Beatlemania and recyclemania

What a pleasure it’s been during the past three weeks to be able to plug my laptop into my home receiver and, for the first time in yearzzzzz, be able to hear my preferred news source, National Public Radio, fully and distinctly. If you’ve followed this blog, you know that nothing comes easily at altitude, and that includes radio waves which must bounce around granite monoliths and do back flips off the ionosphere in order to be “received” on “devices” such as television antennas. That’s how I used to “get” my radio reception back in the day, and even that was a tricky proposition at best.


Much to my absolute pleasure, and out of fear and necessity, I finally had the massive TV antenna that was installed on top of my roof removed several months ago. The winter of ’08 was a watershed (wait for it…explanation coming). We had winds raging at hurricane force speeds, and my TV antenna rocked and rolled on top of the house with enough force to scare the bejesus out of anyone. I really expected to see Dorothy and Toto standing in my front yard. Much as single drops of water carved out the Grand Canyon, the tripod into which the antenna was mounted actually carved a hole in my roof. That meant that during the ’09 spring meltdown and subsequent rainfall, H2O seeped into the structure of my house and found the path of least resistance down my livingroom wall. Water damage happens quickly, and it isn’t pretty. But roof and wall were eventually repaired, and I was able to move on.


But, as I’ve said in previous posts, I digress. My stream of consciousness isn't frozen yet despite our frigid dip in temps.


This AM, NPR carried a story about school children in England who are bucking up and taking their responsibilities as environmental stewards in a most serious fashion. They may not solve the dilemma of global warming, but they are dragging their folks – who are kicking and screaming, if Brits actually allow themselves the outlet of such self expression – into the drama by demanding reduction in personal carbon footprints. Remember this is the country that brought us Beatlemania.

The kids are coming up with some pretty innovative ideas for taking on environmental issues. Government, it seems, doesn’t have these students’ imaginations and vision. In reality, most governments could care less.


Well, an observation in the story was pretty on point. These young kids see things like recycling and energy consciousness as a part of their daily life. Us old farts, even those of us whose environmental consciousness dates back to the 60s, still make mental reminders like: “These [cans, glass containers, newspapers, pick your poison] are for recycling.”


We have the desire, and some of us have set up the personal infrastructure to be part of the solution. As I mentioned earlier, nothing comes easily on my side of the mountain and that includes recycling. It isn’t difficult because one engages in the “act” of recycling. Rather, it’s because the “process” of recycling is akin to climbing Mt. Everest.


Pashaw, you say! No joke, I respond. And here’s why:


Over the years, recycling centers in my mountain haven have come and gone. Even with nonprofits and the dogged determination of committed volunteers, you must understand there are those who take advantage of the system. These are the dolts who’ve decided it is their God-given right to recycle things like their flea infested mattresses or their household garbage. It’s not a matter of “times are tough.” It’s a matter of how high these people rate on the idiot meter.


The rest of us, of course, are washing out our containers and sorting them into the appropriate bins for future disposal. And yes, I do take my own bags to the grocery store when I shop…


Very recently, another attempt to recycle up here was shut down owing to this very phenomenon. As the saying goes, one bad apple spoils everything for the recycle bunch. I was pretty pissed, given that this particular place was 12 miles from my house, and I was already combining my recycling activities with other things such as grocery shopping. There was another much larger facility 25 miles from my house, down in the flatland, which just closed for the very same reason. Prior to the closure, I had willingly paced my recycling – meaning I “carpooled” all my chores and hit that recycling center once maybe every one or two weeks.


So, as the Brits would also say, I’m in one sticky wicket.


I try pretty hard to give my fellow species the benefit of the doubt. If only there was a place to recycle idiots and jugheads…

I've become a pod person

If you are old enough, or inclined enough, to remember “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” you will find humor in the title. For those of you who were born too late (alas!) or with insufficient interest in somewhat ancient things (big alas, since we are talking about the movie era), I offer my regrets.

The various incarnations of the movie deal with extraterrestrial entities which, upon finding their alien home world uninhabitable, defy gravity and drift out into the universe seeking fertile and hospitable ground upon which to reinvent themselves. They do so by taking on the form of the dominant species of the planets they encounter, Earth being only one of many. Hence comes the phrase “pod people.”

Now I know that I am woman, born of woman, so I have no delusions about extra worldly travels. But during the past two weeks -- with the story's first flicker igniting earlier this summer – my life has been, once again, utterly transformed by technology. You see, I’ve decided to completely digitize my music library. Even though I am a Windows computer consumer (at least for the time being, primarily owing to cost differential), I have to stay that Windows Media Player absolutely sucks, especially when compared to the slick – if not entirely sexy and kinky – iTunes. And thanks to a neighbor who is selling items she acquired from a distressed store sale, I am now the happy owner of my first iPod Nano.

Holy guacamole, batman! I have died and gone to the big concert in the universe.

For quite some time now, I’ve wanted to scale down the size of my CD library, which is growing like topsy…or maybe like Beowulf’s Grendel. I still remember the first CD I ever acquired, Pat Metheny’s “Letter From Home.” It was absolutely astounding to listen to something that didn’t skip, hiss, and pop like the records of yore. I remember the solid force of gravity pulling me to the floor, weighting me down with the perfection of the sound oozing from my stereo speakers.

My predilection to collect music is nothing new. When I was old enough to start babysitting, I started acquiring albums fast and furiously. And let me tell you here and now: records were the one thing I didn’t share with anyone. I guarded my deliciously delicate LPs like the family jewels. I had a brother who whined regularly to my mom that I wouldn’t share my records with him. Boo-hoo. After all, I’d shell out my hard-earned dough to buy the LP. Years later, I'd play a newly purchased record once, copying it to cassette tape, and then put the record away forever, much as the British of old used to send their daughters to convents for safe keeping. One does not put such treasures in the hands of the uninitiated.

By the time the Age of Vinyl saw its demise, I had amassed quite a collection. In perhaps one of the most incredibly stupid moves of my life, I sold the entire contents to a friend in the 80s for a mere $60. Check out your local music store and you’ll find out why I say this was an incredibly short-sighted business transaction.

As for the CDs, one book-style shelf became two, then three, then four. And I am still counting. What I began to realize is that I would need to find an alternate reality if I intended to continue building that library and still have room for other things...say household furniture.

I’d been toying with the idea of getting an iPod, but had pooh-poohed the idea for quite a while. Since I live in the middle of nowhere, I am jacked up on things that keep the tunes rolling. I have a 100-disc changer in the house, and my truck is equipped with a 6-CD changer. When I’m driving, I go through 6 CDs like Gen Xers (or is it Y or Z now?) go through junk food.

I initially bought the iPod with the idea that soft, gentle music would help me fall sleep at night. When I was a kid, dad used to play a Spanish guitar record to lull us into submission. I have one of those songs on a CD by Dave Grusin, and even today hearing it makes me feel dozy. One of the nightmares of getting older is that the quality of sleep is affected. And having a hectic life, where stream of conscious doesn’t give a flying flip about where it flows – or when for that matter – I had been a textbook case of sleep deprivation.

Once I started to ramble around with iTunes, however, I realized that I had stumbled upon something as rich and mind-blowing as the discovery of the New World. I actually purchased a second computer solely for the purpose of making it my digital jukebox. Kinda funny, considering I will be able to back up that jukebox in its present incarnation onto something that’s the size of a note card.

And they say you can’t take it with you…

Life in the local squawk and squabble

You know, living in Small Town America is about as interesting a galactic puzzle as one can find. I have spent most of my adult life in a county twice as large as the state of Rhode Island, but with about 15,000 residents. When I first moved to this little perplexing piece of the planet, we were under 10,000 warm bodies. Growth is a bitch!

But I digress…

Those of you who have spent the majority of your lives safely ensconced in the anonymity of The Big City – and you know who you are! – really don’t know what a three-ring circus you’re missing. I, on the other hand, do. We have all the ringmasters and Bozos that can be mustered per square centimeter.

My favorite thing to tell people is that I live in the Greater XXX Metropolitan Area. Now that’s a hoot, because – for openers – we aren’t an incorporated city. We are basically “everything east of the pass.” And the area we’re talking about isn’t exactly small.

And, although people move up here because they want to “get away” from the city, they have a tendency to bring their city attitudes along with them. To wit: “I don’t want anyone to know anything about me. But man, oh man: I want to know everything about my neighbors.”

It is the height of paradox, to say the least. Maybe people are so nosy up here because of the lack of oxygen. Inquiring minds and all that stuff…

Oddly enough, I have always found getting to know your neighbors – and through more than an occasional glance – to be a requirement of life at high altitude. After all, you never know when a hungry black bear is going to rip your front door off its hinges in search of a pre-hibernation feast. Really…

But perhaps the most endearing, if not completely annoying, aspect of interpersonal relationships is the ability of 10 people gathered in a single room to not be able to agree on a single thing. I.E: “The sky is blue.” “No, it’s aqua.” “Huh? It’s cerulean.” “Get glasses, dude. It’s turquoise.” “You’re all wrong. It’s overcast and gray and about to rain.” “Pinhead, those are snow clouds, not rain clouds.”

If you’ve ever read the book or seen the movie, “The Milagro Beanfield War,” you know what I’m talking about.

This is the phenomenon I call “Life in the Local Squawk and Squabble.”

Focus, or the lack thereof, is another critical tell-tale sign. You know you’re there when a group starts to talk/debate Topic A, only to get deflected to Topic Z with little discussion in between. By the time the conversation is done, no one knows what the original discussion/decision-making was actually about. Predictably, no one is taking notes.

Participants, who generally know each other or will by the time the session is over, get all balled up in adjectives and adverbs. They don’t have much appreciation for nouns, the subject and meat of the coconut.

And somehow verbs, the seat of our state of being, get overlooked. Here’s the biggie: Whatever action needs to be taken, it needs to be taken by someone else. As in: “You know, it pisses me off that X-Y-Z is happening. It needs to be fixed, and fixed right now. It affects everyone in huge ways, and all this has got to stop and stop now. But, oh so sadly, I don’t have time to help.”

I really love that one. When you join a civic group up here, for example, you find few doers but many followers. And when the doers tell the followers they’re done doing, the followers criticize the doers for not doing what needs to be done. It’s enough to give you a migraine.

Community blogs are fantastic here. They are full of rogues and renegades and a few critical thinkers. This is where “squawk and squabble” truly thrives.

And “they” say theater of the absurd is dead. I dunno. I have a pretty big punch card, and this is definitely worth the price of admission…

French fried, tie dyed, and spaghettified

I’ve had a fascination with words since my childhood. One of my earliest memories is of my dad and the grocery story. The chillens weren’t allowed to go into the store with my mom, who ostensibly went in for a loaf of bread and a few other things (it was always amazing how many loaves of bread mom could buy in a single shot!). So my professorial father needed to find a way to keep us amused.


He actually devised an interesting technique. He would think of a word, scramble the letters, give them to us in no apparent order, and we’d have to figure out what the word was…all in our cranial cavities. Pretty clever, que no?


I was seven at the time, and it was just great fun to figure this stuff out. You have to understand my dad didn’t make it easy. One of the longest words he ever served up was “encyclopedia.” There was enough of an age gap between me and my sibs that, of course, I got the hardest word. But I successfully rearranged the furniture. The memory of those days is still enough to infuriate my youngest brother, who wasn’t able to utter “encyclopedia” during the day, let alone solve the puzzle.


But dad stimulated an interest for me that most people don’t really have. There is something to beautiful and mellifluous about vowels and consonants drunkenly strung together. OK, so you’ve never held of mellifluous? Well, think about what it sounds like. And if you guessed that it sounds like something that flows well, say like honey out of a pot, you guessed right. I’ll grant you it’s a tough word to spell, even when you know how…


Sci Fi aficionado that I am, I just love words that astrophysicists are introducing to our everyday vocabularies. This is, of course, because they have a universe of abstract thought to convey. Take, for example, the word “spaghettified.” You may have never heard of pasta being used in this context, but you know inherently what the word means. As in: to be stretched to the utter limit. Here’s where the word comes from. Astrophysicists have mathematically proven the existence of black holes at the center of galaxies. Even our own Milky Way – a name that sounds so mundane and ordinary, if not downright saccharine and confectionary – has an invisible monster lurking at its core.


So, you ask, what in the blue blazes does this have to do with anything? Well, here comes the Reader’s Digest explanation. If one were so inclined as to venture to the event horizon – the point of no return – of a black hole, gravity in the extreme would stretch every molecule of your corporeal being to such a point that you would become spaghettified. It’s the ultimate galactic disappearing act. Somehow, the image of being turned into cosmic taffy is quite, well, intriguing….


Another noted physicist refers to the process as being “marmalized.” You get the point.


I heard one last night on TV that absolutely caught my imagination, resulting in more than one belly laugh. Here it comes. “Felony stupid.” Wow, that’s about as descriptive an intuitive obviosity as can be uttered or read! People can be variously described as dumb, dumb as a rock; thick, thick as a brick. But being tagged felony stupid is the ultimate insult. What made it even funnier is the fact that I can think of some people here in my sleepy mountain hamlet who deserve the moniker.


Another action verb from a bygone day comes from Justin Wilson, AKA The Cajun Chef. Now this guy knew how to mix up some spicy verbal gumbo! He was one of the first culinary celebrities to bring his kitchen into ours, and he did so with gusto and zest (lemon or orange, take your pick). Here is the word he invented that stuck with me: “spatulate.” As in to mix. There was just something so endearing about his N’Orlins accent as the word issued forth. He said it the same way lovers whisper into each others’ ears. He dwelled on each syllable until the word slithered out of the verbal frying pan into the linguistic fire. Even today, it’s a word I share with others.


So folks, if it’s snowing outside, as it has been here at altitude, don’t just say it’s snowing. Figure out whether it’s corn snow or bropples. Then grab a cup of coffee and a brownie…

Busting Balloon Boy's Bubble

Well, it’s been a week since people with a pulse got glued to their flat panels as a silvery helium balloon drifted over Colorado airspace. I had just returned from running errands and turned on the TV to catch the news. And there it was.

Living in the Rockies, I’m not that far away from Larimer and Adams counties, at least as the unfoiled crow flies. And it took me a few minutes to get caught up mentally as the Denver news crew laid out the details. I had no idea, when I pushed the remote, that we were talking about the potential of a child being inside this spacey craft which caused a temporary shutdown at Denver International Airport.

I was talking with a friend of mine on the phone as details started to emerge. She’s a mom, and I am not. We talked about the safety of this little boy, Falcon, who apparently needed to get his wings clipped. When the touchdown was accomplished in an eastern Colorado farm field, it took seconds to realize Falcon had indeed never flown in the tinseled coop. The transition from relief, worry and eventual disgust began to roll quickly like a tsunami.

Relief in the sense that he was not aboard. Worry that he had fallen out and had been splat upon the earth without so much as a whimper. Disgust as the evidence began to quickly mount that this was a media hoax.

Richard Heene, Falcon’s flight instructor and perpetrator extraordinaire, may be getting worldwide media attention – something he apparently can’t live without. But as the Cajun Chef used to say, I gerontee he’s experiencing some radioactive fallout, as well he should. Coloradans, myself included, stopped accepting his moniker as a “mad scientist” almost instantaneously, and just look at him as mad and dangerous.

I worked in politics back in the post-Watergate era, never forgetting the antics of Tricky Dick and his cohorts. I also remember that the conspirators thought little of doing the time for their crimes and then going out on the book circuit to promote themselves after release from prison. They laughed all the way to the bank.

I guess if you’re willing to lose a few years of your life, you can reap the financial benefits. Doesn’t make an iota of sense to me, but is an image clear as day for someone like Richard Heene whose mental balloon floated away long ago.

It’s maddening to think our state’s emergency service personnel and the feds scrambled to find a boy presumably aloft in a flying saucer. What Heene did was to violate the public trust…because he was trying to negotiate a reality show. Huh???? This is not something sane people do. Perhaps some justice has already been served because the media outlet – which is presumably ABC – apparently has dropped him like a hot potato.

I seriously doubt the needs of social justice will be served as court proceedings get underway. He's expected to be charged next week with some felonies and one misdemeanor. Let's face it: the man is a flight risk. Questions have already been raised about the crowded condition of Colorado’s state prison system and the family’s lack of financial resources. Be that as it may, I hope the system throws more than the book at this man.

Somehow, I doubt he’s going to be a hot commodity when he’s done wearing orange. That is, unless he can “invent” a prison break.

Sounds like Richard Heene ran his household like a cult, placing himself and his overblown ego on the throne. I do feel sorry for the family's neighbors, who went on national TV to say how nice and normal the family was. Must be pretty hard for them to watch that footage now.

I do fault his wife, Mayumi, for not having the guts to look out for her children’s best interests. By what standard on this planet is this incident understood as normal behavior? There had already been one incident of suspected domestic violence earlier this year. Children need and love their parents. Although the kids sound like they’re bright, if not highly precocious, they’re still kids. They got sucked into a vortex they probably won’t escape for the rest of their lives. I can’t imagine how they are going to process this whole thing when they become adults.

Maybe this incident will make Richard Heene popular at UFO conventions. But I suspect the family’s welcome here in Colorado has been worn out. If the mom isn't charged as a conspirator, I expect she and the kids will leave the state. But with all the splashy media coverage, they'll be hauling significant baggage.

As someone observed, it’s going to be pretty hard for Falcon Henne when he starts dating. After all, who wants to go to the prom with Balloon Boy?

I remember

A week ago, death lifted its bony finger and placed it squarely on my mother’s forehead. After I got the news, sketchy as the details were, I did what I do best: I found a project that would require enough mental concentration that I wouldn’t have to play the inevitable video in my mind. When someone dies, we remember the good and are prone to overlook everything else. My thoughts, to be honest, were running as randomly as a Vegas card shuffler. But that’s what love is. If we are honest with ourselves, we can comingle the good with the not-so-good and still feel we have something rarified in the end.

My mother had always been my best friend, and I had nothing but admiration for her. She was Russian and survived the ravages of a world war and internment in a concentration camp in Germany. Once she dreamed of becoming a pediatrician, but dreams and nations were shattered by the time World War II ended. A tenuous relationship with my dad was born in broken German, and she eventually made her way to the United States as a displaced person and war bride.

The war had ripped her from her own family. Years later, she would find out that many of her sisters and brothers had been killed in one of Mosow’s most serious rail accidents. She would eventually be reunited via telephone and letter with her youngest sister, whom she had helped raise. Ludmila was the spitting image of my mother when she was younger.

Mom was always such a combination of old world and brave new world. She had a real knack for reinventing herself, and sometimes I wish I had a magical spoonful of her talent. As a teenager, she used to pester me about wearing lipstick, as in “Why aren’t you wearing any?” Lipstick was the tool of trade and status symbol for post-war femme fatales, signifying something I could never quite grasp. Personally, I gravitated toward lip gloss, something mom felt was a waste of time.

Then there was the emerging American pastime: shopping. It was actually the excuse she used to work her way toward forbidden fruit. And that was going to McDonald’s – which hadn’t even sold a million burgers at that time – and buying an order of French fries. Mom was a frenchfryaholic and didn’t care who knew it. It was her first distinctly American vice.

I also recall her first motherly advice to me: “A woman of mystery never reveals her secrets.”

If you know anyone who’s Russian, you know that story telling and a proclivity for drama are in their DNA. With a country as large as the former Soviet Union, you can’t help but getting swept up on the tumultuous landscape. After all, this is the geography that brought you Doctor Zhivago and Sputnik. Mom was raised on a collective farm, and I recall her telling me about the day she brought home a wolf cub which she thought had been abandoned. My grandmother, who by my mom’s accounts was a tall stern woman who didn’t mess around, gave mom one of her first lessons in wildlife management and probably a good thump on the head. It is common practice for wild moms to leave their young at a little distance as a way to teach them how to survive.

Mom told me the story of this daring animal rescue and eventual return with a straight face. She used to play poker with the boys, and had one of the best poker faces around. Upon seeing me squint my eyes or roll in disbelief at this or some other story, her response was always the same: “No, it’s true,” she would insist. What I could never really figure out, however, was whether the wolf was really at the door, or whether the moral of the story (mama wolf has eyes in the back of her head and knows where you live and every move you make) was really the aim of the tale.

Mom could charm the pants off everyone she met. Part of it was, undoubtedly, her melodious Russian accent. Hearing her speak was like listening to rain and smelling the ozone, and it had a way of lulling you into submission. Despite the fact that English was her second language, she commanded word and phrase as a sovereign commands its subjects: from on high and with great purpose. Sometimes she spoke each word with its full intention, rolling out the syllables like notes in a song and pausing between the words to reinforce everything that stayed unspoken. She knew what she was doing.

One of the few words she could never master was “magpie.” We have loads of the birds here in my mountain perch, with magpies and ravens taking charge of the avian landscape. The first time my mother ever saw a magpie was in my yard, she innocently asked what the hell that bird was. I told she, and she began to vocalize the word. But her face began to contort. Turning her head sideways didn’t help string the consonants and vowels together. The word that came out was something of a gurgle based upon a groan with a dash of giggle thrown in for good measure. As a kid, I recall my dad lovingly torturing her with the word “vivisection,” another tang-tungler. Roughly translated from European roots, the letter “v” is vocalized as a “w,” giving us all a good laugh. But like any good promoter, however, mom knew how to use that linguistic slip to her advantage. I secretly suspected she could pronounce the word just fine.

She’s the only person I know who turned eating limburger into an event. She would announce her intention to ritually consume the odiferous cheese a half a day ahead of time to give the rest of us time to scurry out of Dodge.

Our return revenge was root beer floats. She hated root beer.

I'm a lean, green demo queen

I have been necessarily absent for a while. Not necessarily out of choice, but certainly out of necessity. This is the time of year when things spin temporarily out of control with work. That doesn’t mean I get all whacked out and depressed. It means there is so much crammed into one small space that things get all knotted up if you buy physicists’ string theory.

Albert Einstein didn’t. And that’s OK, because people can respectfully disagree with each other.

But I digress. Today is Sunday, and I have two more feature stories to write and then…the next four or so weeks are going to seem like a vacation. The past two months have been a constant stringing of word attaching to another, forming coherent – perhaps sometimes incoherent – phrases, sentences, paragraphs (which journalists call “graphs”) and ultimately a thing resembling a story.

This time of year makes me recall my dad. He was a college professor, and once the academic year ended, there would be no manna falling from heaven until the new year picked up in the fall. Translation: you had to get from Point A to Point B virtually without a financial net. It was some juggling act my parents did. But, given my personal circumstances and the nature of the material I cover for my newspaper, I know where they were coming from.

So once I finish my two stories today, I am a free woman. That means I will have time for myself to do things like grocery shop, redeem a few gift certificates, and veg out if I so desire.

In anticipation of this hallowed time of year (no October pun intended, folks!), I decided to tackle a new project. The front deck of my house, which was built in 1979, is history as of yesterday afternoon. Periodically, I will boldly go where I have never gone in the home improvement universe, strap on my technology communicator, and see what makes something tick. The deck was in pretty sad shape, and for good reason. Our physical environment here in the Wilds is harsh in the winter, and anything constructed in a half-ass manner gives up its telltale signs without much of an argument. My deck…for instance.

The item of choice during that construction era was nails, and I do mean scads of nails. So amidst all the warping wood – and I do mean warped as in a 2x6x10 that looks like the prow of a ship – nails are starting to push up in toothpick fashion. Not the kind of place you want to place your tootsies if they are delicate! So I figured my fall project, and I use the word “fall” loosely here, is to get that deck torn down and replaced.

Not necessarily the smallest feat, but for reasons you wouldn’t suspect. It’s September, but we already have our first alert for possible snow and cold weather. Permafrost is about to set in here in the high country. One trades power tools for coffee cups and the crackle of a warm fire at that stage.

But I am undeterred. I have spent considerable time watching the DIY network and reading a book on deck construction, so I feel like an informed semi-pro. When I first started the project, my intent was simply to replace the decking boards and be done. Simple enough you say? Well, not necessarily so. With Box Terrier and hammer in hand, it takes me all afternoon to pull those dagome nails, each of which is a dandy 4 inches long, out to remove the boards. Screws make so much more sense in this climate. Like they say, estimate the time you think a project will take and then double it…

OK, the boards are removed, and now I am looking at the deck’s superstructure – and I am using the word “superstructure” loosely. Here’s what I discover upon closer inspection. Firstly, the deck isn’t square. The front is level, but the side isn’t. Now here’s a good one: rather than sinking actual pots into cement in the ground, the original constructors took tree stumps and shaved two sides straight and sunk the posts – and you guessed it, I use the word “posts” loosely – into the ground. If you know anything about chickens, they can scratch the ground deeper than those posts were sunk. In fact, I put my foot on one and gave it a slight tap, and it fell over in slo-mo.

Back in those days, we didn’t have much by way of construction codes. Electrical, yes; everything else, nada. So I am seeing how feebly constructed the frame is, and I know what needs to be done. The basis of a deck is what’s called a ledger board. And interestingly the one on the side of my house skirts a power conduit which services my entire house and garage. But I am resolved that, having gone this far, I will do my level best to get that board off the house without electrocuting myself or cutting through my phone line.

Keep in mind I have never demoed a deck before. But with time, patience, and the right tools (many thanks to my neighbor, Mike, who introduced me to the joys of the reciprocating saw), I am now ready to dig out the new holes for the posts and actually get underway.

Demo Queen is exhausted but has slept pretty well the past couple of nights. The rest of this project will be a piece of cake. I just hope I'm not using that phrase loosely...

Sliding down the slippery slope...with a cherry on top

The other day, I decided it was time to dust off a cheesecake recipe I’ve treasured since I was 17. The recipe was one I got from the mother of my first boyfriend (Mrs. Boyer, I still thank you for this incredible concoction), and it was been well used and widely appreciated throughout the years. My dad was a cheesecake afficinado, and the recipe quickly gained a reputation as the foundation for a great let’s-get-together-and spoil-ourselves coffee klatch.

Perhaps one just marvels at the wonders of pastries and pies when one is still a teenager. But this is the recipe that helped me appreciate where my dad was coming from, and actually contributed to my buying spring form pans and getting into the gourmet cheesecake cooking mode as an adult. If you know anything about cheesecake, you know that they come in two broad categories: wet and dry. If you are a cheesecake snob, as I am, you opt for the dry varieties which actually make your mouth somewhat hurt with culinary delight. Here’s the analogy: it’s the same as the difference between milk and dark chocolate.

Well, the recipe from my formative years is of the other variety: a quick, wet-style cheesecake that one would describe as no-fuss, no-muss in the kitchen. A simple graham cracker crust contains the pie’s pith, which is a combination of cream cheese and whipped cream. And then, to give it color and texture, top the whole shebangie with cherry pie filling. This is also the kind of recipe that requires that the cheesecake sit a while in the frig, gathering up its powers to please.

Because I know from years and years and years of putting this dessert together that it’s a no-fail recipe, I go into the project all a-twitter. I made a quick run to my local grocery store to pick up the necessary ingredients, return to the casa and then began crush and mix and fold.

But here’s what I wasn’t prepared for. Excuse my language, but what in the hell is going on with our major food companies and the stuff they are turning out in the guise of food? Take the cream cheese (please, Groucho, take the cream cheese). OK, I did buy the lighter version of the cream cheese from the obviously well-established, but not to be named in this blog, company that purports to have the tastiest product. I know they did when I was a youngster. In fact, when getting to the part of the recipe where one creams the cream cheese, it was often a battle to get the process going, and creaming with the hand-held mixer took…well…more than a few rotations of the beaters. Not so with today’s miracle bland product. When I took it out of the package, I knew the packaging was the only thing giving the cream cheese form and perhaps substance. It was, nearly literally, jello in my hands. Quelle domage, as the French say! You could have knocked me over with a wooden spoon…

Likewise, I have to say that another company which has a long history of manufacturing graham crackers, but will also not be named in this blog, has apparently changed its secret graham cracker formula. The crackers looked as bland as yesterday’s news. I recall when I used to attack the crackers in those days of yore with the rolling pin, they would snap unwillingly to the touch. These crackers, alas, gave me a sad shrug and submitted. Unlike the cream cheese, these crackers weren’t the light version of anything. I took a taste, given how pasty looking they were, and noticed how unflavorful they were.

So the crust has been mixed together with real sugar and butter, and popped into the oven for the requisite baking time. What really worries me, since I’m waiting for the crust to cool, is that it won’t hold up once I spoon the cream cheese mixture on.

But there is a bright side. Or at least I’m hoping there is one. I still have to ladle the cherries over the top.

I’m finding it a little sad that all this monkeying has been done with products that really didn’t need to undergo a redux. Know what I mean? I get the part about cutting back on the things that we ate as children that are destined to play havoc with our biological systems now that we are much older. But my tastebuds are still intact, and they were expecting some excitement tonight.

Oh well. I guess if things don’t gel together, I can think of it as a cheesecake smoothie. Now there’s an oxymoron…

Geezers and gysers

It’s a little sobering when you come to the inescapable conclusion that in three weeks, you’ll be joining the Old Geezer’s Club…at least on some technical level. Technical, I say, because the convolutions of stellar cartography and the warp of the time-space continuum tell me it’s so. Not so technically, I say, because my brain says I’m still 17.

My tongue has something to add, too. It’s called a raspberry, directed mostly to my brain, saying what we know ain’t necessarily so.

But my left shoulder is just a twitchin’ from all this sitting in front of the computer and writing stories for the newspaper. Thankfully (whatever in the world that means), it’s an ache not a pain. As in a muscle ache that is taking up residence in my left elbow, and not a shooting pain which would mean my heart can’t take it anymore.

When one starts to contemplate one’s mortality, there is just a flurry of activity in the frontal cortex. Talk about chaos theory! For more than three years, I have struggled with the oppressive weight I’ve felt connected with my mother’s eventual diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. My mom and I were the closest of friends, and one day she just slipped away and became a stranger. In her case, it happened relatively quickly. It scares the everlovin’ crap out of me thinking something like this might happen to me. It’s not a lot of comfort telling myself I would be the last to know…

The other day, I got up on a 25-foot ladder to clean the windows on my house. It was the first time I’d dragged the ladder out and confronted my demons. You see, my dad died after falling off a ladder in that same three-year time frame. Every step upward was mentally tortured, but eventually the task was completed. I knew what my dad would have said to me about going up the ladder: “You just have to attack it.” He would have been right.

While getting older isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I have to say there are some ways in which it beats several of the alternatives. For example: I truly wouldn’t want to be a kid growing up in this world today. But I suspect every generation has made the same comment!

What I turn to for comfort is that it has taken relatively little to make me happy over the years. I’ve never worshipped at the altar of the almighty dollar, and I’ve never been materialistically oriented. I was drawn to the Rockies because of the peace and quietude. Because of its sheer power and state of being. And almost 30 years later, this fact continues to seep into my pores and tingle my nerve endings. It is a reason to get up in the morning.

Last night when I went to bed, I could feel fall in the air as the breeze meandered around in my bedroom. There is just something so incredible about the gentle movement on your face as you’re falling asleep. A natural lullaby and extremely hypnotic.

I love being able to work from my house. I did the commute for 16 years to The City before deciding to fly solo, and haven’t looked back. When the rest of the world is gearing up for the treadmill of life on the way to the daily grind, I get to put up with a noisy cat telling me her morning treat is overdue. My other kitty is plunked smack in the middle of the bed, giving me little choice but to get up and attend to business.

I have always loved the dark skies here, and each night is a real wonderment. Who knew the night sky could hold so much glassy, understated brilliance?

I delight in the fact that nature can still startle me. A week ago, I heard a rustling outside my bedroom at 3 a.m. I knew it was a black bear, but had to see what was agitating this particular Ursa so much, as there was some pretty persistent moaning and groaning coming from the peanut gallery. Turns out she had two cubs with her. If you don’t know anything about bears, this is the time they go into a megafrenzy looking for food before they estivate in October (bears don’t hibernate, folks, they estivate; so get out the dictionary). One of the cubs was attacking my aspen tree, as though the rough assault would cause food to fall from the branches.

I was so enthralled watching this. I am pressed up against the window shining a small flashlight outside to watch the show. When mamma bear popped up on her hinds and got in my face to see who was encroaching on her territory and/or threatening the young-uns, I involuntarily jumped five feet backward before realizing I’d even done it. The only thing that separated us was a sheer pane of glass. I love nature but ain't stupid! I smiled even as my heart was ready to thud its way out of my chest.

The fact that elk can rut in my backyard, and I can watch the spots on newborn fawns fade away as they grow up is nothing short of miraculous. Oh yeah, there is the coyote who has recently taken to taunting the wolves next door (yes, my neighbor has two wolves) with his night-time yipping.

Maybe this is the reason AARP didn’t catch up with me over a decade ago…