Spring, the blues and Dru Lombar

Spring is here. This evening after work, I sat out on the deck and watched the dogs chase each other around the newly green lawn, Claire with her long graceful lopes and Winston keeping up with her on his stubby Scottie legs. The azaleas which will eventually shock and awe with their beauty are beginning to bloom, bits of pink and red in the foliage. The dogwoods are threatening greeneyed flowers. The moths are back at night, entertaining the cats.The other night Dennis actually saw a bat at dusk although it seems much to early and chilly for bat walks. The robins are here all year, as are the cardinals and Canada geese, but they have seemed much more visible and vocal recently. And the real harbinger of spring: the impossibly loud hooting of an owl outside our open bedroom window. We were riding through Emerywood the other day, looking at houses we cannot afford, when D. slammed on the brakes, backed up and pointed to a HUGE owl sitting among the bare branches of a wooded lawn. It was awesome, in the true sense of the word: a large owl, brown and ominous, who slowly turned his face to us, and it was a strange face, like a barn owl, pale and unearthly. His eyes were yellow and staring, his beak was cruel, and rather than a symbol of wisdom, he looked to me like a cunning predator, slow and calculating. Still, we thought him beautiful and wondered later if the owl we heard outside our window was the same fellow.
So North Carolina is becoming greenly lush again, and I hope we escape the extreme drought of last summer. It is too hot here in summer, not like Florida where the sea breeze in the afternoon quells the heat. Here the air is dense and wet and algae and mildew are constantly winning the battle. Here the stillness of the heat defeats you, the sweat sitting idly on your skin. Like living on the Westside of Jacksonville instead of the annointed Southside. Which brings me of course, to Lynyrd Skynyrd. We all know the westside is not really the best side, unless you are a redneck Skynrd fan.
I was flipping through the channels one recent after work afternoon, when I came upon a VH1 channel which was airing a show from England called "The Old Grey Whistle Test", a title which I am sure has some meaning to the Brits but is just so fullsome in its obscurity to me. And the guest of this day's show, which seemed to have originated from the early seventies, was Lynyrd Skynyrd. The original band, Donnie Van Zant, et al. Before the Crash. Now I have never been a Skynyrd fan, despite having a deep appreciation of the Allman Brothers, despite having seen Marshall Tucker in concert, despite having grown up in Jacksonville. I know Freebird and Sweet Home and some other top forty hits, but I had never seen the band. I didn't even know which one was the vaunted Van Zant. I am ashamed to say they blew me away, playing that Southern brand of hard driving blues that you seem to only hear in Jacksonville. Which brings me to the Springing the Blues Festival held at Jax Beach every spring, before the beaches are even officially "open" although of course they never close. Back in the day when Jax Beach was a blighted area(that would be the early 90s), when Einstein's was in full flower for the goth kids and you could still ride your bike Eastward across Penman and Third street to the ocean without risking your life in tourist traffic, we would ride to the Blues Festival, to hear loud music, watch bizarre beach people with boa constrictors around their necks, maybe have a beer and flop on the grass in the hot April sun. One of the bands that played the festival every year was Dr. Hector and the Blues Injectors, a local group fronted by Dru Lombar, a local "boy" whom I had gone to Fletcher High School with in the sixties, only I didn't know this. I just knew Dru had been in a beach band called Magi in the early 70's when Southern rock was taking off. I knew Magi because I was going out with the bass player, the one who had a van and thus secured a place in the band. Magi played some gigs around the beach, at the Maikai and other grungy beach bars that were rife before gentrification ruined the area. Magi was only a middling band and soon broke up. Dru went on to form Grinderswitch and tour as an opening act with well known bands in the Southland. I decided to google Southern rock bands after watching Skynyrd on tv, feeling all nostalgic for my lost youth. Which leads to an obituary. During my google ramble, I learned that Dru Lombar had died of a massive heart attack in 2005, shortly after we had sold our beach house and moved. And in seeking more info on his demise, I learned that Dru had been the soul of the Soul Searchers, a band at Fletcher that had been fronted by a pretty boy lead singer that every girl in school had a crush on. The Soul Searchers had actually recorded a song which was played on local radio, the Big Ape, and I had recorded this song from the radio broadcast on the portable tape recorder I had received for Christmas. The song was "Can I Get a Witness." How perfect for Dru, the ultimate white bluesman, to have recorded this Motown tune in 1965. How shallow of me to never have bothered to know him, in the ninth grade or later as an adult, because he was not the pretty boy. He was just the one with the talent. Not that he knew me at all. I was just the girl with the bass player who couldn't play but had a van. At Fletcher in the sixties I was just a townie who rode for an hour on a school bus to rectify overcrowding at the in-town schools. So although our paths crossed, I can't say I knew the man. Still, like the Kevin Bacon game, I feel I am somehow connected to Dru and through him to the bands he toured with, including those redneck boys from the Westside, Lynyrd Skynyrd. I hope Neil Young will forgive me. My conscience does not bother me...does your conscience bother you?

Sunday blissful Sunday

It is now Sunday afternoon...early, around 12:50. Got up late this morning because our heat never came on, signaling time to get up or smother under three comforters. Yes, I sleep under three comforters, one down, two fake down. We turn the heat down so far at night that for all intents and purposes it is off. But it creaks on at 6 am, flapping and groaning and spewing out parched air. But this morning it did not. So we had to call the gas furnace man, who will be out on Monday. Meanwhile, the weather is so springlike, I am willing to just let the darn thing sit idle. Fortunately I am married to a much more practical person who realizes it is March 2and we are not out of the woods yet. But the forsythia is blooming, some redbuds are out, and the dogwoods and azaleas hold promise. Earlier Dennis was out chopping firewood to warm the living room tonight..to which I said "it is going to be warm today.." and he scowled at me and said "Just play along, ok?" OK! Now he is scrounging under the house for the deck furniture. The sun beating into the "morning room", our glassed porch off the kitchen, convinced him it is almost spring. A couple of hours ago I was chopping vegetables for potato leek soup, which is now simmering in the crockpot (yes, it is VEGETARIAN, Devon, no chicken stock)and now I am listening to Diana Krall on XM Radio. When my fingers completely stop bleeding, I will bathe the filthy Scottie and put some more laundry in the machine.

On days like this, I wonder why our lives have turned out like this. Of course, we made decisions, and that's pretty much why we are living in the burbs in a country club neighborhood, with no interest in joining the club,or playing golf, or playing tennis. We don't care much about going out, eating out, joining a church or making any of those kind of social connections. The two people who seem to share some of my interests, besides my husband, are my two daughters. But our real enthusiasms at this point are our animals, and doing homey tasks, cooking, maintaining our old house, reading by the fire, gardening, listening to music. So many times in my life I have wished I had completed my liberal arts degree and gone on to advanced degrees and teaching at a university, my dream in high school that some how got sidelined at UF. I finally I got my degree in nursing so I would have a decent paying career....a career for which I am so remarkably unsuited, something in which I have no interest whatsoever. But it has helped to support us over the years, and I have managed to find jobs that are removed from patient care, something I found much too intense and personal.

But I can't help but think that we would be so much happier living on some acreage, perhaps in the mountains, away from suburbia and fast food and meaningless jobs. Maybe we are too old now to "get back to the land." Maybe we can't afford to retire.
I just wish we could try. I just wish we could try before we die.

Baby Boomer Ailments

Last July I was running through the final rainfall of the summer, before everything parched and died. I put my right leg down hard and came to an abrupt halt in the company parking lot. The pain was excruciating. I hobbled to my car, not caring if I were drenched in the process. By the time I arrived home, I could not bear weight on my right leg. Dutifully I called in sick the next day and went to see my family doctor, a small South American woman of about fifteen, with a charming accent, no bigger than Eva Longoria, no smarter than Charo. Why, then?, you ask. Well, I never have to wait to see her. And when I do see her, she whips out her prescription pad in the wink of an eye. She knows that I have already diagnosed my problem and her actual job is to give me the drugs to fix it. (Shingles! Sciatica!)(Prednisone!Prednisone!) But this time it was a little different. I didn't really know what was wrong, and Dr. Hispanic Princess didn't either. She yanked my knee left and right, I gave a couple of appropriate yelps, she wrote her magic prescription for 800 mg tabs of ibuprofen, and with a reassuring "Call me if it doesn't get better", she sent me off in the disappointed custody of my husband (he was hoping for the GOOD dope).

After a week of wearing strange and bulky velcroed support devices on my knee, it got better. At least ok to walk on, go up and down steps, and sit all day at my deadly computer job without a whole lot of yelping. Dennis was glad; he had sampled all the drug stores and medical supply dealers in the area, seeking the perfect knee brace. He just wanted me to stop yelping and go back to cleaning out the cat box. And cooking. And doing laundry. Well you know the drill, if you are 56 like me. We (women) wanted it all, and by golly they (men) wanted us to HAVE it all. Only we had to get it ourselves. But that's another story.

Anyhow, the darn knee just never seemed to get its groove back. It made me yelp asleep in bed, it made me yelp if I accidently hyperextended it.I got a brand new superdeluxe health club quality treadmill for my birthday, but was afraid to use it with any degree of effectiveness. Finally I decided to go to a Real Doctor, a handsome and charismatic orthopedic surgeon who with breathtaking efficiency had me xrayed, MRI'd and diagnosed in less time than it takes Dr. J lo to flip open her laptop and ask yet again if I am still taking my reflux pill.(NO NO NO).

So today I get my diagnosis. I felt somewhat silly sitting fully dressed in the exam room, waiting for Sincere MD to tell me "You have osteoarthritis, you overweight middleaged out of shape but nevertheless attractive cow, what did you expect," and then I could laughingly exit the room with apologies to all for being such a whiner and go back to the treadmill with lots of nsaids to keep me motivated. BUT NO.
I have a Real Thing. I have a torn meniscus, like an athelete. Like a skiier.Like someone who actually DOES run. And it requires arthroscopic surgery to fix. IS THAT COOL OR WHAT??

Roma

We are going to Italy. We are staying in a hotel with ensuite bathrooms. Thank you God. We are going with Ray and Devon, who said we could come as long as we stayed in different rooms. And no fanny packs. I think he had us confused with someone else; the last time I shared a hotel room with my daughter, she was 18 and we were posing for pictures in front of "Sock World" in Pigeon Forge. I am not really sure what a fanny pack is, but with my fanny, I would not be inclined to pack anything additional on it. Actually, they INVITED us to come along, which I took as the ultimate compliment to two old fogies. The clincher was when Ray said, "if you think my tour of Washington was good, wait till I show you Rome!" And his tour of D.C. was so much fun, on Christmas eve. As we were driving into the city from Reston, Va., I mentioned that I would love to see Georgetown. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a cheery neighborhood eatery in Georgetown, Clydes, eating eggs Benedict and watching my three under seven grandchildren behave like polite strangers. We were surrounded by adults, well dressed and holding discussions of the kind one sees in self conscious college towns. It was great. The streets of Georgetown were replete with last minute shoppers and creative panhandlers. The stores were of a kind I do not see in High Point, Anthropologie, Abercrombie and Fitch, you know, "A" stores. Later on the "DC TOUR" (we had been to DC several times before, but not with such a willing tour guide), we circled the White House several times in hopes of obtaining the official White House tour book which I had heard had many pictures of the Bush Scotties. However, the chances of getting near the place were slim and we began to look suspicious, Ray with his skinhead haircut and threatening facial hair, circling the White House in the rented van. So it was off to XM radio to tour the studios, great huge photos of Jimi and Janis, great huge satellite dishes pointing at the skies. Then the highlight of the tour, we zoomed off to Reagan National and spent an hour plane spotting as dusk descended and the intense cold seeped under our jackets and the kids ran wild in the park and I realized it was Christmas Eve and I was NOT COOKING.
Rome ought to be SPECTACULAR!

Scrabble and Suzanne Pleshette

No, I don't think the two subjects are related. I was going to write about Scrabble when Joe the Cat walked over my laptop keyboard, wiped out the computer's ability to think logically, made me reboot, and geez on the AOL welcome page was a HEADLINE THAT HAD NOT BEEN THERE TWO MINUTES EARLIER! And it said Suzanne Pleshette had died. Say it isn't so. She was the real "Suzanne" icon from the seventies, not that blonde bimbo and her bio-identical hormones. Beautiful Suzanne with the brunette shag and the sardonic grin. Bob Newhart, his
incurable neurotics, his dimbulb neighbor, and his sane, sharptongued, laser witted wife. The REAL seventies, to me. It all came rushing back, the spider plants, the post-hippie let's nest
malaise, the midi skirts, Carole King, The Magic Pan, spinach quiche, white wine, backgammon....you know, the seventies for adults, SNL, first real jobs, Volvos, transactional analysis, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, wedge heels, decoupage, Annie Hall, bridge revival, the Seventies. I guess the Seventies are over......we were all grateful when they were over, no more disco, no more question that we were grown ups. But now even the seventies are starting to look nostalgic. Good bye Suzanne, you inspired my haircut and my hope for TV wives, heh. I was also a brunette with a shag haircut, for a brief year, before even a shag seemed too radical for the times. I really don't know what you did after "Newhart," but I am sure you had a great life,
you were never a victim.

My daughter Devon invited me to play Scrabble a couple of weeks ago. First I had to join Facebook, which made me hesitate a moment. I did not want to to join a league of predators, exhibitionists, lonely hearts, and a younger generation for whom privacy is some boring anachronism. However, I did want to play Scrabble, so I joined. Scrabble has been an important part of my life since my early teen years, when a family friend brought a gift back from England called "Travel Scrabble." Travel Scrabble was small, portable, and the letters were affixed to the board by little plastic legs. So you could play Scrabble anywhere, and you could have marathon games over days, and the cat could never scatter the letters. So we did have marathon games, my mother, my sister, my sister's friend Susan, and me. We were serious about the game, usually making well over 300 points and yes, occasionally using all seven letters. Later, I married a man who was not good at the game, and although he tried in vain to teach me chess, we were never able to offer each other "good game." So Scrabble fell by the wayside, and even though my mother and I played sporadically, on visits or vacations, I never reached the heights of competitive play I had enjoyed in my youth. During her last years, my mother played against herself constantly, using words I never knew existed, and "building the board" to her own satisfaction and advantage. It became impossible to play with her because a real opponent never cooperated like her alter ego, and she complained bitterly if I happened to draw the "good letters" or refused to sacrifice points to "open up the board." So I lost my chief Scrabble competitor; she preferred to play against herself. Now, for some reason I had never played Scrabble much with my two daughters. They seemed to have much more of a "life" than I did as a teenager and didn't have time or inclination to play Scrabble with their mother or Grandmother. Or perhaps it was my fault: I had a job, a house and a husband in addition to my children and there just didn't seem to be as many lazy Sunday afternoons for Scrabble playing in our lives. But now that has CHANGED. Devon and I play Scrabble, a couple of hundred miles apart. We can play anytime; we can play at different times. We don't have to be online together. We have the entire internet for a dictionary and we have a format that tells us if our word is invalid. Scrabble is back and it is back BIG. I am having a wonderful time; she says she is "addicted" in the hyperbole of the era. We are evenly matched and a lot of it is luck of the draw. But I must admit I was taken aback when Devon said the other night that the board was "not very open." However, I did not see her sacrificing points to open up the board. Shades of yesteryear. Ah Scrabble, let the conflict begin. May the one with the most altruism open up the board.

Christmas Past Part One

Christmas is over. A week ago we, all seven of us, were driving to Hershey PA in the big silver rental minivan, Ray at the wheel and braving the rain, Dennis riding shotgun, Devon and I in the second row Captain's chairs(although we did very little captaining, a little first mating, mostly nannying), the three kids bringing up the rear, Rachael asking for "a mint," Ariel passed out from a viral illness, Trevor supervising everyone. On and on, through Frederick, MD, the Pennsylvania countryside, the temperature rising with every mile we traveled north. We had decided to go because the "really bad" rain wasn't supposed to start until 4, and staying home on a rainy day in a townhouse with a slightly sick baby and two children antsy for Santa to come did not appeal to any of us. Besides, Ray had volunteered to drive. After an amazingly short time, time spent eating Grandpa's stock of Wintogreen life savers and Grandma's leftover white cheddar popcorn ("ew, that popcorn STINKS"), and listening to "Enter the Haggis," we arrived at Hershey Park. We were surprised at the number of tourists who had braved the weather two days before Christmas to tour Chocolate land. Like us. First stop was lunch at the food court, then we were off on the bus tour of the town. The bus was designed as an old fashioned trolley and decorated with garland and other seasonal stuff. A peppy tour guide dressed in nineteenth century caroler's garb gave us the low down on the Hershey family and how chocolate came to be King in the PA heartland. Then we all sang carols, led by a recurring player who showed up at the bus door as a factory worker, Mr. Hershey's mom, and even as the Jolly Old Elf himself! Rachael, who was glommed onto her Grandma, refused the offer of REAL jingle bells to play, but was happy to take the tree ornament, kazoo and free candy. The adults had some difficulty remembering the intracacies of kazoo playing (which end to you blow into? you don't blow, you HUM. oh. Ray was good at this :)

Back at the park, we next went into the 3-D movie about, yes, CHOCOLATE, and it was FUN. And even a bit SCARY, with spiders and webs and things thumping over your feet. Rachael and Trevor looked through the glasses only sporadically, but no one cried, a first for us. Then we were out the theatre door and into BUY CANDY land, which we did. I bought green tea kisses which are either delicious or gross, the jury is still out on that one. The bittersweet chocolate with cinnamon is also an acquired taste. The kids loved the peppermint kisses that their mom bought. And the jolly ranchers in little acrylic houses with scoops their Gma bought. Then on to the ride through the factory, with "boats" like Disney World, and singing cows. Rachael, still stuck to me, loved that ride the best, and wanted to go again. Grandpa, who NEVER buys anything, bought the picture snapped at the end of the ride without any prodding . It was a GOOD day.(Actually, it was his idea to rent the minivan, too, but I think he wanted it mainly for the comfort of his dog.)We tried to tour the actual park, outdoors, after Ray bought us all hot coffees and lovely blue ponchos for the rain, but the rules had changed and now they wanted to charge us forty dollars to walk around in the rain. So we politely declined , Ray fetched the Christmasmobile, and after a quick meal at Bob Evans and several false alarms regarding Ari's tummy, Ray gallantly took the wheel again and got us all home safely through the monsoon.

Bring Us a Figgy Pudding

During our Christmas luncheon at work last Thursday, we played Christmas trivia, answering a lot of questions about Clark Griswold, cousin Eddie, Ralphie and his chance of reaching adulthood with two functioning eyes, what the lamb does while the little drummer boy bangs away, and what goes into a Christmas pudding, choices a, b, c, and d. Nobody in this North Carolina office had a clue what a Christmas pudding is. Ask the Canadian, they all said , she will know. Actually, I did know, but before I had a chance to answer, Dr H., our medical director, piped up saying, aw, she's a French Canadian, she won't know. I was struck so speechless by this pronouncement that by the time I was able to protest, the answer had been produced by process of elimination and the emcee explaining that currants were like raisins. French Canadian????My Scotch ancestors would roll over in their graves. Why on earth did this man who knows me only slightly say I was gasp..French? Then I thought I knew. I had made Caesar salad for one of our many holiday meals, loaded with garlic, and had said within his hearing that I came from a long line of garlic eaters. Of course !!!! Everyone knows that the British Canadians eat only bland British pap, pizzas with pineapple, and Tim Horton Donuts. I must be French! I eat escargot! I have eaten escargot in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. Lord, I never knew how much that 1/8th French blood my father claimed due to a great great who took a tumble with the French maid and spawned the poor branch of my dad's family ...little did I know how much influence that little bit of DNA had on my behavior. And yes, I do spout French words now and then, not words picked up from my french immersed childhood in Ontario, but from my fifth grade teacher in Jacksonville Florida who had spent the previous summer in France and wanted to keep the language alive in her mind. And years of high school and college French. Sheesh, I am NOT French. I am Scotch Irish. And YES I know what is in Christmas pudding. And option B was ALSO the answer. It DOES contain beef and flour (NO, that's Yorkshire pudding, the emcee scoffed. ) My protestation that it has both flour and beef suet fell on deaf ears, ears that had moved on to "Who REALLY lost all that money in "It's a Wonderful Life" Uncle Billy I whispered, didnt want to answer ALL the questions first.
Then I was driving home yesterday, listening to NPR as usual, and the subject of All Things Considered was....FIGGY PUDDING. What IS that asked the fearless reporter. Plum pudding the expert cook replied. They also call it Christmas pudding in some places(yeah, like MY house in North Carolina I said) The expert cook gave a great recipe that was loaded with rum and brandy and steamed for two hours in a Bundt pan in a pot of water. I was so impressed, I may try it one year...but as I tried to explain to the nonbelievers at work, it comes in a CAN. No, not a can, they all said. Pudding can not come in a can! But yes it does, every year, with a Crosse and Blackwell label on it, our figgy pudding, heated in the oven, drowned in whatever liquor we have that will ignite, and served with a hot carmelized sauce or whipped cream, yum, bring me a figgy pudding and BRING IT RIGHT NOW!!