The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

The Constitution of the United States, 20th Amendment, Section 1

I begin this post with Section 1 of the Constitution’s Twentieth Amendment to remind anyone who doesn’t know (like the newest Senator from Alabama, an embarrassment if ever there was one) that Inauguration Day can’t be moved. Yes I know, if January 20th falls on a Sunday the pomp and circumstance are moved to Monday, January 21, but the President’s term begins on January 20th regardless and they must be sworn in on January 20. So there.

One reason I didn’t write any blogposts during the period from March 12 – December 31, 2020 was because I didn’t want to write one long whine of deprivation and frustration. There are many things I didn’t get to do during that time that I had planned, bought tickets for, saved money for, carved out time for. Nada. Which of course pales in comparison to the devastating losses others have suffered.

With the election of Joe Biden on November 3, my thoughts immediately swung to a quadrennial tradition my older daughter and I have enjoyed and then my heart dropped. Because of Covid-19 (can we just call it Trump’s Plague?) the District of Columbia was still banning (and rightly so, don’t get me wrong) indoor dining. And here begins the story.

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You can see from the photos how much fun this is. But I have to tell you, if you’re not willing to be jammed into a very small restaurant at 150% capacity, this is not for you. If you expect your coffee or muffin or sausages or Guinness to get to your table in a reasonable amount of time, this is not for you. And just remember, you’re going to be seated (if you get seated) with people you have never met. Of course they’re about to become your new best friends. It’s absolutely delightful! In 2017 I considered not attending, but older daughter convinced me that if I didn’t go I’d regret it. How right she was! We were seated with two protestors who had driven up from Florida to demonstrate. They were marvelous company and we were so glad we got to talk with them.

So now here we are. No indoor dining, but even if this weren’t a no-no, the security lockdown for the area around the Capitol would make getting to The Dubliner impossible. <sigh> You can certainly see why I spared you my whining all last year.

Older daughter and I will zoom or facetime breakfast together with the television tuned to the show. Because we’ll be trapped here while she will be two hours south and nobody is going anywhere while the more virulent strain of Covid-19 (Trump’s Plague) sweeps through the land. As my husband put it so succinctly this morning, “I’m sick of this covid shit.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, honey. #MissYouMorningJoe

January 18, 2021

(PANDEMIC PART 2)

A common abbreviation among posters in Reddit, Facebook, et al. is TIL – Today I Learned. Well, in 2020 I learned a number of things. For one thing my capacity to sit in a chair staring into space pouting about my lot in life if not infinite at least has a lot of depth. If it hadn’t been for many of the following, I might still be sitting there. Hence – This Year I Learned:

Brownies. I could devote an entire blogpost concerning the Brownie recipe from Susan Delbert, head chef at the National Press Club. It remains one of the best, most comforting sweet treats ever devised. If you need something to ease your psychic distress, this might do the trick.

Scrambling and Poaching Eggs. The Washington Post food column, Voraciously, is one of the best ways to learn to cook and try new recipes. It’s well-written and on the strength of the prose alone I have been encouraged to try such dishes as Cabbage Braised in Apple Cider (pretty good). But the most interesting columns were on eggs. Apparently I have been scrambling eggs ALL WRONG for my entire life. I had no idea. What I learned from Becky Krystal: salt your eggs (I hold back on salt with everything) and beat in at least a tablespoon of butter (who knew), but my major mistake was using a whisk for scrambling eggs. Never, ever use a whisk. Use a fork. I forget why (here is the article), but when using a fork and beating in butter, these scrambled eggs are delightfully fluffy and don’t stick to the pan at all.

They are so delicious I’m afraid I’ve eaten a LOT of scrambled eggs since then.

Concerning poaching eggs: I love poached eggs. I love eggs benedict. One of our favorite go-to quick dinners has been corned beef hash (Libby’s) topped with fried eggs, but always preferred a poached egg which was an elusive creation. Elusive, no more, after I followed the advice of Becky Krystal again in Voraciously (go here) which was, and I quote, “just poach the damn egg.” I followed the instructions, and voila, perfectly poached and no more fried eggs for us.

Butter. Let me say a word here about butter. Butter cannot be overrated. I once heard a story of someone’s grandmother who ended every meal with a pat of butter as a dessert. Yes, she ate a pat of butter which might seem a little much to some but I’ve been known to just have a pat of butter myself as a treat while cooking. Most Brownie recipes call for 1-1/2 sticks of butter. The National Press Club Brownie recipe mentioned earlier requires two whole sticks – pretty sure this is why it is so superior. And then there’s the butter beaten into scrambled eggs. The movie Julie and Julia (2009) is a charming ode to Julia Child and the simple pleasure of cooking. This quote from that film says it all about butter:

“I cooked artichokes with hollandaise sauce which is melted butter that’s been whipped into a frenzy with egg yolks until it’s died and gone to heaven, and let me say this: is there anything better than butter? Think it over: every time you taste something that’s delicious beyond imagining and you say, “What is in this?”, the answer is always going to be, Butter. The day there’s a meteorite heading toward the earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here’s my final words on the subject, you can never have too much, butter.”

Julie Powell on Butter in the movie, Julie and Julia (2009)

Cast iron pan pizza. What can I say? For years I made homemade pizza using the pizza dough recipe in that culinary bible, The Joy of Cooking, but gradually got out of the habit especially since the daughters had left home and our elderly menu seemed to preclude pizza. Plus I mourned the loss of Luigi’s on Rt. 1 – a marvelous restaurant that featured wine barrel dining booths and pizza that has become more glorious in memory than it probably was. I fondly remember the maître d’ singing Lucevan e stelle. <sigh> Luigi’s hasn’t been a fixture in the local dining scene for more than thirty years, having been succeeded by a cosmopolitan buffet, a chinese restaurant, and now a Walgreen’s which doesn’t serve food. But as usual, I digress. Once again, a mention in Voraciously, caused me to renew my acquaintance with pizza. This time the column touted the crunch of the crust made in a cast-iron pan (here). Well having a cast-iron pan and longing for the delights of gooey cheese and sauce and that promised crunch, I gave this a try. The results were, well let’s just say we have pizza once a week now and one of my favorite Christmas presents was a 14-inch cast-iron pizza pan – bigger pizza, thinner crust, same delicious crunch.

Chili. For many years I have been known as an excellent chili cook. After all I won the chili cook-off twice at my last place of employment. My chili recipe is ALWAYS in a state of evolution. The chili recipe that I originally used to economically fill up two active daughters is not the recipe that won the chili cook-off. I have researched chili recipes extensively, most notably with the comprehensive history of chili in A Bowl of Red which has excited in me a desire to visit Big Bend National Park and the Original Terlingua International Championship Chili Cook-off. Again, I digress. For years I’ve been operating with two chili recipes, one made with smoked brisket (a laborious all day project) and one derived from the recipe favored by Lyndon Johnson which is much simpler. At any rate, while in quarantine, I successfully married elements of each to produce a less time-consuming but family-beloved concoction. I even, at the behest of my SIL, added black beans since I’m not entering any more chili contests. I try to keep four quarts in the freezer at all times. Chili season in Hybla Valley is deemed November – April, May through October being just a little too warm or busy to make chili.

Video Production. As I mentioned in Pandemic Part 1, I have become something of a minor expert in creating small videos of readings for my church’s Sunday morning zoomed services. This has become a creative outlet that my husband always says was just lying in wait. (“But what she really wants to do is direct.”) Here is a short (2.5 minutes) video featuring a reading of the poem, “Dimetrodon’s Sail” by Jeff Moss from his book, Bone Poems.

Renewing my love of poetry. This next is really weird. Here’s the stack of poetry books I purchased in 2020:

This probably needs it’s own blogpost. Yeah, let’s do that. But, suffice it to say, this was a notable part of 2020. I could write a paragraph about why I purchased each book and a notable poem in each. But I do think this got out of hand, partly because it was so easy to just order another book from Amazon and partly because I liked getting packages. And don’t think I didn’t already have a collection of books devoted to poetry.

Cats. Two cats moved in with us in August 2020. Because their parents are still nomadic and haven’t found an apartment yet, the cats are still living with us. Prior to this experience, our longest sojourn with a cat was approximately four weeks and it was only one cat. Entering their sixth month with us, Indy and Barry have taught us much. So much so, that in the future they will get their own blogpost.

January 15, 2021

It’s too much. Too much, that Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman, Sean Connery, and now John Le Carre all passed away in 2020. My 12 year old self has died, and certainly her heart is broken.

Robert Vaughn passed away in 2016. I held up pretty well under that blow. And after all, David McCallum is still tottering around at 87 on NCIS so there’s that. (I don’t watch though, preferring to keep him young and dashing in my memories.)

Well what do all these actors, and one author, have in common? They gave life and breath to glamorous espionage in the Cold War. And I was besotted with all things in the world of spies. Before I was a Star Trek fan, my true loves were Ilya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and I was crazy for CIA agents Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott on I Spy. And Mission: Impossible – now that was THE Sunday night treat.

But the gold standard for spies was 007. When Sean Connery looked up from the baccarat table and said, “Bond. James Bond” he had me. Lock, stock and beretta. Or Walther PPK. When the local drive-in was showing a double feature of Dr. No and From Russia With Love, I sweet-talked my parents into taking me and my almost-equally besotted cousin.

Now please think about this: we were 12. And not just any 12 – small town 12. In 1964. Naive is not too strong a word. Really, it’s the only word. Sheesh.

My tv spy shows gave way to police shows or new fads. But I couldn’t give up the world of espionage. I saw every spy movie possible: the Ipcress File, Our Man Flint. Flashy with gadgets, smoky with fog and atmosphere – I was scrunched up in the middle row of the theatre with popcorn and a Mars bar.

When Goldfinger (featuring the glorious Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore) was released it was a huge hit. And with it came the signature song and lush opening title. Please spare a moment to smile at the thought of 12 year old me uttering the name “Pussy Galore” to my parents. Thunderball was even bigger, promoted with a spread in Look magazine. You Only Live Twice was even more exotic. When Connery left it was a blow. George Lazenby tried his hand at the role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with Diana Rigg as the ill-fated Bond girl and wife. But Roger Moore had the savoir faire to wear a tux, drive a fast car, karate chop the villains, and bed the girl. Live and Let It Die. The Spy Who Loved Me. Moonraker. For Your Eyes Only. I can tell you who sang the title song of them all. Roger Moore finally retired and amid some controversy, Timothy Dalton took the helm for The Living Daylights, and License to Kill. Then Pierce Brosnan finally got his turn (originally considered when Dalton was chosen) and performed for four films. It was thought the franchise had run it’s course until Daniel Craig breathed new life into it. Casino Royale was great, Quantum of Solace stumbled slightly, but Skyfall was the reimagining Bond needed.

But I digress. Because I’m trying to tell you how stuck I was to the espionage genre. After I had read all the Bond books in our free-range library – if you had a library card, the librarian let you check it out – I worked my way through non-fiction about the CIA and it’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. I read William Donovan’s book about the founding of the CIA. I read about U-2 pilot Gary Powers and how he was traded for a Russian spy. I read about the British spy scandal. In high school US Government, I wrote a paper on the CIA that garnered the highest grade in the class. Why not? I’d only been researching the subject for six years.

When I was 14 I would have been called Goth if it were the 1980s. I wore a black turtleneck sweater, shorts, tights, and flats ALL the time. And I thought about espionage ALL the time. About being a secret agent sniper. I skulked around the neighborhood. I spent a lot of time in my head pretending and this was my favorite let’s pretend. I even read John Le Carre’s first best seller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold which might as well have been a brick wall. That classic was a little too over the head of a naïve small town girl but I plowed through it any way. Ian Fleming and John Le Carre gave the spy world literary life, both glamorously flashy and grimy down-to-earth. I ate it up either way.

You’ve got to wonder why didn’t I consider a career with the CIA? Never occurred to me. Spies were such creatures of fantasy that world didn’t seem reality based, even though the Cold War was very real and in the news.

But I never gave them up either. Watching The Americans and Homeland brought back those old feelings of excitement and exotic mystery. The ending to The Americans was poignant and bittersweet but the end of Homeland seemed absolutely perfect and totally satisfying. I won’t spoil those – if you haven’t seen either series, be sure to watch to the end.

Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman were the cool girls who wore black and were the equal of any male. (I would have loved Diana Rigg in The Avengers but for the fact that I lived so far up in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains the signal of the nearest ABC-TV station couldn’t reach that far. My husband mourns her bitterly.) Sean Connery was the template for every other spy to follow. And if you wanted intellectual engagement and the precursor to the delights of Homeland, John Le Carre’s creatures were devious and real. They all brought the outside world to me. It might have been a fantasy world, but it was certainly larger than a town with barely 5000 population. (I said it was small.)

Last night we watched the pilot episode of a British series, Alex Rider, about a teenage spy out to avenge the death of his uncle. I think teenage me would have loved him.

January 12, 2021

(PANDEMIC PART 1)

Don’t know for how long or how much. Decided to not burden you with the seething anger I felt constantly in 2020. The year wasn’t a total waste and had two or three wonderful points, but the year was essentially stolen by a confluence ponding of events made almost unendurable by the incompetence, mendacity, and out and out selfishness of both the highly-placed-few and the ridiculously ignorant fools aspiring to foist their victimhood on the rest of us. Because of them, this year caused me to say and think the most foul ideas that only the possibility of a follow-up visit by the Secret Service or the FBI has made me pause in writing them down.

I began the lockdown by starting the following diary because this is only going to be three or four months, right? RIGHT?

But here are the personal good points – remember I mentioned there were two or three?:

With the advent of the necessity of zoom for church services, my minister asked me to do a reading in April. Our Household prides itself in many things, two of which are our tech savvy (ok, the husband’s tech savvy) and our apparently infinite capacity to make something simple much, much more complicated. We gathered microphones, tripods, made cue cards, and produced an acceptable 4-minute iPhone video for a reading for the church service. Rave reviews. This became a focus of activity throughout the summer of 2020 and I produced several videos culminating in one in which I turned myself into a dinosaur. The best part was, it got me out of my funk at least partially.

Having been laid off and NYC becoming a ghost town, younger daughter and partner wisely made the decision to leave. Packed up a U-Haul and the cats and moved in with us August through mid-November which was a delightful time of reconnecting since time with younger daughter had been on the slim side since they moved to NYC three years before. And the cats were an added bonus. This idyllic time ended abruptly when partner got a job in Richmond and they moved in with partner’s family in Richmond. However, until they find a Richmond apartment of their own, we get to keep the cats.

Since all travel, baseball games, concerts, and volunteering was suspended, there was nothing standing in the way of getting my right knee replaced. We had made a carefully organized trip to a friend’s Maine cabin in August, but the knee became so painful and unreliable (had to return to using a cane) that upon our return I made an appointment with the surgeon and scheduled the surgery in October. And after all – we had live-in assistance with younger daughter and partner. Best decision of the year, recovery was speedy, and while there is still some residual stiffness, it’s a vast improvement over the alternative, so much so, that the left knee may be replaced in 2021.

And finally, 2020 might have put me over the edge entirely (jury is really still out on that one) if it had not been for my grandson. You may have grandchildren but trust me, he is the paragon that all other grandchildren will be measured by. He was born as the Nats were at their nadir in the 2019 season but upon his appearance in the universe the Nats magically pulled themselves together and won the World Series. Since then his smile alone is the antidote to every kind of gloomy day. His giggle cures every evil notion. His cheerful lilting babbling is on the verge of clear speech. Now that he walks and has outdoor boots his delight in splashing in a puddle is magical. His mother and father are the best parents ever. A child this explorative and active needs much more space than a condo, so two weeks before Christmas the three of them decamped to a large community near Richmond. The new abode is a four bedroom with a front porch, deck, and screened-in porch on one-third acre, and a five minute walk to the lake.

So 2021 will see a new groove in the pavement of I-95. And maybe I’ll find a new groove or get my old one back. Hey, it’s 2021 – anything could happen.