The Past Floats in the Old Laundry Brook

My kids and their friends have been trying to dam the brook out back. Nature helped last week with a crack of lightning that sent part of an old tree crashing across what the pouring rain would soon create a river of mud. Those logs came in handy.

The Strong Stuff

I think the reason behind the damming was to create a pool of water you could sit in, something more than 6" high. You could also catch some interesting things like an old pitchfork missing one tine and it's handle. Or, an empty bottle of Clorox. I can picture a woman from the 1930's washing clothes in the Laundry Brook, using America's favorite bleach. Tell me, can you picture a man?

Maybe you'll find a bottle in your ancestors' musty basement. If it has a stopper, it's worth a few bucks more. If you wanted to, you could purchase your own old brown bottle on ebay for $15. The bottle might have a story, but it won't tell you what it is. My bottle was used a long time ago in Laundry Brook, who knows where upstream.

Summer Reading

Benediction, a novel by Kent Haruf, is the kind of quiet unassuming novel that lulls you into an extended meditation on dying, living and making mistakes. It's a good book to read this summer because it doesn't demand you know Latin or literary references that span the centuries.

It's the simple story of a good man, "Dad," who has a month to live and will spend his last days in his house in a small Colorado town with his wife, Mary. and daughter, Lorraine. Haruf has a wonderful way of illuminating everyday moments and mining them for meaning. Everyone except Mary, Dad's wife, who seems a saint, has done something they regret. In the case of Dad, it's that he fired an employee for stealing, and the man moved away with his family and eventually hanged himself. Worse though, is that he never fully accepted that his son Jack is gay. This wedge between father and son is lifelong, although there is a resolution at the story's end.

Books I'm Reading But Aren't Suitable for Summer

Ada by Vladimir Nabokov--you have to be a genius to read this book
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby, Jr.--makes you want to kill yourself or someone
The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell--Man's capacity for murder chills you to the bone
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace--I've been reading this tome on and off since 2009. I wish they'd just make a movie of it already.

Screwed

Screwed  happens to be the title of a book I just read by Eoin Colfer. You don't think I'd use bad language, do you? Colfer wrote the young adult series, Artemis Fowl. My kids enjoyed his books and we still have them. Screwed is his second novel for adults.

Colfer writes in the Walter Mosley tradition of detectives whom it seems everyone wants to kill. The language is coarse; most of the characters are beastly; the literary allusions rich. Colfer's characters are mostly former IRA types--that's Irish Republican Army, including the good guy, Dan McEvoy, whereas Mosely writes about crime in the Los Angeles Black community.

I love my public library. They always have the latest books, including the ones I want to read. 

The Kids Are Alright

Not only is this a great movie, with great actors, including neighbor Mark Ruffalo (okay, he lives one town away), it describes the current situation here in the Woods. Mariel's not here, but Mark and Harry are, as is Mark's girlfriend Mia. The house is full, something's always cooking and the washing machine is getting a workout. I like it this way, even though I don't have a free minute.

This morning I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a huge bird diving into the brook. I looked downstream, and there was a beautiful duck with a red head. From what my research tells me, it's male a common pochard.

You might be thinking what kids and ducks have in common? Baby baths?

The Book Against God

Jame's Wood's first novel (he's an essayist and writer of non-fiction), The Book Against God. had been lazing around the house asking to be read. My son, who was also lazing around the house said he'd read most of it and it was pretty good.

Thomas Bunting, the main character, is a bit of a loser, and an epic liar who manages to screw up every relationship he has. He can't hold down a job, can't finish his Ph.D. and secretly writes a treatise of sorts, The Book About God, BAG for short.

Most of Wood's book is very amusing. Bunting is clever and tells the most twisted, hurtful lies you've ever heard. His attempt to prove there is no God because the world is so crappy made me lose interest. I think atheists will wish he were more authoritative about disbelief. Others may understand how challenging it can be to believe in God, given Man's barbaric history, its present pathos. Ultimately, this gives the book it's strength.

If you want a thoughtful read, The Book Against God is a good choice.

Good Cooker

My grandmother pulled a folded piece of paper from her wallet and handed it to me. I opened it up and found these words: Nana, you are a good cooker. There was also an illustration of her holding a pot. I'd given this to her perhaps 20 years earlier. The truth is, my grandmother was a terrible cook. As a working woman, she didn't have time to search for new recipes or grow her own spices.

My mother wasn't a great cook either. She had enough to do taking care of 5 kids and keeping the house clean. My stepfather was a very good baker, and made wonderful Italian dishes. To this day, I can't knowingly eat tomato sauce from a jar.

I consider myself a fairly good cook. I love food, so I'm strongly motivated to make tasty, interesting dishes. I made eggplant rollatini the other night that was nonpareil. I have an herb garden outside where I'm growing basil, dill, coriander, rosemary and chives.

Last night it was my friend Doug's birthday. We went to his house in PA and I cooked him a birthday dinner. On the menu was: mussels steamed in white wine, garlic and butter, lemon on the side; shrimp scampi over linguine (a simple version, with garlic, olive oil, butter and brandy sprinkled with parsley); asparagus ribbons with dried cherries; and carrot cake.

I know Doug loves asparagus, but I get tired of steaming, roasting, grilling and saucing. I have a bag of dried cherries in the pantry so I googled "asparagus with dried cherries," and came up with a great recipe. Here's the link if you want to try it: asparagus ribbon salad with dried cherries | brooklyn supper
Making the asparagus ribbons is onerous, so I turned it over to my husband. My son suggested he try a cheese slicer, holding the spears flat on a cutting board. This worked much better.

I baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Although it was delicious, it wasn't a beauty. I used a time-consuming recipe that involves a lot of sugar. I baked it in the wrong-sized pans and in addition to spilling all over the oven, it was difficult to remove from the pans. Here's the recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/blue-ribbon-carrot-cake-with-buttermilk-glaze-176207

Tonight I'm making Le Cirque's Pasta Primavera, which is fairly easy to make. Too much pasta? Never.  

Impressions of Eugene, Tattoo City

Nothing against tattoos. I have one or two. But here in Eugene, OR, it seems that if you don't have a sleeve, you're invisible. Many of the athletes running in the NCAA Championship have tats, including my son, though his is very small and discretely positioned on his chest.

A wonderful thing about Eugene is that it is walker and biker friendly. Except for traffic lights, pedestrians always have the right-of-way. If you do drive, there's plenty of parking everywhere. It's very green, not just due to the rainfall. This must be the dry season because every day has been sunny and warm.

People who live in the neighboring suburbs rarely venture into the city. They have every big box store and chain restaurant they need, so why bother? The city itself is a chain of small neighborhoods. There's no downtown per se with tall buildings. Well, there is a downtown but I heard it described as a place to see homeless people. This isn't true, because I went there on Friday and noodled around a bit. It has nice restaurants, bookshops, art galleries and small stores. I had wood-grilled pizza at a trattoria, dining al fresco.

I switched hotels for the last night because the other one was booked. I'm now in the "city" at an inn. It's perched on a mountain, and I write this looking out my window at a 200-year old tree and the Cascade Mountains beyond. A freight train rolls by a few blocks from here. I notice it because it's not a noise I hear often. One woke me in the middle of the night. I turned over and went back to sleep.

My son's foot injury kept him from running in Nationals. He was very disappointed and apologized for me traveling all this way to see him race. No apologies necessary. It was my pleasure to be here and spend time with him. He took me out for dinner last night. We had consolation beers and a good meal. He left early this morning with his team. I leave later today. In the meantime, I'm going to have breakfast downstairs and then head downtown for a little exploring. I have a map of the high points, including a bronze of Ken Kesey reading One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to a group of children. Then it's the red-eye to New York where I'll head to Brooklyn, leave my luggage and go to Manhattan for a doctor's appointment. I will be tired.