One Mo' Blondie

"Are you really a blond?" a leering man asks her.

"Why don't you ask me," she replies.

Trumpet Vines

Today I shall shamelessly borrow from Cowgirl’s delightful blog about daylilies to praise the six-foot-high red, pink and gold trumpet vine on my brick wall. Eleven years ago it was just a sprout in a five gallon pot but now it reaches twenty-five feet from its stem on one side. Here we must admonish it not to grown right across the street.

It’s other arm has grown in the other direction at least fifty feet along the wall all the way to the end of the house. Not content with two dimensions, this lusty vine sends its joyful tendrils across the five-foot side setback to tap on the living room window panes.


At its furthest end it armwrestles a wall of white blossoming jasmine which itself is climbed every year by the nasturtium vines. Did I once plant those? Their smiling faces are a perfect, clear, almost translucent orange. At their feet volunteer pink and yellow columbines lift their elegant horns almost three feet high.

Trumpet vines grow wild and free along the highway walls out here. My own vine’s stem is as thick and hard as a gnarly tree trunk. Years ago, the same gorgeous trumpet vine grew around the screened porch of my old New Hampshire house. Forty years, I calculate! Gosh, I loved that place, the first I owned by myself. I paid sixteen thousand dollars for it, cheap even at the time. Two big old maple trees in front, a ratty one-car garage and a rickety little barn the previous owner had thrown up to keep the snow off his tools. My pregnant mare went in and out at will to roam the ten acres of pasture.

We swatted mosquitoes many a hot summer night on that porch, watching the mare and then her babies, and the quick gleam of humming birds in the gold and red trumpet blossoms. Their needle beaks sipped from those deep rosy throats long, long ago but not so far away.

Highjacking a Rodeo Princess

Dear Readers: I am highjacking a paragraph from Shirley's wonderful meditation just in case you might skip over it. After I walk the dog this morning, I shall return to see if any of you have found it as delightful as I have.

Our farm has a completely amazing population of lightning bugs. Down at the bottom of the pasture, at dusk, they rise out of the ground, swirling, twirling glimmering dots of palest yellow, neon green and blue white, the exact opposite of the blanket of dark. I like to watch as they blink, then disappear, to reappear several feet away. To catch them, you have to guess what direction they go, or be fast enough to snatch them with your hand while they are lit. I think I used to be good at this, because I remember filling mason jars with grass and a twig and then using it as a temporary home for dozens of bugs. As long as I left the lid on the jar, I was allowed to have the jar in my room on my nightstand. I would fall asleep to the glowing semaphore they sent. I hope they found love, if briefly, inside the jar..


The Domestic Episodes of a Rodeo Princess: The Light

Meatloaf

Jim vowed he could improve on my meatloaf after The Incident on Thursday. I couldn’t agree more. The Thursday meatloaf began with the basics: white bread soaked in milk, eggs, sautéed onion, a dash of Worcestershire and a pound of good ground beef.

Okay, then. Perhaps because I overthawed a pound of mysterious ground beef in the microwave, leaving only its bottom edge a bit tan—and, yes, firm—I resisted thawing expensive artisan bread and found that while the milk box was sealed, the heavy cream box was already open. So I stirred some heavy cream into a quarter cup of Progresso Unseasoned Bread Crumbs.

I let that rest while I considered the meaty glob and considered all that peeling and chopping and sautéing onions need, plus there'd be an extra pan to wash. The hell with the onions.

Meanwhile, the crumbs seized up on the cream so I added more cream. This created uncrushable lumps and a lot of them. Discouraged, I threw that mixture away and thawed the bread. Let the bread cubes stand with light cream, the heavy being now a bad choice, wouldn’t you say? I would. Apparently artisan bread is not very absorbent so I just threw in two organic eggs, a pinch of salt and mixed up the glop, hopefully.

Anyway I baked this concoction, thinking ‘ketchup’ is always a good moistener. Din din, knives and forks, wine and hard voila! dry, hard, flavorless Meatrock.

Volunteer into the breech last night, at about six Jim began to back away from his meatloaf commitment. I presented him with the four lean TJ burger burger discs, flat as if they were stamped out on a cement sidewalk.

“Ready to mix this up?”

“Maybe,” he said and took his drink out to the porch. Meatloaf wasn’t gonna happen.

“How about burgers, then? I’ll put the string beans on.” Necessity being the mother of invention, I buttered one patty and slammed another on top. Jim looked doubtful.

“Think of this as a thick steak,” I suggested and handed him the frying pan.

Well, even with butter the too-rare burger--nuked for a taste-enhancing thirty seconds—was too dry even for a ketchup rescue. The beans were just fine. What potatoes? What comforting starch?

This morning as we drove home before lunch I mentioned that I hadn’t planned anything for supper.

“Please don’t!” he instantly replied.

There’s a goodly supply of dogfood for Mopsy in the fridge. And a big bowl of water beside her dish.

Dementia: Not for Love or Money

At 5 o’clock yesterday I stopped by SarahCare, a daycare for memory-impaired elders, to introduce my dog to the clients. Sarahcare generously gives my Toastmasters Club a free space to meet every week. In return I occasionally stop by to fill an hour of their day. Owner Tim, busy at the front desk, waved me in. I led Mopsy through the silent, immobile clients, greeted the caregivers and headed through the door.

As I walked out, a slender, well-dressed, seventy-plus client was kicking up a real fuss about the taxi home.

First the cab driver, a powerfully built fifty-something with a heavy moustache and a heavy accent, and then another driver and finally, slim Tim himself, beseeched the woman to get in so she could go home. But the more they begged and patted and even pushed, the more wildly obstinate she became.

“Maybe the dog will distract her,” I offered. “Look, here’s Mopsy!” I cried helpfully. The men stood back. The woman looked at me with silent despair. Ah, probably doesn’t speak English, I thought.

“Senora, por favor, venga con estos hombres. A su casa.” She grabbed my hand with a ferocious grip and looked at me intently. I struggled for a few more Spanish words but none came. “A su casa. La comida. Suenos, senora! Siete en el coche, por favor!”

She cocked her head as if she could not quite hear the words.

“Doesn’t anybody speak Spanish?” I wailed to the men who were looking at me hopefully. “Help me out here!” I tried to pull away from her hand. Goodness, who knew that an old lady could be so strong.

But I did know. Long ago, one high summer season at the Tanglewood Music Festival I sat in an old-fashioned rocker on the front porch of the Lenox Inn beside a gabby old lady in her eighties who claimed she was Joseph Silverstein’s aunt. Silverstein was then Boston Symphony Orchestra’s First Violinist. I had no reason to disbelieve her. She told me a long, funny family story about the poor man’s bossy wife.

I thoroughly enjoyed the insider gossip but when I rose to leave, the old lady grabbed me by the shoulders and planted a passionate kiss full on my mouth. While kiss lasted, a good long time, I was powerless in her grasp.

Those were indeed the woohoo lesbian days and women did occasionally, fall in love with me, then. But this was not a lover’s kiss, this was a very heartfelt, farewell kiss. I know I’ll never see you again.

Then I was gone and of course, I never saw her again. But I have never forgotten the amazing power of her embrace.

Now, at Sarahcare. The woman backed away from the cab with a tormented expression.

“We can’t help you out,” Tim said. “She’s Italian!” The three men renewed their attempts to stuff her into cab’s back seat, then the front but she would not go. As two pushed and cajoled her stiff, resistant body the sweating, burly cabbie turned to me.

“Last Friday she unbuckle herself and open the door right on Freemont Avenue,” he cried. “I used to be a chiropractor and I could hardly get her back inside.”

Now several more pickup cars crowded in, clogging the parking area. I finally squeezed my car out, cursing myself for adding to the mess. Never, ever stop by to visit at day’s end!

In the mirror I saw Tim and now the caregivers push the poor woman back in through the Sarahcare door. The cab drove off empty. God knows who could take this poor woman home and if Sarahcare workers got their own suppers on time.

If you think Alzheimer’s patients just need a loving touch, remember the three men and the taxicab. Doctors are scared to prescribe sedatives or lock people up. The new Health Care bill may spawn a voluntary long-term care fund. But there’s a lot more to memory-impairment issues than love or money.

In her last years my mother had Alzheimers Disease. As she slid into oblivion, she offered to leave me her money if I let her live with me. Too proud for a bribe—I would have done it for love—and too ignorant to understand what was happening to her, I declined. And have felt remorse ever since. She found loving caregivers who chased after her when she ran naked down the street one night and left them the money. Little did I realize the generous gift she left me.


David C. Grabowski, associate professor in the department of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, writes that “today, more than 5 million Americans are estimated to have dementia. By 2050, the number of those afflicted is expected to exceed 13 million.”