Not your granny's rocker. Ssylakbooks travels.

When I started blogging I was taking interesting trips, in 2008 to England, for a funeral, then to Istambul for two days with my daughter then to her home in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, where she and her husband teach in the International School. I planned to write about my travels, usually solo for at least part of the time and usually not fllowing a traditional tourist itinerary. I haven't traveled since.

What to do? Changing the name of the blog seems like a bad idea. I may write about past trips, when I can find my notes and my memory, but haven't found time yet.

So, I've decided that I'll just continue to be all over the map, figuratively if not literally.

PAST HOUSES

A few years ago, I laughed at a comic-strip with a grumpy grandfather bringing in an armful of logs for a fire, then suddenly felt a pang:
“We don’t have a fireplace any more.”

We hadn't really missed a fireplace, although in our old house we had lit the fire every cold-enough day. With this warmer, sunnier, living room we'd been aware mainly of the absence bark and wood chips littering the floor, smoke backing up, sparks burning the rug etc.. What I was missing was the idea of having a fireplace--and a log carrier and a man coming to the door in the Fall and asking, “Is the mister in? I’ve got a nice load of wood.”

I missed the 'Masterpiece Theater' touches, large rooms, coat closets, stairs with turned spindles and a shiny curved banister. In one former house, built in 1902, we had had a newel-post with a cap that came off-- so you could put secret notes or a sword inside, the children said. What real estate people called 'the library' had two windows with leaded glass, a coffered ceiling and a wall of bookshelves, in golden oak That house also had a big pantry off the kitchen and varnished pine cupboards with glass doors in the basement; a sort of butler’s pantry that we used for whatever wouldn’t fit in the kitchen cupboards upstairs. A glassed-in porch spanned the front of the house and a second miniature glassed-in porch provided a separate entrance to the 'library'.

There were five bedrooms, three on the second floor and two more, (originally for 'hired girls'?) on the third, the attic; even these attic rooms had proper finished moldings, wide baseboards and decorative window frames like the first floor, but painted white rather than varnished. With two to five children at home we had used all the space, but when the family dwindled to one child it seemed wasteful to use so much heating and lighting for two adults and a toddler.

So we sold it and bought a triplex with a large apartment for us and one for my mother. Then, when my husband became too old for the responsibility, and I was unable to take care of everything by myself, we sold that and moved again.

Each time there were compelling reasons for making changes, and the options were carefully thought through to find the one most likely to turn out right. Each time we congratulated ourselves; this ‘new’ place was more convenient, more comfortable, easier to maintain, less expensive (which came to count more and more as time went by).

It was only years later that these moves came to seem like a series of losses as well as decisions made for reasons that would probably lead us to make those same choices again. The gains are real, but so was the sadness. Now we try to look back on the excitement of finding these past houses, fixing them up and enjoying them, as great experiences to have had.

And writing about them I own them again.

Live and Learn: Cooking for a group.
READ TO THE END!

I do my best not to make people suffer; I only offer to host the book club pot-luck when no-one else is able or willing to do it.

Why do dishes that are delicious when I try them out for my husband and myself, succulent, tasty, aromatic, turn out to be awful--at best mediocre-- when I cook them for eight or nine?

I used to be able to cook for small dinners; back when anything other than a casserole passed as gourmet I was known as a good cook. My stifado, my coq au vin, my shashlik, were highly praised. Even now I can turn out a good Thanksgiving dinner or a summer birthday picnic. So what's the problem?

Some of it I know is because the beef is different. Others have remarked that the fat-free beef we get now doesn't cook up the same as the old chuck roasts and chuck steaks I used to use. About the time old style beef would have been tender and flavorful the beef we get now is tough and tasteless, cardboardy.

I try to deal with my chagrin at not turning out something really enjoyable by reminding myself that it's the book and the discussion that counts--ours is not the kind of group that's primarily an excuse for wine-drinking . This works except when the book is my choice and nobody really likes it.

Oh well, blog material.
-------------------
A week later:

Have reheated the leftovers twice for my husband and myself and guess what? Tender, tasty, aromatic, etc. etc.!!

Finally I find out . . .I need to cook it longer, about twice as long as for two of us. I'd thought my mistake was cooking it too long but I wasn't cooking it long enough! I may even host again sometime.

PET CARE INFLATION

When I take our dog Harry for a checkup the vet gives me recommendations for topical flea preventative, Heart-worm pills, medicated dog shampoo and a special lotion to clean the wax out of his ears. They are all quite expensive.

The flea medicine and Heart-worm pills (the latter absolutely necessary to prevent fatal damage) are to be given once a month, the shampoo whenever he is dirty, has a greasy cradle-cap-like buildup in his fur (which happens with this breed of mutt), or seems to be itchy and scratching a lot. The wax needs to be cleaned out of his ears weekly and I'll probably need to clean the 'extra tears' off his eyes with warm water and a washcloth at least that often. He needs brushing once a week. I know that he'll need his nails clipped at some point and will need to have his fur trimmed shorter in the summer.

The vet is just doing her job, she just wants Harry to be healthy and happy, but I'll be spending more time and money on his health and grooming than on my own. It's all part of a trend.

There are websites and magazines devoted to dog well-being, classes in how to get along with your dog, at local pet stores, not to mention the traditional obedience training classes. There are boutique pet-food stores and I don't even want to think about pet spas, pet fashions and pet hotels.

I remember when I had dogs earlier in my life--when I had a job and children to care for, which is certainly part of the reason why pets received less attention and cash outlay, but not all. Everyone now seems to fuss over a pet nearly as much as in my generation we fussed over new babies.

Earlier dogs I owned or co-owned, all of whom seemed to lead very happy, healthy lives, were a lot less hovered over. We bought them (they weren't 'adopted') usually from the Humane Society, fed them, had them neutered or spayed, got the required shots and licenses--and that was that.

I don't remember that we brushed them or bathed them more than once or twice in their lives. We walked them and certainly loved them, they seemed to return the affection, and we were sad when they died of old age. They were all un-pedigreed mixed breeds (i.e mongrels), but then so is Harry. He's just a member of a generation of dogs with helicopter owners.

Oddly enough, judging from dogs I see around, while pet care is inflating the dogs themselves are getting smaller. Other than a few enormous dogs that look about right for drug pushers who want killer guard dogs, dogs are tiny. We thought our 20 pound dog was small, but we often meet dogs half his size. The idea of all this care focused on so little flesh is a bit overwhelming.

A recent letter to the editor of our local paper inveighs against wearing the hijab, burka, nijab, or any of the items that hide the hair, sometimes the whole face and body of a Moslem woman. The writer claims that it is all about controlling women’s sexuality.

It actually seems more about controlling a woman’s freedom of action--wearing any of these head coverings a woman is immediately identified as less-than-a-male in authoritarian patriarchal societies, and therefore with reduced power and influence. French president Sarkozy puts it in terms of loss of identity and exclusion from social interaction and public life.

Two points about this:

1.If it is about controlling sexuality, i.e. necessary to avoid the sin of inciting lust in men, it’s more about male sexuality (And why aren't men responsible for their own sexual urges?).

2. It doesn’t work, and never has.

In Iran at the height of Islamist repression after the revolution, the angry young men of the morality police criticized women for laughing, or eating an apple, "seductively". I.e. sexual provocativeness is in the mind of the beholder, like the old claim that a woman raped, "must have been asking for it".

Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of Egypt in the late 1800s when women were completely veiled, head to toe, depict more than one character who is sexually aroused by the mere hint of the outline of a hip through layers of voluminous clothing.

In Victorian England, when a shapely ankle was the most a man might glimpse, even this little was a turn-on.

In the Japanese classic, "The Tale of Genji" aristocratic ladies are never seen, or even heard to speak, by any male other than a close relative, and converse from behind closed blinds, yet the briefest accidental glimpse of a fully clothed princess is enough to cause overpowering passion in a middle-aged married noble. He guesses the part of the screened room to send his amorous thoughts to by the mere sound of rustling silk, indicating where the lady in question is.

In many modern-day Middle Eastern countries the women are veiled but the dress, though admittedly modest by Western standards, leaves little doubt about the female shape inside the long-sleeved, high necked outfit.

On the other hand, in the West, the kind of cleavages that would have been considered titillating only twenty or thirty years ago barely attract notice now; it almost takes soft-porn (or even hard porn?), see HBO, to arouse. Soon there will be nothing that arouses, and half the pleasure in life will be gone--or maybe we'll go back to covering up.

"A FEAST OF HERETICS" finished. What next?

My recently finished novel, "A Feast of Heretics", deals with the Roman Catholic Church’s hounding of a slightly odd sect of heretics in southern France in the early 1300s. It should be timely, it treats of the danger of religious fanaticism, particularly in the hands (minds?) of the powerful threatened even by reformers within the religion, but I doubt if many people would think to read it even if lightning struck and I found a publisher.

I’m in that phase I suppose most writers hate. I’ve just finished one novel and haven’t begun to dig into another; in limbo, without the satisfaction of working on something continuously and persistently, the pleasure of struggling to ’get it right’ and the satisfaction when it works out; without a topic or an era or a locality to focus on for background research.

I’ve been filling the gap as well as possible by revising, tweaking, editing the earlier, unpublished, book that I plan to put on Smashwords, writing long e-mails to friends and writing this blog. Luckily (??) we’re having a heat wave, weather so hot and humid that even with A/C it’s a strain to get through the tasks essential to sustain life. It’s too hot to sit at the computer and type except in the early morning, which is taken up with the life-sustaining tasks mentioned, and by the end of the day, when I usually write, there’s so little energy left it feels almost okay not to work on writing.
Meanwhile, I’m prone to the usual doubts. Not doubts that I can write, I know I can--the enthusiasm of strangers who read my first , self-published, novel validated that. But I wonder if it makes sense to keep on writing on themes that I think fascinating and important, but won’t attract readers unless I dress them up in sensationalism (see my earlier blog about the writing bandwagon: http://ssylkabooks.typepad.com/not your granny’s rocker).

I toy with the idea of not writing. I always do this when I’m in limbo, but always shake it off. Eventually I get an idea, or two or twenty, and start to write again, and get so caught up in my story that writing is again the central focus of my mental life. I can’t not write. I’ve been writing on and off all my life, mostly non-fiction until ten years ago; not writing would be like not-thinking. I just have to wait until a new novel germinates, out of the jumble of my brain. Then I’ll get so fired up I won’t care if anyone publishes it or not.

ANOTHER DOG STORY

I didn’t plan to get a new dog until the fall. By then I should have got over the sadness of putting our last dog, Louie, to sleep, and over the stress having to drop everything, jump in the car, and drive around looking for a dog who had a wanderlust problem. Louie was an inveterate runner, and when he got out (at least twice a week) he chased chickens and cats, and finally bit someone. After ten days’ quarantine and being (mis) labeled 'potentially dangerous’ the animal rescue organization he came from said our ONLY alternative was euthanasia. He was a pest but lovable and although we’d only owned him for seven months we missed him a lot.

So: my daughter says if we want a cockapoo, or any other of the small mixed-breed dogs reputed to be homebodies, we should start looking at websites and the Humane Society now. We probably aren’t going to find anything for weeks or months anyway.

Another animal rescue website immediately turns up a schnauzer/poodle mix, one of the parents a miniature. We want a small dog but not a toy. I still plan to go slowy, check out other sites, take a while to choose etc. all very sensible. I’m not going to take the first appealing dog who’s the right size, as I did with Louie. My husband, who rarely pushes for anything, is keen to look into this dog, however. I’ve seen how much he enjoys my daughter’s dog, so I discard my schedule and fill out an e-mail form. I’ll just ask a few questions and continue my leisurely search.

I click 'send’. Ten minutes later the phone rings. 'Harry’ has just been dumped in the rescue society office by his foster caretaker, who has realized, after two weeks, that her kids aren’t learn responsibility by taking care of a dog. The agency doesn’t have anywhere to house him. Will we foster him for a while? We say ’yes’. (It’s only fostering, not owning-- and given his photos and his low weight, he’s bound to be a bony, little thing out of Dr. Seuss). We’ll house him for a while then give him back.

He arrives at 9.00 p.m., a lot better-looking than expected, but rather subdued. For the first few hours I’m ambivalent; I say sadly, 'he’s a nice dog but he’s not Louie’. I’m also afraid of another painful dog experience.

The next morning Harry’s much livelier, greeting us, Louie-like, with enthusiasm and wagging tail. I have to admit he’s as cute as a button, just the right size, and, barring nasty surprises, seems like the right dog for us. He seems to think our house and yard are dog heaven and that we are his rightful owners. After 24 hrs we are so smitten that my daughter laughs out loud when I say we 'may’ adopt him.
I guess we will.

TIMES CHANGE

Two things happened this weekend. My 13 year-old granddaughter Ruby had a Bat Mitzvah and her cousin, my grandson Oscar, aged 14, left to spend six weeks with his father in Washington State.

The Bat Mitzvah involved ceremonies at Temple Israel and a party at my daughter’s house Saturday evening. It was a great, warm, get-together; grandparents and other relatives from St. Paul, aunts, uncles and cousins from out of state, friends from her parents’ high school days, people who sometimes do house-work or home repair for her and have, like most people they meet become friends, neighbors, people they’ve met teaching on the International-school circuit, etc. etc. A mix of Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and non-believers.

It’s always a pleasure to meet the Indianapolis family-- my former brother and sister-in-law and their adult children. The divorce was over forty years ago now, but they’ve been friendly to me from the beginning. Not that they didn’t care for my ex-spouse, they just had enough generosity to care for me too. Now there are hugs and kisses when we meet and they exchange warm greetings with my present husband; we commiserate over our aging and are interested in each other’s children. My present husband and my ex-husband chat amiably. My ex helps my husband up and down steps with his walker.
* * *
Oscar’s parents split up when he was two. Not married they parted with little animosity, just some frustration over different life-styles. Now his father has a tree farm, a ramshackle barn and a house-trailer, in a particularly beautiful area of countryside two hours north of Seattle. Oscar loves to go out there. They stay up late, wear old clothes and plant trees. Boy heaven. There are favorite food places and cousins to visit. He goes out there twice a year and his dad visits him here once a year for a trip up to the North shore of Lake Superior together.

Poor little boy from a broken home!
In Washington he has a doting dad, here he has a great relationship with his mother (who makes his welfare a top priority, but has a casual enough life style to suit a growing boy) as well as a whole batch of doting grandparents, and more aunts and uncles. He lives in a pleasant part of town, likes the annual week-long bicycle trip with his school, has music lessons, friends, altogether a varied and interesting life. He seems pretty happy.

It’s all a far cry from the 'Mad Men' nineteen-sixties.

YOU CAN’T THINK OF EVERYTHING.

When my daughter Daisy was about fourteen, she and I took an overnight trip, a mother-daughter togetherness thing. Once out in the country, I asked her if she’d like to try driving. She agreed, with a funny look on her face now I think of it, and we switched seats.

She was amazing! I knew she was smart and had great co-ordination etc. from her gymnastics and riding, but she really was a natural driver.

About twenty years later, we were sitting around chatting with the rest of the family, (by this time she had kids of her own) when she told us: By the time I let her drive she had been taking my car out, secretly, at night, and driving around with her best friend. For months. If they saw a police car they’d wave, politely but confidently, and when they got back home they’d make sure that the driver’s seat was back in the right position for me and the radio turned to my favorite radio station.

When we stopped laughing, she confessed, or bragged? of her exploit on the trip we took San Francisco. We had about five kids with us (blended family) and had two adjacent rooms, one for my husband and myself and our two-year-old and one for Daisy, then about r nine or ten, and older siblings fourteen, fifteen and sixteen. We thought it was nice for the older ones to have some freedom from adult presence and assumed (silly us) that Daisy would be quite safe.

Once the others were asleep, Daisy dressed in the one dress we’d let her bring, put on clean socks and shoes, brushed her hair, and took the elevator up to the top floor cocktail lounge. It wasn’t the Mark Hopkins but it was one of the great old San Francisco hotels, and they must have been used to Eloise types; the bartender just said, "I guess you’d like a Shirley Temple, Miss." "A very nice older couple" (probably about thirty-five) invited her to sit at their table and treated her to another Shirley Temple. They had what must have been a fascinating conversation (all the family history including the embarrassing bits?) then accompanied her downstairs to her room.

On the other hand, she says she was about fifteen before she realized that nothing stopped her going to the store and buying enough Hostess Twinkies to gorge on if she wanted, even though we’d said, "Hostess Twinkies are bad for you and you can have only one a year."

It had just never occurred to us to say, "don’t take the car out at night and drive around in the dark, particularly when you’re not old enough to get a permit," or "don’t go up to the cocktail lounge in a hotel, alone."

IN PRAISE OF IMPERFECTION AND UNSUCCESS.

Saturday, my daughter, granddaughter, and I went on the local Garden Tour; I thought the granddaughter would enjoy such a grownup event. We admired the perfect, meticulously maintained, expertly manicured, gardens and I expected to see my yard as hopelessly shabby, with its long grass, sprawling plants and deck and doors needing stain and paint, when we returned.

Instead, I looked at it, in all its lack of glory, and thought "I really like my garden better".

I think of all of us who write and write and never get published, unless we self-publish, and who feel that this makes us ’unsuccessful’ as writers.

I think of my paternal grandfather. When his wife absconded to South Africa, whence she later sent him divorce papers, he quit his job as a monumental mason, left his two young sons with his mother, and went down to London to become an actor. He soon slouched back to his village in Yorkshire, and spent the rest of his life chiseling the letters on tombstones.

We remember him because of what he attempted, even though he failed as an actor. Similarly, we unpublished writers will be remembered, by those who know us, for having tried; for having worked at writing for years, perhaps succeeding in writing well, but not officially succeeding. My garden will be remembered as giving a comfortable sort of pleasure, to others as well as myself, even though it’s a failure by Garden Tour standards.

Most important, we ’unsuccessful’ writers experience the joy of working on something that feels worthwhile, the ’work in progress’, even if it never gets published.

Something here about ’the journey not the destination . . .?'