A Free Lunch

Yes, Dorothy, there IS such a thing.  At least today, if you are a black Lab named Tartan.  He is napping right now, contented and full.  I think he feels especially close to me, because it was my lunch that the Universe gave him so unexpectedly.  We share the same destiny, you know?  It's mind-blowing.  He thinks about these things.

Of course, Tartan knows that life doesn't just hand you luck on a silver platter (or in this case, a salad plate).  You have to make your own luck, you know?  Therefore, if Mom is on the porch watering flowers, and her lunch (which you watched her assemble, studying every carrot stick, every piece of cheese) is sitting neglected on her desk -- and if, once again, she has forgotten to feed you enough kibble today -- well, then, seize the day!  And while you're at it, the carrot sticks, the cheese, and the vegetable strata!

Tartan partook of my lunch with his usual quiet fastidiousness.  When I came back into my office, my plate was still where I had put it on my desk, the little bowl of blueberries on it untouched, my fork laid neatly to the side.  I thought at first, "Did I forget that I already ate my lunch?"  But then I saw that someone had knocked over my pencil sharpener, and it all began to add up.  Certainly Tartan's demeanor betrayed nothing -- nor evidently, did his conscience.

Why does Tartan counter-surf?  Is it an extension of the abundance he feels with us after spending the first two years of his life in a rigorous and ascetic guide-dog training program?  This is, after all, a dog who now has EIGHT beds:  the one on the floor of my office;

his fleece pad on the guest bed; his pretend bed (a monogrammed Orvis deluxe model) on our bedroom floor; the place he REALLY sleeps at night; 

his padded seat cover in the car;

  

our down sleeping bags in the camping tent; 

his pad near my husband's work bench; his memory foam mat on the floor of my recording studio; and his Bed of Choice: the living room couch.  (And why let that decorative pillow go to waste?)

Or was today's counter-surfing simply because my lunch was such a good food pairing with the dead bird he ate on his walk?

Of course it was none of these things.  Tartan ate my lunch for the same reason that Sir Hillary climbed Mt. Everest: because it was there.   And thus, in this eternal moment, life is good.

Let it be a lesson to all of us.

My Thanksgiving Adventure

It’s been a busy month for me work-wise, for which I am grateful. Holiday advertising is in full swing, which means voiceovers — for which I am also grateful. And I just finished narrating one book and am starting into another* — again, grateful!

But I was sure looking forward to a day off at Thanksgiving. We’d be convening at my sister’s house in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. It would be a complete change of scenery and pace, and I promised myself that I would not talk, not even THINK, about work for the whole darned day.

And that’s what happened. For awhile. A wonderful dinner, the pleasure of beloved family around me, the smell of the woodstove, the sound of rain misting down outside. A special treat this year was one of the guests, Wagner Soares, a professional bassist and music student from Brazil. He was part of a recent CD project for which my sister wrote some lyrics, and he is a gem of a human being: sensitive, talented, intelligent.

Before pie, we all suited up in rain gear and headed out on our traditional Thanksgiving Day hike. A mile or so into the forest, most of the group turned around, but I wasn’t done hiking — I’d been waiting for this for weeks! — so Wagner and I continued on alone. We chatted a little about general things, then about our respective work, and then Wagner asked: ”So what mics do you have?”

And it was all over.

We talked and talked: about mics and mixers, about Pro Tools and Logic and Apogee and frequency response and the pencil tool and getting your groove back when you have to stop for punch-ins. We discovered that we both have a tendency to enjoy the solitude of our work too much, so we’re both strict about getting out for daily walks. I told Wagner I’d once had to struggle through some Portuguese names in an audiobook, and he taught me basic pronunciation. Wagner tried to describe how he misses and doesn’t miss Brazil, and I taught him the English proverb “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Suddenly we looked around: it was almost dusk, and we were at the intersection of two logging roads I’d never seen before, with miles of forest around us.

“Should we take the right-hand fork?” Wagner asked. ”It looks like it might eventually loop back to the road.”

This, of course, would have been extremely unwise. You don’t want to follow an unknown route in the coast mountains, out of cell phone range, at dusk, in the rain. It wouldn’t have been a dire situation, but it could have gotten miserable pretty fast. We were also dressed in deer colors, and I didn’t have my trusty cougar alarm.

And yet, I considered it. I mean, we were just starting on the topic of Blue mics for the iPad!

But I dragged my attention back to our surroundings and told Wagner we needed to retrace our route. After all, I said, we’d still have the several miles back to tie up all our conversational threads. By the time we made it back to the house, we were wet, hungry, blessedly talked-out, and thoroughly enjoying our new friendship.

So yes, I did talk about work on my day off. A whole lot.

And for that, I am grateful.

In Which We Travel South, See Covered Wagons, and Discuss Pies

DH and I recently spent a couple of lovely days in Ashland. I try to get down several times a year, one trip per season (except winter, when I'd prefer not to play roulette with the Siskiyou Pass), and I'm always grateful that I live close enough to do this. For 60 whole hours, I was able to set aside the burden of grief over my father's recent passing and enjoy myself with theater and good people.

The Drive: was great all by itself. My husband is a gear-head and I'm an audiobook narrator. This means that on road trips (well, at other times, too), it's a match made in heaven. He drives, I read. On this drive, we started Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. Our last two books were Alfred Lansing's riveting (if you will) Endurance and Doug Stanton's riveting (as it were) In Harm's Way, which we knew would be tough acts to follow. But we shouldn't have doubted Hillenbrand, and this story (subtitle, A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, so there's your synopsis) is, well, riveting.

We also discovered a roadside gem that I can't believe we've missed for the 15 years it's been around: The Applegate Trail Interpretive Center. Exit 71 was always just the Sunny Valley General Store Pit Stop. Now we know it as also the home of a wonderful little museum of Oregon Trail history, complete with a collection of original covered wagons. But if you only visit it to experience the presentation of co-founder Dennis Gaustad, it will be worth it. I'll leave it at that.

The Plays: We saw August, Osage County and The Pirates of Penzance. Since I'm no longer an underpaid drama critic, I won't take the time to write scintillating yet incisive reviews. Instead, you get the nutshell. Osage: great play; unevenly acted; directed in such a way that it managed to miss most of dramatic beats, rises and falls. Penzance: so good it almost made me forget that this repertory company and the outdoor Elizabethan stage were made for Shakespeare, not Gilbert and Sullivan. We loved it.

The Meals: Delicious Asian fusion food at The Dragonfly Cafe with an old family friend, and coffee that was tasty but too weak at Noble Coffee with one of my favorite people from Bee Audio. At Pasta Piatti, we had dinner with two of the bestest producers a girl could ask for (thanks, Blackstone Audio!). If the conversation hadn't been so fun, I'd have been moaning over the eggplant parmigiana and crab cakes.

Pies: I'd brought a fall-harvest rhubarb pie to give to the aforementioned bestest-producer friends, which started the conversational topic of how to make pies, which led to the important point that it's the method, more than the recipe. So I'll end this post with my method. My approach is unconventional, but unless my friends and family are big fat liars, it makes delicious pies with flaky crusts!

Heather's Pie

1. Buy a pastry cloth board at Kitchen Krafts (formerly Maid of Scandinavia). I bought my first one from them 30 years ago, and they still make them.

2. Rub together 1-1/2 cups softened (that's right, softened) butter with 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon each salt and sugar until it's all about the texture of oatmeal. Gradually add cold water, maybe a tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until the whole thing will stay together if gently squeezed into a ball. It's tempting at this point to squish and squeeze it like it's modeling clay. You'll get to do that in Step 9 -- for now, don't overwork it.

3. Prepare 4+ cups of fruit. (We're just talking fruit here; don't mix in flour or sugar or anything.) Clean, pit, peel, slice or cut as needed.

4. Set your flour, sugar canisters out on your workspace. (Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and/or allspice, too, if they'd go well with whatever fruit you're using.)

5. Divide your gently-compressed pastry ball into two gently-compressed pastry balls. Spread a handful of flour around on the pastry cloth and roll out the first ball, lightly flouring and flipping the widening circle of crust frequently as you roll it. This keeps it from sticking and allows you to get it rolled out without too much pressure.

6. Lift the edge of the crust to fold it in half, then fold again to create a quarter-circle packet. Lay this in the bottom of the pie dish and unfold, centering it so it hangs over the rim of the dish.

7. Spread a handful or two of flour on the bottom of the crust, and then a handful or two of sugar. (Use more or less of each depending on how soupy your fruit gets and how tart it is. More flour and sugar for rhubarb; less for apples; etc. Trust your instincts!) Sprinkle with spices if desired.

8. Spread a third of the fruit over this. Then repeat layers of flour/sugar and fruit, ending with one last sprinkling of flour and sugar.

9. Roll out the top crust, fold it in quarters, and unfold it on top of the pie. Trim or cut-and-paste the crust so that it hangs fairly evenly over the edge of the bottom crust. Now here's where you get to play with clay: squeeze and press the edges together to make however decorative an edge you can manage. Make a few slashes in the top with a knife, and you're ready to bake it.

10. Place the pie on a baking tin to catch any drips, and bake it for 15 minutes at 400˚, then turn the oven down to 350˚ and continue baking another 30-45 minutes. This is one of my secrets to a flaky but not over-browned crust. The pie will be done when it's bubbling up through the crust. If the crust does start to brown before the interior is done, cover it with foil.

And now I'll leave you to eat your pie and contemplate nice fall getaways for yourselves. Until next post,

-Heather

Greetings From the Teeny Demographic

First of all: yes, I am still alive. I resurrected myself on this long-neglected blog because I found it mentioned on several "Blogs I Follow" lists, most notably Dog Eared Copy (I am not worthy). Time to earn my place on those lists.

So I updated a few things in the profile, added a few new blog-follows (run, don't walk, to Hyperbole and a Half . . . and then run over to Hanna Olsen's blog); and I will now try to think of a clever topic with which to re-establish my presence.

I know! I'll launch a new random feature: Essential Vocabulary. Today's list, with hints:

lmgtfy -- If you don't know this word, you could maybe Google it.*

Selon Moi -- You don't know what this means? So, then, why do you subscribe to my blog, again? (Kidding.) (But not really.) Selon moi, anyone who speaks English should know at least some French, as it's responsible for a third of our English vocabulary, and that ain't just on account of the Norman Conquest. (Latin's even better, but I know that's a pipe dream, even for me.) Hey, even if you don't know French, as an English speaker you automatically know at least 15,000 French words. But sadly, that group does not include selon moi, so you might need to resort to lmgtfy.

Descartes -- As in: Descartes walks into a bar. "What'll it be?" says the bartender.

"Hmmm, a gin and tonic, I think," says Descartes.

"You want peanuts with that?" the bartender says.

"Oh, I think not," says Descartes -- and then he disappears.

Grok -- If you grok "grok," then you are probably in a very special category of 7% of Facebook and Twitter users -- in other words, you are 55 or older. Despite all the press about our demographic's being the fastest-growing segment of FB and Twitter users, I found a recent set of pie charts that indicates we are perhaps a much more, um, exclusive club.

Troglodyte -- People who don't grok this word in English might know it by its French name, troglodyte. My friend and favorite voiceover partner Mark Lewis* definitely groks it -- enough to have coined an adjective out of it -- troglodytic -- which he used to describe himself by way of explaining in a Facebook message why he's not on Twitter. I, in turn, apologized for my troglodytic delay in replying to his message, since I log on to Facebook maybe once a month. I do glance at my professional FB page more often, but my personal FB site is kind of like one of those big parties back in high school that I usually avoided, preferring to (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) read Robert Heinlein.

---------

*Credits: Mark Lewis gave me not just troglodytic but also the Descartes joke. (Thanks, Mark. I just hyperlinked your name to your site to show my gratitude.) And my daughter Whitney (who inherited her snarky genes from me) introduced me rather snarkily to lmgtfy.com. My writing students are indirectly responsible for the facts about English and French vocabulary, since I couldn't help them prep for the vocab part of the SAT without first teaching them Greek and Latin roots, which conferred on me, selon moi, the moral obligation to give them a nutshell history of the English language.

And with that, I am

Yours Snarkily,

Heather

Movies, Take One

So here's what I've liked recently, and why. Remember: I love to argue / learn / hear about movies, so be sure to add your two cents'!

Frozen River: Bleak, grim, chilling (literally and figuratively), unforgettable. I wasn't necessarily in the mood for such an intense film, but it drew me in. The plot is basically about the intersection of desperate lives, and it gives you a vivid insight into a gritty corner of life on and off the St. Regis (Akwesasne) Mohawk Reservation that straddles the border of upstate New York and Quebec. Melissa Leo, one of the two female leads, is awesome; she definitely deserved her Oscar nomination for this role. Grand Jury prizewinner at Sundance.

The Spitfire Grill: I guess this is an oldie now -- 1996 -- but I hadn't seen it. It's kind of a grown-up Mystic Pizza (remember that one from 1988? A young Julia Roberts showing lots of promise; a young Annabeth Gish overacting like crazy; Conchata Ferrell as the crusty heart-of-gold pizzaria mama?) This film is a little more authentic and believable. Ellen Burstyn is the exact same crusty heart-of-gold restaurant mama, but with a little more finesse in her acting; and I really liked Alison Elliott's performance, even though it was uncertain and forced at times. Marcia Gay Harden is such a good actress and so it's too bad that she so often slips over the line into stagey high-school-Our-Town acting. Still, in The Spitfire Grill she has the best Maine accent of the cast.

Waiting . . . Okay, so the mood required for this one is: "I'm ready for a raunchy Ryan Reynolds flick. A really raunchy, really Ryan Reynolds flick." He pretty much dominates any film he's in (I don't care if all his characters are snide and ego-driven, so long as he takes his shirt off at least once per movie.) If you've ever worked in a restaurant, especially a big chain restaurant, I'm guessing you'll like this movie and agree that its depiction of the sleaze behind the scenes isn't much of an exaggeration. Okay, so I never put dandruff on a customer's salad when I was a cook at Farrell's, and I never slept with the manager when I was a waitress at Denny's, but, well, I followed the five-second rule a lot, and I worked with people just like the characters in this movie.

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio: Whitney and I loved this movie. First of all, you can't go wrong with Julianne Moore (hmm, except for Laws of Attraction). Secondly, you usually can't go wrong with Woody Harrelson, especially because he picks excellent scripts (speaking of which, I'll talk about Trannsiberian in a later post). So there's excellent acting in this film. But it's also just unique and surprising in lots of ways -- plot, script, production values, directing. The main story is interspersed with little surrealistic retro clips done like late '50s / early 60s TV ads, where Moore's character speaks directly to viewers about her "career" as a contest winner. It's based on a true story about a desperately poor Catholic mother of 10 whose husband is both a loving father and a rage-filled drunk. She manages to support her family with her prize winnings -- everything from cash to cars to appliances. It brought back vividly to me those days in the 60s when contests and promotional giveaways were everywhere: Queen for a Day, green stamps booklets, jingle contests. I even won one of those contests myself once! I submitted a name and a picture for a new Kool-Aid flavor: "Poop-Deck Punch," with a little sailor in a tipsy cap. Got a pair of walkie-talkies. Anyway, The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio is a more complex story with more nuanced characters than its retro theme might imply.

The Cider House Rules: Everyone I know has already seen this, but it was a catch-up for me, and what a wonderful surprise. Sometimes Michael Caine irritates me, but in this film he showed all his power as an actor; he clearly loved his character, inhabited it so fully that you love him, too. The film's already an American classic, so I won't bother summarizing it, but if you haven't seen it yet, put it on your list (along with anything else directed by Lasse Hallstrom that you've missed).

All for now. Next post: Angels and Demons, The Ex, In Bruge, Shrink.

Your Personal Movie Valet

But first, you have to listen while I whine. I'm two weeks out from Shoulder Surgery #2, and I continue to be amazed (actually, I use a different word) at how much I cannot do. You just need those darned arms for every darned thing, and every movement reveals a series of steps that you never noticed before because they never hurt before.

Filling a water glass, for instance, is painful four times: you you reach forward to the tap, twist or pull the tap to open it, lift the empty glass (easy) to the faucet and then lift the full glass (hard) up to your mouth. Going for a walk starts with the pulling-on of coat and hat (or if you live in Oregon and it's January, the pulling-on of coats, plural, and hat and gloves and hood and rain pants). Then there's the reaching down to get shoes and socks on, and reaching up to get the house key from the hook, then reaching forward and pressing to turn the key in the front door lock, and then reaching over to put the key in my pocket. Then there's the (ouch) swinging of arms while you walk. I've discovered that if one arm is in a sling, the other arm tends to swing even more to compensate, and so it's always a toss-up which post-op shoulder is going to hurt more. Sometimes I'll shift my sling from one arm to the other several times during a walk.

More often, these days, I just give up the walks altogether.

Are you bored with me yet? I am. However, Dear Readers, your patience will be rewarded. In the next several posts, I am going to share an annotated list of the films I've seen during my convalescence!

Aside from pointing the remote control and pushing buttons, watching DVDs is pretty easy on the arms. I can even ice my shoulder while I do it! (Pathetic, the things that excite me these days.) As a result, during the past few months I've been blowing through my Netflix queue, and I've acquired quite a viewing list. Over the course of the next several posts, I'll write a brief comment and opinion for each of the films I've seen. My goal is not a series of extensive reviews, but some quick commentaries to give you ideas when you can't think of what to rent. And if you take issue with me -- or agree -- or have recommendations of your own to add, please contribute comments!

Gotta go rest my keyboard-weary shoulders. Next post: Frozen River, Waiting, The Spitfire Grill and more!

Age

I spent five days in the hospital a few years ago when I had my surgery for . . . well, let's just say it was for feminine things, and let's just say it wasn't cosmetic.

Anyway, those five days were like a trip to my distant future, and the trip was sobering. One day (or evening, or afternoon -- you lose track of time when you're pressing that morphine button), I woke up from a nap and struggled to remember where I was. Robe . . . slippers . . . matted hair . . . . Oh, yeah: I was in the hospital, and I must have fallen asleep reading. My reading glasses were cockeyed; my magazine had fallen against my neck and was covered in drool.

I suddenly imagined how I'd be seen by people glancing into my room as they walked down the hall: Old. Nursing-home old. Worthless old. A Gome from the Home, as my husband and his fellow med students used to say. ("Gome" meaning "elderly," short for GOMER, or Get Out of My Emergency Room.)

Later that day (or the next, or that night), I was dutifully taking my I.V. pole for a walk down the hallway, shuffling, aching, cursing the nurses for making me do this; and ahead of me I saw a genuinely elderly lady pushing a walker. My first reaction, which shocked me, was envy -- man, I'd love one of those things.

I was able to stuff this chilling experience into the back of my memory drawer for a few years, stay in denial about the inevitability of my own aging.

And then my son turned 16.

There is nothing like a scathing stare from a smug teenager to make you feel like a Gome from the Home. You stare back for all you're worth, mentally straightening your dignity and buttoning up your pride. You attempt some imperious corrective lecture about his ". . . attitude, Mister." But even if he looks away first and grunts assent, the damage is done. It's all relative, man; and relatively, you're Old.

My consolation is that I am a baby boomer. Therefore, as I like to say, I am The Demographic. My age group gets the lion's share of advertiser's attention, reminding me how hip I still am (even with leakage protection!) My daughter's iTunes library includes some of MY music -- Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Cream; Pink Floyd; The Beatles. When my kids watched a TV documentary about Woodstock the other night, they were fascinated by the ethos of that time. I made the most of it, singing along with the songs, pathetically pretending that I was at the core of the movement instead what I really was at the time: a clueless 14-year-old in go-go boots.

Consolation, too, comes in reminiscence from the book I'm currently reading: Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller, a wonderful intermingled biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. What a vivid, evocative trip back to the 60s and 70s this book is, especially for someone of my gender and age (in other words, someone who can still sing every word to every song Joni Mitchell wrote).

That's what my 50s feel like so far -- a duality, a precarious poise between flower child and Gomer. And so when I watch my son pull the car out of the driveway, I don't feel like his middle-aged mom; I feel 16 again, heady with the freedom of a new driver's license, driving downtown on a summer evening with the windows open and "You're So Vain" blasting on the radio.