apparently I can accept an Amazon with superpowers flying an invisible plane and tying up Nazis with a golden lasso that forces them to tell the truth, but an anachronistic typeface is a bridge too far. #designerproblems, I guess.

On an unrelated note, I spent part of my morning working on a more important project: I’m in the process of setting up a scholarship at Herrin High School in honor of Anna. It will be called the Anna Morris Ex-A Scholarship (if you get it, you get it; if you don’t, I’m not going to explain it) and will be awarded to a graduating senior who plans to become an English teacher, based on cumulative English GPA. If nobody is planning to teach English, the scholarship will go to a kid who is planning to teach another subject.

If you want to donate, watch this space; I’ll have information about where to send checks as soon as all the paperwork is sorted. If you know any HHS seniors who might be eligible for the scholarship, let them know that they’ll have the opportunity to apply in the near future.

If the brass will agree to it, the scholarship will come with a letter from me providing contact information so recipients can call for moral support and mentoring if they need it as they start their teaching careers. Anna was always there for me through the rough spots, and I want these kids to know they’ve got a veteran teacher from Herrin in their corner if things get crazy.

We’ll see how this goes.

Emily

Big Yellow Taxi

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?”

— Joni Mitchell

Late last winter, I came down with a nasty cold that wrecked my vocal cords for months, and I learned not to take my pipes for granted.

A week later, our campus closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, and I learned not to take in-person teaching for granted.

Campus reopened briefly in October, but the state ordered my boss to take all the flexible seating out of my classroom and replace it with traditional desks, and I learned not to take my professional autonomy for granted.

I came down with the coronavirus in November, complete with several weeks of brain fog that screwed up my ability to get words out of my brain and onto the page accurately, and I learned not to take my intellect for granted.

The virus also forced me to quarantine, and I learned not to take my pantry and freezer for granted.

In the middle of all that, one of my oldest and dearest friends died, and I learned not to take people I love for granted.

Last night, a colleague and I realized that our usual regional inservice day — which everybody generally hates — will happen online this year, in a scaled-down form, and I learned not to take free doughnuts and coffee and a day of bitching about consultants behind their backs for granted.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been on doctor’s orders not to run again until I can walk three miles without feeling winded. Ramona the Pest and I walked 3.8 miles today, and I feel better than I have at any point since last spring. I did not take that for granted, and I am looking forward to a gentle run later this week.

After a year of loss, I think a good workout is going to feel a lot like slashing the tires on a big yellow taxi.

Emily

Looking ahead

I’m tired, but I think I’m finally ready for the new semester.

Last fall was rough. Rather than go into all the details, I’ll sum up the low points:

1. Thanks to ineptitude on the part of some folks in Santa Fe, I didn’t find out what classes I would be teaching until a week before school started — whereupon I learned I would have seven preps, including two I’d never taught before.
2. Remote learning was a virtual hellscape of buggy software, lost passwords, and tech access issues that persisted much farther into the semester than they should have.
3. We returned to in-person learning for about a month, from early October to early November, before somebody in our building caught COVID-19 and managed to share it with me. I realize how fortunate I was to have only a “mild” case, but it was still unpleasant, and the brain fog and fatigue lingered long enough to make the last month of my first semester of grad school unnecessarily difficult. I still managed to pull out a 4.0 GPA, but it was a near thing, and it wouldn’t have been if I’d been healthy.
4. Being sick and exhausted and busy with grad school meant I didn’t keep up with housework the way I normally would.

By the time I got to the end of the semester, I was exhausted and frustrated and overwhelmed. Last week, I took the bull by the horns and did myself three favors: I cleaned, decluttered, and reorganized my kitchen and office during a three-day period beginning Christmas Eve; I got on the FlyLady website and started re-establishing the habits that I’d learned there 20 years ago and hadn’t needed in several years; and I started a new bullet journal using a cheap dot-grid journal I found at the dollar store last fall but hadn’t had time to set up.

Tonight, I have a shiny sink, a set of lesson plans (and most of the ancillary materials) ready to go in Google Classroom — which I spent several hours taking self-paced classes to learn over break — and a glass of sangria in hand. This is the calm before the storm of another semester, but the point here is that it’s calm, if only for a few more hours. That’s something I haven’t experienced in a while, and I’ll savor it while I can.

Emily

Cheap entertainment

Y’all know I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions to start with, and with another semester of grad school on the horizon and a few aftereffects still lingering from a bout with COVID-19 in November, I didn’t feel particularly confident about my ability to keep any resolutions that involved running, traveling, or writing.

That being said, the beginning of a year is a good time to start new projects, and I came up with one that’s perfect for the middle of a pandemic: Since we can’t travel, go to the movies, or hang out at microbreweries right now, I decided this was as good a time as any to break out the fondue pots (yes, I own two — one electric and one that sits on a rack above a can of Sterno) and set out to try every recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Fondue Cook Book, which was originally published in 1970.

I don’t have the time or inclination to eat fondue every day, but I think I can manage once a week. We started this evening with the first recipe in the book: “Reuben Appetizers,” which are little balls of sauerkraut and canned corned beef, glued together with cream cheese and rolled in breadcrumbs. (There are a couple more ingredients and a few more steps, but that’s the upshot.)

They turned out better than I expected. I wouldn’t make them again, because they were awfully labor-intensive for something that’s basically deep-fried dog food, but they were enough fun to convince me that this project will be a good way to entertain ourselves while we wait for the world to reopen — and the dogs were delighted when we saved a few bites for them.

Next week, we’ll try the first recipe in the second section of the book — a traditional beef fondue that just involves frying steak in oil and dipping it in garlic butter or goddess dressing. We’ll see how that goes.

Emily

Circle of Life

For 25 years, I have been the Young Friend. What I mean is that I did not fit in especially well with most of my peers as a kid, so I gravitated toward the adults, who understood and appreciated my quirks.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was playing a dangerous game: If all your friends are 20+ years your senior, there will come a moment when you are left alone. When you reach that moment, you face a question: What do I do now?

I have a few friends my age. Some go way back; some are newer. The older I get, the more I find I have in common with my peers. Age is a great equalizer. But I have always cherished my older friends. And I have always known I couldn’t keep them forever.

Nearly five years ago, my friend Laurel died unexpectedly. I treasure the years I had with her. We had a host of things in common and delighted in discovering them, usually over sushi. She was nearly 30 years my senior, but we might as well have been sisters. I miss her.

In late November, while I was busy surviving COVID-19, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Anna, lost her battle with lung cancer. Anna was my sophomore English teacher. She was my parents’ sophomore English teacher. She was also one of my biggest cheerleaders. If not for this godforsaken virus, I would have headed back to Illinois to see her the minute she told me she was sick.

When I got word that she had slipped away, I wondered: What next? What do you do when you’re the Young Friend, and your Older Friends leave you?

The answer is: You become the Old Friend. I started grad school this semester (something Anna had long nudged me to do), and I soon befriended a young classmate. The book in this picture is a Christmas gift she sent me, along with a sweet note that sounded a lot like something I might have said to Anna or Laurel.

I still miss them. But I am not as lost as I thought I’d be. I understand my role now, and I honor them by fulfilling it. I have always loved circular plot lines, and Tiara’s gift completes a circle.

This new role is strange, yet oddly familiar and eminently comforting. I embrace it. As Sandy Denny said: “I do not fear the time.”

The Pay-It-Forward Store

If you live in or near Tucumcari, New Mexico, and your Christmas budget is a little tight this year, this post is for you. I have 100 about 30 remaining handmade gift items to give away on a first-come, first-served basis to anyone in town who is broke but feels pressure (internal or external) to buy a gift for someone.

If that’s you, look through the galleries below, pick some stuff you like, then scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment to claim it and make arrangements for pickup or delivery. (Comments are moderated, which means I’m the only one who will see yours. NOTE: You do NOT have to log in or sign up for anything to leave a comment, but please be sure to include your email address so I can get back to you.)

If you feel weird about giving presents you got for free, you can pay it forward by donating a few bucks or a few hours of your time to Paws & Claws, Ministry of Hope, or some other local organization. (If you can’t do that, don’t worry about it; just be nice to somebody this week instead.)

A list of available items appears below, with a slideshow for each category. I will try to update this post as items are claimed.

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Art:

Hyperrealist neon-look paintings:
One 8×10 “Budget Prices”
One 12×12 “Free TV”
One 4×12 “Odeon”
One 8×8 “POOL” quadriptych (four separate 4×4 paintings that can be displayed together to make a single picture)
Three 2×2 hearts with magnets on the back (1 aqua, 1 pink, 1 purple)
One 2×2 peace sign with magnet (1 aqua)

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Personal care:
One pint jar “Earth Mama” bath salts (scented w/patchouli & cedar EOs)
One 2-oz. beeswax lotion bar scented w/teatree & mint EOs
One 3-pack of mini lotion bars (same scent)

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Stuff for kids:

One sock monkey (lawn gnome pattern)
One bottle strawberry buttercream scented bath salts w/toy dinosaurs in bottle
One bottle berry scented bath salts w/toy dinosaurs in bottle

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Stuff you can eat:

Two ranch dip mixes (ingredients layered in small glass jar to look pretty)

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Necklaces:

1 child-sized green necklace w/Shrinky-Dink sunflower pendant
1 “Bee Kind” necklace
1 “Love is Love” necklace — black w/rainbow accents
1 small necklace w/pink & green beads
1 pink & black necklace w/clear crystal-look beads
1 “peace & love” necklace
1 green necklace w/clear stones

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Home decor:

Two fake succulents in small “weathered” green pots (comes w/earth-tone macrame hangers)
One wire-wrapped hanging jar tealight (beach themed
Two dinosaur mini-terrariums w/green macrame hangers
Two freestanding beach-themed jar tealights (1 w/stones; 1 w/seashells)

Tears of joy

I watched the Biden-Harris acceptance speeches.

1. Kamala’s pantsuit made me ugly-cry. Like, I started sniffling the minute I saw it and just got progressively more verklempt as the evening progressed. That was the vice president-elect sending Hillary Rodham Clinton a long-distance hug, and don’t think for a minute that it wasn’t intentional. I don’t even pay attention to fashion like that, but … *Cries in feminist*
2. Uncle Joe quoted the Pete Seeger passage from Ecclesiastes. Y’all, I sang “Turn, Turn, Turn” for church back in the summer, right after the COVID-19 restrictions relaxed enough for us to have in-person services again. At the time, “A time to embrace; a time to refrain from embracing” felt important. Now, it’s a time to heal. *Cries in folkie*
3. Uncle Joe quoted THE DISTANCE RUNNER’S VERSE FROM ISAIAH. Granted, he left out the “run and not be weary” bit, but still. That verse got me through two marathons. BRB; gotta go run 26.2 miles again. *Cries in marathoner*
4. Uncle Joe quoted ROSIE THE RIVETER. At which point I texted a friend who happened to show up to last year’s Fall Festival at school wearing the same costume as yours truly. You already know what we wore. *Cries in feminist again*

But really: KAMALA’S PANTSUIT.

Which resonated even more when I remembered that the ONLY reason I wasn’t among the thousands of women wearing white pantsuits in protest in 2017 was because I had endometriosis, and women with endometriosis don’t have the luxury of wearing white.

I had a hysterectomy a year and a half ago.

Y’all better trust and BELIEVE that as soon as this pandemic is over and getting measured for a nice tailored suit is safe again, yours truly will be buying a white pantsuit to wear on those days when she needs to stare somebody down. They don’t happen often, but when they do? Feminism has a new uniform, and my postmenospausal arse is HERE FOR IT. *Cries in Cailleach*

Highlight of the day: Text from a little girl I know who wanted to make sure I knew Joe and Kamala had won. I texted her this evening after the speech to offer my services as speechwriter when she runs for president in 2044. *Cries in teacher*

I haven’t had a day like this in four years. I had no idea how much I needed it until it happened.

It won’t last, but for one shining, golden moment, my faith in humanity has been restored. Ish.

Emily

P.S.: I moderate comments, so if you’re planning on trolling, save yourself the hassle, because you can’t drag me down tonight, and I will smile and whistle Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” while I toss your sorry arse in the spam folder. Have a nice evening.

Morning

“It’s morning in America again.”
— Ronald Reagan

I shot all the photos in this post when I woke up on this beautiful fall morning with the New Mexico sunshine streaming in my living room. That hopeful light matched my mood.

I will have more to say about the election after the votes are all counted, but for the moment, it appears our Constitution has weathered yet another challenge. Our government is an operating system with fatal errors written into its .exe file, despite the best efforts of the coders to prevent them. The hard drive has crashed twice — once in 1861 and once in 1929 — and nearly crashed several times since (Vietnam, Watergate, the Clinton scandal, and two elections in which the candidate who came in second was declared the winner under the Electoral College). The Fourth Estate has come under attack by people who would rather not have the public know what they’re up to. The basis of government itself — the counting of votes — is under attack right now. And yet, against all odds, the system prevails.

It’s morning in America again.

If Joe Biden prevails — which seems likely at the moment — I will be celebrating something I’ve wanted since 1984. 

We still have, in the immortal words of the late Helen Reddy, “a long, long way to go.”

But today, I have hope.

It’s morning in America again.

I’d almost forgotten how that felt. 

Emily

P.S.: If you share my feelings, please be nice to those who don’t. You know how it feels to have a close race fall apart at the seams and leave you wondering whether the hopes and dreams you’d pinned on your candidate were just air castles, destined to blow away on the winds of politics. After 20 years of division and acrimony, we have had three days of collective uncertainty that ought to endow us with a little more empathy. This is a unique opportunity for us to unite around a shared experience. Don’t squander it by being smug. Celebrate with like-minded friends. Gloat all you want behind closed doors. But be gracious to your acquaintances who don’t share your views and are feeling lost and scared right now. You know how they feel, and the Golden Rule is still better policy than anything any politician ever dreamed up.

The Dreamcar is for sale.

I’d originally planned to donate the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcar to our local Route 66 museum, but those plans stalled when the pandemic hit, and Ron got impatient this week and put it on eBay without consulting me about the details.

If I’d posted it myself, I would have repainted the hood first, replaced some items on the dashboard, detailed it, and removed a few items of sentimental value before taking it out at the golden hour to photograph it in front of Tucumcari Mountain. I would have set the reserve a LOT higher to discourage scavengers who are just looking for a parts car. And I would have left it up for at least two or three weeks to give everybody on Route 66 who might be interested in driving it a chance to bid and figure out financing.

I didn’t realize what he’d done until he came in and told me someone had bid $900 for it. I hope whoever placed that bid really wants to drive it and isn’t just going to junk it out.

It isn’t junk. It’s in good shape, runs well, has been meticulously maintained, and deserves to go to a good home where someone will love it. If I didn’t have such a long commute, it would still be my daily driver.

The good news is that if you want to drive the hippie wagon, you can buy it for a lot less than it’s worth, and if you promise to love it and give it a good home, I’ll freshen up the color on the hood before you pick it up and send you a new set of curtains for it when the semester ends and I get a hand free to sew again.

The listing is here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/363081978888

Emily

I’m tired.

I have now made it through my first week of grad school.

Two of my classes met this week; the third will start Monday night. I loathe the textbook for my research-methods class, but I like the professor, who has been very sweet and patient as I ease back into academia after a 23-year hiatus, so there’s that. Sadly, the textbook is a compendium of essays by writers who are, to borrow a phrase from my late eighth-grade lit teacher, “inebriated by [their] own verbosity.”

I’m fluent in several dialects of bullshit, including Late-20th-Century Professoric, High Mansplainish, and Old and Middle Educatorese, but this is the first time I’ve encountered Linguistics Philosopherian, which is basically self-important word salad. I finally figured out that the trick was to take notes on the essays first, then go back through my notebook and take notes on my notes. That second layer of note-taking yielded enough comprehensible material to use as the basis for my reading-response assignment; from there, I just had to translate the notes into Modern Professoric to crank out a decent paper. It’s only worth 20 points, and I managed to work in references to Keith Richards and the Infinite Monkey Theorem, so it’s fine, probably.

Thus far, I’m enjoying my Brit-lit class. The professor’s teaching style reminds me of my own, and the class is a mix of grad students and undergrads, so I basically sat around shooting the bull about King Arthur with a bunch of bright kids. The writing assignment for this week just involved reading something and then getting on the class discussion board and posting a 250-word response to the professor’s question. I was the first one to respond, so I’m not sure whether I hit the tone he was looking for, but hopefully he’ll let me know if I screwed it up so I can try again before Wednesday.

I have a couple of short stories to read before my fiction-writing class meets Monday, but I am otherwise finished with my homework, which is good, because I need to do some serious lesson planning this weekend, and Ramona could use a long walk and a romp around the park.

Emily