February Saturday Ramblings

It's cold here. Very cold. The hummingbird feeders were frozen when I woke up, so we made refreshing all the bird feeders a priority.Much to their delight! Then I watered all the plants and fed the fish and Emmett. Then I tried to get all my tax stuff together so they can get done. Then I made spaghetti for dinner. And now it's 3:15 and I'll be on my way to Mass soon. It seems like it has been a cold, grey day that has gone past far too fast. There's just a gloom hanging over it. It is staying light a little later now, but it will be dark soon after I return from Mass. And I sadly feel like I'll be sleeping through Mass today.

The bright side is that I do have a free night and may work on the ancestory tree. And I only have to wrap and address the packages that have been piled up in the living room since Christmas. They're finally all together. The delay has been for many reasons; the biggest one being that I was still making doll clothes for one of the children on my Christmas list. I was just enjoying taking my time sewing.

I grew up cynical. From my earliest years I believed that if I asked for something for my birthday or for Christmas, I wouldn't get it. I felt like I had a much greater chance of getting what I wanted if I didn't ask for that specific item. Strange to be such a cynical little child. But one Christmas there was a doll for sale on the top shelf of the little store my dad and I would visit almost nightly for bread and milk. I was probably about eight years old. My dad always went for a walk to "the little store" after dinner and accompanying him was one of my favorite things. He walked fast. I think he said the military stride was 100 steps per minute, but now that sounds like an exageragtion. I had to take 2 or 3 steps for each one of his, but still I loved it. "The Little Store" was really one of two stores. One was around the block and then up a block to the corner of Trisket and Warren Road. The other was up our block, across Lorain Ave., then down a little past the lumber yard. We called the owners by their names, but I would really have to scrounge to recall their names now. One was short, stocky, and cheerful. The other was lean and tall and always wore a white apron and not real friendly to kids. The doll was at his store. I really wanted that doll. It was a teenage doll, before Barbie's time, maybe 14 inches tall with high heels, short curly hair, and a French name. I didn't get to see it up close, I guess because I never thought to ask anyone to get it down from the shelf. One night we went to the store and the doll was gone. Shoot. But I figured I'd never have gotten that doll anyway.

Christmas came and I did get that doll! Not only the doll, but tons of clothes that my mom had made for it. It was such a wonderful gift. And how does one play with a doll like that ... you dress it and undress it and dress it again. I think the French name on the box was Monique; I named her Yvonne. It might have been the other way around! It still amazes me that my parents were able to buy the doll without me knowing and that my mom could sew all those little clothes with my two little brothers, ages little and littler, under her feet.

Maybe my proclevity for making doll clothes has something to do with working through the cynicism that grey, cold, February days conjures up in my soul.

Mr. Beachy Where Are You

Mr. Beachy.
Mr. Beachy.
Mr. Beachy?
Mr. Beachy!
Mr. Beachy, where have you gone?!!!!
Mr. Beachy, get back here this minute!

Thanksgiving's Past, Thanksgivings Past

Thanksgiving is past. It's the morning after Thanksgiving Day and very laid back. I'm taking care of kaleidoscope girl's two dogs while they are at the Coast. The 3 dogs are maniacs when they're together. I made the mistake of giving them each a chew bone thinking that would be a nice treat. They spent most of last night defending their bones and taunting each other with them. The family left after dinner and hopefully didn't get too tired driving in the rain. It was pouring here. This was my 5th Thanksgiving in Portland. Really hard to believe that time has spun so fast. Kaleidoscope girl and Hapapapa have an "extended family" of friends that have shared Thanksgiving Dinner together for years. I've joined in since I've been here and it's really nice to see the group together each year. Usually the host family makes the turkey and everyone brings something. Stories are that for the first few years there was no turkey...I'm glad those days have passed!

Thanksgivings Past I was remembering back to past Thanksgivings and there are many that have been really nice, but a couple that cross my mind every year. One was in Chicago. I don't remember a dinner, but I remember a slender nurse on my floor (I was a ward clerk at Billing's Hospital for a season). I probably worked that night and this nurse told stories of her Thanksgiving turkeys and how every year except this one it seemed she was pregnant. She would be in her eighth or nineth month and as big as the turkey itself. Everyone would crack up as she described herself trying to get the turkey in and out of the oven.

Another Thanksgiving that crosses my mind each year is my first one in Over-the-Rhine. I moved there in the spring of 1969 and my official roomate, D.G., had a job split between youth work at Prince of Peace and senior work at the OTR Senior Center which was located on the corner of 13th and Race St. across from Washington Park at the time. I say she was my "official" roomate because there were many people in and out of our apartment that summer. We were the ones who paid the rent. Everyone but me returned to school in the fall, and I was hired by the Senior Center to replace DG. For Thanksgiving, DG decided she wanted to cook dinner for all the little old people who usually came to the center. It would have been closed for the holiday and most all of the people would have been alone.

I had never cooked a turkey or made stuffing or anything like this. DG had taught me how to drive; now she was teaching me how to make the best turkey and stuffing. The turkey was huge. I think we used two or three bags of bread, a pound of butter, and an entire jar of poultry spice making the stuffing. Then it was up every hour through the night to check on it and baste it. The smell of turkey in the morning was wonderful and the dinner was a huge success. And one of the best parts was making the little elderly Italian cook, who was quite a curmudgeon - especially when we helped in the kitchen, sit down and eat without doing a thing! They all loved it.