Susanna's Ribs

So my mom broke another rib. She's all mad at herself, because she stood up too quickly, and the doc had said with this blood pressure medicine to sit up before you stand up and she didn't, and she fell. She won't go to the doctor for the rib, because, well, he'll just x-ray her and tell her she has a broken rib, and she already knows that. I called my cousin Sonia, the nurse practitioner, and she said, yeah, she understood my ma, and I shouldn't bug her to go to the doctor, but maybe Susanna should take her temperature once a day to make sure she isn't getting an infection. Mom started to tell me about her other broken ribs (this is the fifth). The first one was when she was fourteen and she was riding her horse to the show rink, which is down by where Siding World is now; her horse wanted to turn while she'd intended to go straight. The second broken rib was from getting kicked by a pony she was messing with. She was pregnant with my sister Sheila at the time. The third time was a car accident, chest into the steering wheel. Then Mom tells me about how when she was still pregnant with Sheila, my dad broke a rib and acted like he was going to die from the pain, and my mom was not all that sympathetic. I need to ask her about the fourth rib. I'm kind of worried about her not being able to cough so well and fluid building up in her lungs, but I guess I can just keep an eye on her. Loring says that when he hugs my mom, she crackles, because all those broken ribs never really healed back together, but the bones float around in her chest like chimes.

Cleaning Garage

So I took control of the garage next door and filled it up with things that ought not be thrown away (things I did not want in the house, however), and so it really was full. Now I'm trying to make room for the spare roof for the Lustron House... maybe 64 steel panels 4x4 and so I'm trying to get one sizable thing out every day. I just sold a cube refrigerator on Craig's List for $2 and I've got two oak chairs listed for the same price (need some gluing) and for $5 anyone can have a Sears 3-speed bike that needs a spoke replaced and a tube repaired. Chris took possession of 3 5-gallon plastic containers, never been used, thinking he could make beer or cider in them. I talked the guys at Retro Furniture into accepting a piece of retro furniture, an funky maple endtable thing that would be nice if somebody took a little time with it. I tossed away a few things, stacked some of the jars, but I've still got a long way to go. There's a stuffed chair with most of the stuffing removed by mousies, but it's got windows on top of it and a dog cage and the garbage cans full of spare tongue-and-groove wood blocking the door won't let me get it out. I still have a few hundred canning jars, so maybe I should toss the old mayonnaise jars and wheat germ jars I've been saving just in case I run out of canning jars. I had two old doors that my brother Tom gave me, and I saved them for years and actually gave them away to good use this year, the 36-inch door to George and the 32-inch door for a new back door at the little cottage in St. Joe. I don't know if I'll be able to part with the combination microwave and convection oven or the big stuffed fish, but I'd make you a great deal on round barbeque grill or a couple of floor jacks. Cheers!

Eating out of town last week

It was swell to get out of town just for fun, not for working or teaching. In Philadelphia I got the real Philly cheese steak from a little place, and it was good, though I put it in my bag and carried in around for a few hours before eating it. I got it with onions and mushrooms and shared it with my cousin Mimi, who took me swimming in the ocean and then out for a walk in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. But Mimi said the cheese steak is not the best thing, and the next day we split a roast pork sandwich with provolone and broccoli rab. Indeed, it was even better than the cheese steak. Mimi's beau Luc bought us all some Vietnamese pho in a restaurant near her building. In New York City, Mimi and I ate perogi (meat and cheese) and soup (I had borscht, she had matzo ball) at the Odessa while the rain poured down outside. It was still raining when we left and we got soaked on our way to the Natural History Museum. After some late night Chinese soup with pulled noodles, I took the Chinese bus to Boston (Mimi returned on the Chinese bus to Philadelphia), and in Boston I ate my cousin Sonia’s food, her chili. I made us some cornbread to go with it. Sonia’s boyfriend Ben baked us some squash and sweet potatoes and regular potatoes. The last thing before leaving Sunday morning, my aunt Jo took my (with cousins’ kids Ava and Lucy) to the Café dello Sport in the north end for a cannoli and capuccino. We met my cousin Sam there and he had an espresso with his cannoli. When I got home on Monday there was a wonderful surprise in the refrigerator: a giant puffball mushroom, the biggest one ever, way bigger than my head.

The Moravian Village

(Note, there's a new entry on the Screen Porch Blog: http://www.screenporchlit.blogspot.com/)

A while ago Pinckney Benedict chose my story "Boar Taint" as the winner of a contest at Salem college, a women's college, and so last week I was flown to Winston-Salem NC to give a reading along with the poetry winner (Mary F. Morris) and the non-fiction winner (M.B. McLatchey.) The southern hospitality was almost overwhelming, but I somehow managed not to shame myself by blurting out anything horribly inappropriate. I spent much of my free time walking around Old Salem, a Moravian Village, much of which is maintained in the form it had around the end of the eighteenth century. The Moravians were a religious group; they came (originally) from Moravia (next to Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic) and they believed in brotherhood and the separation of men from women during much of life. There is even a separate graveyard for men and women for when earthly life is over. The Moravian bakery offered Moravian ginger cookies as thin as potato chips, and the ladies who worked in the bakery wore pioneer type outfits, and it was funny hearing them talk about shopping at Target while all dressed up that way. I spent some time in the historical garden, from which I stole a wormy apple and may have eaten the worm, and also sampled some cow peas and field peas raw. When I found the gardener, he cut and peeled a length of sorghum for me and I sucked the sweetness out of that for a while. We did our reading on Monday night, and I was tapped to read first, and I did my best to keep the audience alert for the second and third readers. The trip and the company was most pleasant and appreciative, the food most delicious, but after three days, after giving a small workshop and visiting two classes, I thought, gee, I didn't just win my $1000 prize money--I earned it too.