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Sunday, January 30, 2011

The "Grandma's Hats" Caption Contest

The writers took a jaunt to San Juan Capistrano and got a little goofy browsing through the antique barn complex. Liz began trying on old hats, Susan M. started taking pictures, and Susan C. provided on-the-spot captions. This blog post is the result, except we all added our own captions. You can participate, too, in what I'm calling the "Grandma's Hats" Caption Contest. Go to the "Comments" section and add your own captions. You have exactly one week to participate.  Deadline is midnight next Sunday. Grand Prize winner will receive a month's supply of Polident, a free consultation with an orthopedic shoe expert, and a leather-bound book called "Becoming One with Your Walker." Runners-up get nothing.


#1
Grandma goes to church.
Grandma knows the secret handshake.
Grandma's marching with the suffragettes.

 #2
Grandma goes to a garden party.
Grandma does not eat the daisies; the daisies eat grandma.
Grandma is elected president of the Garden Club. She insists on being addressed as "Madame Chairman."

 #3
Grandma interviews for a headmistress position.
Grandma is veiled in mystery.
Grandma channels her inner Eleanor Roosevelt.

 #4
Grandma loves a bargain.
Grandma channels the ghost of Minnie Pearl.
Though grief-stricken, Grandma finds the perfect hat for grandpa's funeral, which just perks her right up. 

 #5
Grandma meets the queen.
Grandma is Pope of the Infidels.
Grandma wants to be Pharoah.

 #6
Grandma tricks out her firehat.
Grandma stages a coup d'etat of the Red Hat Society.
Grandma moonlights as a court jester.

 #7
Grandma becomes a bird for a day.
Grandma dusts the attic with her head.
Grandma makes the best of the death of her pet ostrich.

 #8
Where's Grandma?
Grandma is a Drag Queen.
Grandma goes beatnik.

 #9
Grandma goes big game hunting.
Grandma goes on safari.
Grandma's new Corvette convertible came with a free "wind" control driving hat.

 
 #10
Grandma orders a margarita.
Grandma says, "A mi me gusta mi sombrero."
Grandma makes a "run for the border."
 #11
Grandma squares off with Rooster Cogburn.
Grandma tames the west.
Grandma pays homage to Dale Evans.

 #12
Grandma flips out altogether.
Grandma says, "Nyah, nyah, ny, nyah, nyah."
Grandma goes native after reading Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and decides to join Kurtz in the jungle and found her own tribe.

#13 
Grandma goes to Alaska to feed Sarah Palin to the bears.
Grandma is Lady Dowager Snooty-Smythe.
Grandma makes a fashion statement of roadkill.

 #14
Grandma makes good friends with a ferret.
Grandma is the Angel of Fur for a day.
Why is grandma wearing a sausage?

 #15
Grandma goes to the symphony.
Grandma is captured by the purple-people eater.
Grandma is ready for the Easter Parade.

 #16
Grandma goes rowing on the Thames.
Grandma paddles the gondola.
Grandma's favorite movie is "Pollyanna."

 #17
Grandma tries to sneak into the Royal Wedding.
Grandma channels Miss Havisham.
Grandma decides to become a beekeeper.


 #18
Grandma dons her camouflage gear to hide out in the garden. Who knows why?
Grandma accidentally sticks her head in the birthday cake.
Grandma is "mother of the bride."


 #19
Grandma blings out her yarmulke.
Grandma goes bird-watching and the birds mistake her for a nest.
Grandma pays tribute to Mamie Eisenhower.


 #20
Grandma goes in search of Johnny Depp.
Grandma is a badass Hell's Angel transvestite golfer.
Grandma's souvenir hat from her former lover, Bing Crosby.

#21
Grandma goes to Ascot.
Grandma drinks mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby.
Grandma thinks she's Scarlett O'Hara.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Exactly Who Is Growing Up?

I just got a text: “I am sick take care of me L.” My first thought was, ‘should I get on a plane now and go to New York?’ I know it’s silly, I know she can take care of herself, and she will have to. All four roommates are now sick. She sounded so good just yesterday. Welcome to the final semester of senior year.

I am in awe of just how much I love my daughter. Even when I want to kill her I love her. This makes for a sometime schizophrenic episode inside my head and heart. This bond is stronger than my attitudes, beliefs, wishes for things to be different, disappointments, frustrations, and fears. I realize that everything is perfect. I have finally become a grown-up. I no longer want to control this ‘no longer’ child or even make her life better for her – that is now her job. Not that I won’t help when I can and when I feel it is appropriate. When I volunteered to go to NY to be “mom,” inside I was saying please say you really don’t need me there – I have so much on my plate – I love you, I want you well, I’d love to help you and if you were here I’d make chicken soup – but please say, ‘no – it’s okay.’ The text came: “No, it’s okay.” I laughed.

The joy is ineffable. I look at or even think about pictures of her sweet year-old face smeared with tomato sauce, or the sultry, hair-blown-back professional photo that my ex-husband’s second wife had taken of her at approximately age 17, or the laughing half-face photo taken within the last year by a roommate, and I realize that this young woman, no matter what, is on her own personalized, one-of-a-kind journey of discovery, and I feel privileged and blessed when she lets me in for a sweet and sometimes deep and probing conversation. Those moments are the ones I cherish. I realize that mommy time – for all intents and purposes – is done. It’s not that I won’t help if I need to, but I can no longer ‘control/help.’ She must now ‘control/help’ herself, and she is more than capable of doing that. I believe I have turned in my helicopter wings – thank God!

I remember when she was younger, begging my ex-husband to take her as much as possible. She still wanted to hold my hand, sit in my lap, let me tickle her, laugh with her and share enthusiastic ‘oh my Gods,’ and ‘how could that bes,’ and ‘wows,’ as we read the Harry Potter books out loud to one another and waited together in lines as each new book or movie came out. I knew that wouldn’t last forever. I knew that at some point she would rather spend time with her friends than with me or her father. As it should be. If things go as they might, when she’s older she could very well want to add some of that back in, but now she is growing and developing and truly becoming herself.

I love to watch this taking place. I love to hear that she and her roommates signed the contract for their new Brooklyn apartment. I actually loved it when she both told and asked me “Listen, I can just forge your signature,” on the rental application information page so that we wouldn’t have to do another back and forth to get this new apartment going since the first one was lost to a higher bidder. I loved getting her ‘by-the-way’ question about the difference between Scottish and Irish oatmeal because she hadn’t made her oatmeal cookies for a while and decided that she wanted to make some to take to the first evening of her Gotham Writers humor writing workshop. I loved the spontaneous laugh that emitted from her when I said she would be popular after showing up with cookies. It surprised me that she really hadn’t thought about that.

I love to hear her laugh – her laugh is full, authentic, rich, contagious. On her ‘step-mother’s’ website – Life by Me – Sarah was told she could post an entry. Her posting was entitled “Laughter.”

I will send her light and love, and maybe a card, and trust that she can and will take care of herself and that in a day or two she will be better, ready for her final college semester to begin, and ready to move into the new Brooklyn apartment.

I am a lucky, lucky woman. I appreciate my daughter. I appreciate my life. I appreciate my friends. I appreciate my good fortune. I appreciate my foibles. I appreciate my failures. I appreciate this opportunity to publicly say how much I love my daughter and that I am so glad that I married my ex-husband so that we could be the doorway through which Sarah Mykel got to enter the world.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Potpourri

by Susan Cameron

I'm not sure if these were ideas for longer works that I never finished, or if they were intended to be short short stories. Either way, I'm about to inflict them on you... :)

Funkytown

The disco smelled like Brut aftershave, cigarette smoke, and the inside of a car after you've been making out in it for an hour. The guy dancing in front of me snapped his hips once, twice, then spun around on the tips of his platform shoes, satin bellbottoms flapping around his heels. He completed the turn, looked at me and grinned. He had a fake tooth in the front, and it glowed in the blacklight. I stared at it every time he opened his mouth. I was fascinated by the damn thing blinking at me, like it was sending Morse code from the deck of a destroyer: "I want to get your pants off. I want to get your pants off."

I had already checked out his pants, of course. He had apparently been sewn into his purple satin pants before coming here tonight. The bulge down his left thigh would have been impressive if I hadn't seen a guy brought into the emergency room of the hospital where I worked wearing the same kind of pants, with the same kind of bulge. He'd broken his leg falling off his platform shoes while dancing, and when we cut the pants off him so we could set the break, we discovered the sausage he'd taped to his inner thigh.

This guy? There would be only one way to find out, but did I want to?



Nude Beach

"No way in hell," she said.

"Aw, come on, honey! It'll be great!"

"No."

"But you hate having tan lines. It'll feel great, you'll get some sun, you'll look great..."

"No. Way."

"But everybody else will be naked too! It's not like we'll be the only ones. Everybody kind of blends in."

"I'm not blending. I don't blend."

"But wouldn't it be great to do it at least once? At one with nature. Back to Eden."

"Bullshit. Adam and Eve slapped fig leaves on as soon as they could. And Eve's ass was nowhere as big as mine."

"You have a gorgeous ass! You just need to get a little sun on it," he said. "So it'll match your legs. Right now, it's so white it glows in the dark like the moon."

"You're saying my ass is as big as the moon?"

"No! No! It's beautiful! I love it! I love your ass, I love moonlight..."

"You son of a bitch!"

"No! Honey! It'll be fun!"

"Really? As much fun as we're having now?"


Fourth of July

My brother, his buddies and I had been celebrating our nation's independence all day with our pals Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, and we were now in the fistfight portion of the program.

"Gordie Howe!" screamed my brother Bob as he swung his fist at his best friend Paul. Paul was too drunk to duck, but that was OK since Bob missed him by a good foot-and-a-half.

"Wayne Gretsky!" Paul threw a roundhouse punch that a blind man could see coming, but he still got close enough to knock off Bob's Red Wings cap. Bob tackled Paul, and the rest of us pried them apart without too much trouble.

"You guys can't handle liquor worth a damn," Ronnie said, looking thoughtful. "We'd better switch to beer."

"Shots fired! Shots fired, man!"

We all hit the deck and scrambled for cover, and the sky lit up. I rolled over onto my back and woozily realized the fireworks had started: exploding glitter redder than blood, gigantic white bursts like my grandmother's peonies, crayon colors of green, blue and gold sparkling and crackling. Their brilliance seared my retinas, but I lay there smiling and couldn't look away.

copyright 2011, Susan Cameron

Monday, January 10, 2011

Roca Madness

My adult son called me a bitch last Christmas, but before you get all huffy, you should know that I was not insulted. On the contrary, I was delighted. Let me explain.

It all started back in the sixties with my mother’s friend, Jen McNaught, who made almond roca, this amazing toffee candy that everyone raved about. My mother had no luck making Jen’s almond roca, but I gave it a try and turned out a perfectly delicious batch of toffee. From then on I have been famous for my almond roca.

That’s the thing about this candy. It has a possessive quality. If you are successful in making it, it becomes yours no matter whose it was before. It was Jen’s Almond Roca before it became Liz’s Almond Roca. I passed the recipe on to Darlene, who now makes Darlene’s Almond Roca for friends and family, and to Bob, whose boss expects Bob’s Almond Roca to arrive at the office every December. And so on - the almond roca family tree.

Almond roca also inspires obsession – obsession to eat it and to be the one who makes it. So I am happy to share the recipe, grow the family tree.

The recipe is simple: Place a cup of sugar, a cup of butter and a cup of whole blanched almonds in a skillet with the burner on high. Stir constantly until the butter is melted and the ingredients are blended. Turn the heat to medium high and continue stirring for about eight minutes or until the mixture is toffee colored. It sounds easy, but for some reason people have trouble with it.

After forty-some years of making almond roca every Christmas, I’ve developed my rituals, and I don’t stray from them. I use a cast iron skillet and a wooden spoon. I follow the recipe exactly and have gone to great lengths to get the whole blanched almonds, which aren’t readily available anymore. Maybe it’s silly, but I don’t want to mess with success. I have a reputation to maintain. I want my disciples to succeed, too, so I make sure the recipe I give them includes all my tips.

Which brings me back to last December when my son, Eric, and my friend, Nancy, decided they wanted to make the candy. That’s when the trouble began.

One evening I received a frantic call from Nancy.

“I’ve got an oily mess here,” she said. “What am I doing wrong?”

Since this happened to me the one time I used regular almonds, I asked if she’d used blanched almonds.

“I couldn’t find whole blanched almonds anywhere, so I blanched them myself,” she said. “It took forever, popping off all those skins. It became kind of a Zen experience, so I didn’t really mind. But now I have a disaster and all that work was for nothing. Help!”

“Maybe there was still some oil in the nuts,” I said. “Did you have the right amount of butter?”

“One cup,” she said.

“Maybe the heat wasn’t right,” I said.

“Maybe it’s the pan,” she said.

Over the next couple of days, Nancy tried again and again – blanching almonds, not blanching almonds, using blanched almond slivers and sliced almonds, different skillets and burner temperatures. She’d call to report in that she’d burned this batch, undercooked that batch, thrown away yet another batch. I had to admire her persistence, but I was stumped as to why it wouldn’t work. She was finally about to give up, but was going to replenish her supplies and try one more time the next day.

That’s when Eric called.

“I’ve got an oily mess,” he said. “What am I doing wrong?”

He’s an excellent baker, so I couldn’t imagine how he could have failed.

“Whole blanched almonds?” I asked.

“Well, I blanched them myself. I couldn’t find whole blanched almonds anywhere,” he said.

I had a new respect for my son and my friend, blanching all those almonds themselves. But, clearly, it didn’t work.

“Did you use one cup of butter? Not one pound?”

“Mom,” he said with disgust, “I know what a cup of butter is.”

“Okay,” I said. “How about the pan?”

“Cast iron, just like yours,” he said.

“And the level of heat?”

“Just exactly what the recipe says,” he replied. “Maybe if I get some of those blanched slivered almonds.”

“You could try, but Nancy didn’t have any better luck with those,” I said.

“I’m going to the store,” he said. “I have to have this for school tomorrow.”

An hour later he was on the phone again.

“I still have an oily mess,” he said. “I bought slivered and sliced and regular almonds and I’ve tried them all and I still have junk.” He sounded frantic. The mom in me needed to make this right for him.

“Well, let’s break it down,” I said like a detective. “There are only three ingredients, so one of them has to be a problem. Sugar is pretty much just sugar, so it can’t be that. You’ve used every possible kind of almond, so it’s probably not that. That leaves the butter. You’re using the right amount, so maybe there’s something wrong with the butter. What kind is it?”

“It’s just regular unsalted butter,” he said.

“Unsalted?” I said. “I don’t use unsalted. Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe there’s some chemical reaction that requires the salt.”

By then it was ten o’clock at night, but Eric was determined to have almond roca to take to school the next day. He couldn’t go empty handed. So off to the grocery store he went. I waited nervously until finally the phone rang.

“You brilliant bitch!” he said.

“It worked?” I said.

“Yep,” he said. I could hear the big smile in his voice.

There’s something exhilarating about sharing a victory with your kid, even if he has just called you a bitch, so we basked in the glow of our roca triumph for a while, congratulating each other before we hung up. Right away I sent Nancy an email relaying the salted butter story. The next afternoon she called to report her own success with salted butter. Hooray! The roca gods were smiling again.

This year brought no almond roca traumas, especially since I have amended my recipe to require salted butter. But I discovered that all salted butter is not equal. On the fifteenth of my sixteen batches the mixture started separating and getting oily. In a moment of inspiration I reached for the saltshaker and sprinkled it generously into the skillet. Voila! It all started to bind together again and the batch was saved.

Damn, I am a brilliant bitch!

Oh, and now there are two more solid branches on the almond roca family tree. Eric’s teacher friends are talking about Eric’s Almond Roca, and a friend of Nancy’s told her, “I have never had anything so good as your almond roca!”

I’m so proud.

Copyright 2011 by Liz Zuercher

Monday, January 3, 2011

My Favorite Things of 2010


1.    I’m delighted about my new granddaughter, Ava Lenore, born November 16, 2010.
 
2.    My favorite grandson Everett, 3 ½, and I had our first grandma-grandson sleep-over. In fact, we had three of them at my little cottage in Jacksonville, Oregon. That was the best. Everett is supercallifragilisticexpealidocious. It was a real treat to spend three weeks visiting with him, my daughter, her husband, and his new sister.

 3.   I loved living in Brooklyn Heights, NY for six months, just a 15-minute walk from my favorite son and just a block from the Brooklyn Promenade that overlooks the East River.

4.    I’m proud to have survived the hottest summer in 30 years in New York City, living in the garden level apartment of an old row house built in 1829 with only a window air conditioner in the bedroom.

5.     I loved being back in California by the beach in December when New York had one of its worst blizzards ever and I didn’t have to negotiate the subway steps in NYC. (Picture is from New York Times.)
 
6
 
   I   I loved Thanksgiving 2010 at the farm with my favorite daughter, Melissa; my favorite son, Don, Jr.; my favorite son-in-law, Josh; my favorite grandchildren, Ava and Everett; and my favorite ex-husband, Don, Sr.

 
I loved being in Denver for Christmas for the beautiful Christmas wedding of my niece, Diana Harris, and her new husband, Jeremy Knaub.

 8.    I loved spending Christmas with my two favorite sisters, Linda and Sharon, and my favorite extended family of nieces, nephews, brothers-in-law, etc.
 9
 
I loved re-uniting with my favorite writing group after six months in Brooklyn, NY.

11.  I loved having a healthy happy 2010 and wish the same for all of you in 2011.