Growing Pains

Spring was sullen this year,
Pouting like a spoiled child.
She ruined the weekends with crying spells
And the weekdays with windy tantrums.

I planted geraniums along the walk,
Only to watch her stamp her foot
And crush them in the mud.
She tore through the daffodils,
Strewing them along the porch like broken dolls,
Then cried as only a child can
Over the loss of a favorite toy.
She trounced the roses on the back fence,
Spitefully scattering blossoms
Like soapbubbles in the wind.

I saw her sneak a sly, sidewise glance,
Full of mischief and caprice,
As she headed for the tulips
Huddled on the hill beyond the back fence.
She was almost out the gate,
When summer flew around the corner,
Picked her up by her petticoat,
Smacked her bottom with a broken branch
And sent her squalling to her room.

Copyright 1998 Susan Matthewson

Christmas haiku

by Susan Cameron

the
tree,
triumphant;
banishing winter
darkness, glittering
like
hope

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,
and Best Wishes for 2010!

Susan Cameron, copyright 2009

Mrs. Schlobaum's Cookies

It started with Gary asking me to make Springerles, the German anise cookies his childhood neighbor, Mrs. Schlobaum, used to make. Three Christmases later, I am still in Springerle Hell.

Year One

Two days before Christmas I realize the cookies must mellow in an airtight container for two weeks. I abandon the project.

Year Two

I start earlier. My recipe requires a Springerle rolling pin engraved with pictures. I can’t find one anywhere. I find a new recipe that only calls for spooning the dough onto a cookie sheet.

Beating eggs and sugar for twenty minutes as instructed, I wonder if Mrs. Schlobaum had an electric mixer. I imagine a sturdy woman in a dirndl with a braid circling her head and Popeye muscles from beating Springerle dough. At nineteen minutes my mixer grinds to a halt. Overheated. Kaput.

What now, Mrs. Schlobaum? I still have to mix in the other ingredients. She tells me to do it the old fashioned way. I wonder if I need to wear a dirndl for that.

Baking Springerles is a two-day project. After letting the unbaked cookies dry at room temperature overnight, I bake them and store them in Tupperware until Christmas Eve.

“They’re really good,” Gary says.

“Like Mrs. Schlobaum’s?” I ask.

“Yes, except hers were rectangular and had pictures on them.”

Hmmmm.

Year Three

To help me channel Mrs. Schlobaum, I ask Gary to tell me more about her. Here’s what he remembers: She had white hair and a thin face. She wore flowered housedresses and aprons. She had a real elephant foot ashtray. Her grandson mowed her lawn until he cut off his finger in the mower. This is not helpful. I prefer my Mrs. Schlobaum.

I am determined to roll out the dough and put pictures on top. I still don’t have a Springerle rolling pin, but I have a cookie mold with Christmasy designs, a nonstick baking mat and nonstick rolling pin. I feel hopeful.

I prepare the dough and chill it several hours. I flour everything in sight to prevent sticking, but the gloppy stuff sticks to every nonstick surface anyway. I start over several times until finally the dough is rolled out. I push the cookie mold into the dough and lift it off.

Happy little snowmen and Santas smile up at me. Mrs. Schlobaum and I smile back. I start to cut them into rectangles, but I can’t cut around one without cutting into another or smushing them all up. I try to pick them up, but blobs of Santa and snowman bodies stick to the mat, leaving holes in their once plump middles.

“No! No!” they scream.

I realize I am the one screaming when Gary rushes into the kitchen. Springerle dough hangs from my fingers, my cheek, my hair.

“I will never make these damned cookies again,” I growl.

Gary nods solemnly and wisely backs away.

I end up making plain old rectangles - no pictures. I don’t care anymore. I’m done with Springerle.

But Mrs. Schlobaum won’t leave me alone. I am, after all, descended from a long line of stubborn Germans who hate to admit defeat. I Google Springerle rolling pins and contemplate ordering one.

Copyright 2009 by Liz Zuercher

Holy Deception

When I entered the dimly lit hospital room, my mother was sleeping peacefully. Always a petite woman, she seemed even smaller, dwarfed by the hospital bed, almost like a child’s doll.

I planned to sit with her for the night so if she awakened, she’d know I was there. But it had been a stressful flight from California, so I went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. Threading the maze of hospital corridors, it took a while to find the cafeteria and even longer to find my way back to mother’s room.

I was surprised as I entered mom’s room to see a nun sitting beside her because we aren’t Catholic. But, it was a Catholic hospital run by the Sisters of Charity, so perhaps not unusual. The nun rose, we whispered introductions, and I thanked her for visiting. Then she said, “Would you like to pray together for her?”

Now I am not a particularly religious person. Raised a Methodist, I had long ago switched my affiliation to the Church of Sporadic Spirituality whose major article of faith is: “Who knows, but hedge your bets and be kind.” We have only One Commandment: Thou shalt not sin— excessively. We’re theologically very flexible.

But this sweet nun had asked me to pray with her and I wasn’t going to decline, so I took mother’s hand and we prayed silently.

When I opened my eyes, I looked at mom’s pale face cushioned on the pillow. I hadn’t noticed before how much she’d changed in the nine months since I’d seen her. She was not just small, but frail now, even shrunken. She just didn’t look like herself. In fact, she wasn’t herself. This was not my mother. In my exhaustion, I had entered the wrong darkened room. I was holding the hand of a perfect stranger.

As this dawned on me, a priest entered the room. I sat paralyzed with embarrassment. There were whispered greetings, but I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move. I resisted an urge to laugh, while at the same time I felt mysteriously bound to this stranger. After all, Sister and I had prayed over her and I had done so with sincerity, pagan that I was.

I startled when I felt drops of water, but it was just Father sprinkling us with Holy Water. Holy Water? Holy Cow, I realized, it’s Last Rites. I choked back a snort of laughter and bowed my head to hide my face. I had no choice. I could not abandon this stranger now. More importantly, I didn’t want to.

I hoped they would forgive my deception. Did it matter that Sister and I had prayed for different reasons, she to her God and me to whomever? Wasn’t it more important FOR whom I was praying rather than TO whom? I folded the stranger’s hand in mine tenderly. At times like this, we can all use a little help from our friends, whoever and wherever they are. Besides, surely the Pope wouldn’t begrudge a little holy water sprinkled on a fallen Methodist. I was sure I needed it more than the poor soul’s whose hand I held.


Susan Matthewson
Copyright 2009