WHAT? No PIE?

I discovered this postcard last fall in a quirky secondhand shop in Athens, Ohio while visiting our daughter. Though the postcard made me laugh out loud, I certainly related to the horror the poor cat clearly feels at the prospect of "no pie." So, I bought the postcard, and it now resides on our fridge.

Of course, the postcard is a whimsical play on the familiar nursery rhyme:

Three little kittens they lost their mittens, And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear  
Our mittens we have lost.
 
What! lost your mittens, you naughty kittens! Then you shall have no pie.  
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.  
No, you shall have no pie.

No wonder that poor kitten looks so horrified. Forget the mittens. Where's the pie?!?

Of course, as with all nursery rhymes, this one has quite the history and deeper meaning. This Wikipedia entry gives a nice overview. 
 
So, why do I love pie so much? Besides the fact a well-made pie is tasty? Here are just a few reasons why I love to make (and share, and eat) pie... why, indeed, I think pie is magical:

'Tis the last day of Christmas, and all through the house...

If it seems a little odd for me to write about Christmas on January 5, please note that this is the last day of the Christmas season on the Christian calendar. The Christmas season runs Dec. 25-Jan. 5.

A few weeks before Christmas, in the heart of Advent (a time of preparation), I was doing all the usual things to get ready... baking, card writing, shopping decorating. While at a gourmet grocery store to purchase a few gifts for others, I spotted a display of Hammond's Candy Canes.

The display was gorgeous. The candy canes' colors were bright and cheery--stripes of purple, blue, white, green, red; the proffered flavors were intriguing and unexpected--cotton candy, clove, sugar plum, apple pie, root beer, pomegranate, just to name a few. Oh, and yes, there was classic red-and-white peppermint option.

I stood before the display like a wide-eyed kid struck still with wonder, jolted for a moment out of the rush-rush jadedness that seems to creep all too easily into the adult experience of Christmas.

Then someone accidentally jolted me, literally, and I popped out of the kid-again-moment. I noticed the price tag--3 bucks for a candy cane, albeit a humongous one, seemed like a bit much! And I was in a hurry. So I pulled myself away from the display and to the check-out line.

But I couldn't stop thinking about that candy cane display.

And finally, just before Christmas, I decided that I was being silly by denying myself a simple pleasure. Yes, 3 bucks for a candy cane still seemed extravagant, but I went back to the grocery. I was a little worried I'd built up the beauty and appeal of the candy cane display in my memory, but it didn't disappoint. I lingered in front of the display and finally selected sugar plum.

I finally unwrapped it a few days ago. The candy cane didn't disappoint. In fact, it was not only delicious; its taste made me think of sugar spun sweet dreams and possibilities, just as the name sugar plum suggests.

I haven't finished the candy cane, but that's all right. As we head out of Christmas and into Epiphany, I'll continue to enjoy it to the very last taste. After all, getting and enjoying the candy cane was something of an epiphany: enjoying, savoring, and appreciating simple, sweet things is one of the greatest pleasures of life.

During World War II, my Dad served in the U.S. Army as a Private First Class, 29th Division, 116th Infantry, one of the regiments that took Omaha Beach during D-Day. 
Dad had the mumps and missed D-Day. At the time, I’m guessing he was disappointed. After all, as the only son in his family (his little brother was born while he was in World War II), and because his father was disabled, he could have had a deferment. But he enlisted anyway, taking with him patriotic fervor, shooting skills honed by hunting since childhood in the foothills of Appalachia, and the sense of invincibility that only the young have.

Now, he looks back and says he knows he would have died on Omaha Beach. That he feels sad for all the men who died, although he feels confident that fighting in World War II to rid the world of Nazism was a just and worthy cause. Dad in Germany, April 1945 As it was, he arrived on Omaha Beach and caught up with his unit a month later, just after it took St. Lo back from the Nazis, and put his skills to use as a BAR-man. BAR stood for Browning Automatic Rifle. The life expectancy of a BAR-man on the front lines was 3 minutes.

But Dad made it through more than a year of intense fighting. I cherish a copy of one of the few photos taken of him during World War II, on his 21st birthday, just before the war ended on the European front. He’s standing next to an ox somewhere near the Elbe River in Germany. Dad looks strong and handsome.

During that year, he fought in the battles for Vire and Brest, France, and on into Germany. He was declared missing in action after it appeared to his commanding officer that he’d been blown up, but later rejoined his unit. Wesley, one of his best friends and assistant gunner--like a brother to him--died next to him in battle. Later, in the battle for Brest, Dad was wounded, only realizing that he’d been hit after he helped another soldier to the medic, and that his side was profusely bleeding from mortar shell shrapnel.

For decades, Dad didn’t talk much about his war experiences. It was only when our daughters asked their grandpa about his experiences because of a school history project that he started opening up. Carefully editing the stories for young granddaughters’ ears. Talking a little more openly with me and my husband.

At the end of September 2011, I had the honor of accompanying Dad on a trip back to France to visit some of the sites he recalled from 69 years ago --Omaha Beach, St. Lo, Vire. We also visited Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial at St. James, France, where Dad’s friend Wesley was buried. 

Dad observed places that only bore vague resemblances to his memories, contemplated lost comrades and the passage of time, studied the stone memorials at various sites to the 29th/116th.

When French citizens--some just a little younger than Dad, some younger than me--thanked him for his service (after seeing his Purple Heart hat), he quietly asked me why they were making such a big deal out of meeting him. “I was just one soldier,” he said.

“But think about what you represent,” I replied.

And when a fellow traveler suggested that Omaha Beach should be sacred memorial ground, Dad looked at a young family--a mom, a dad, two toddler-aged children--playing on the peaceful shore, and then said, “No. This is what we fought for. Freedom and peace, so these kids can play.”

In honor of this Veterans’ Day, I say to my Dad--to all veterans--simply this.

Thank you.
 
NOTE: The original version of this Sanity Check appeared in the Dayton Daily News. Sanity Check: The Collection  is available in print, as an e-book, and as an audio-book.  Sanity Check: A Collection of Columns

About a month ago, my husband and I joined a gym. Well, a 'fitness center.'

No one seems to call these places 'gym' anymore, and I can understand why. 'Gym' implies old linoleum, rusty lockers, the smell of everyone's sweat meshing together into a horrific odor stew, being subtly peered at and not-so-subtly judged, awful gym uniforms...

OK, I'm obviously flashing back to my forced gym days of youth. I wasn't particularly traumatized by
This was the result--time and again--of my high school bowling efforts... being picked last for gym class games of kick ball, softball, volleyball, anything-followed-by-the-word-ball; this seemed, actually, to speak well of my classmates' ability to think logically and strategically. The blue-and-white HORIZONTALLY striped one-piece gym suit, with our names stenciled on the upper right shoulder jail mate style, that infantilized even the curviest young women... that still gives me the shudders. (And, for the record, our school colors weren't even blue and white. They were black and gold. And, also for the record, boys could wear their own shorts and T-shirts for gym.) As anyone who has subscribed to my email newsletter (see sign up box on Home Page) knows, by virtue of receiving my humorous essay about flunking bowling in high school (and later becoming a mom of very athletic daughters), gym was not/is not my 'thing.'

But I've reached--well, passed--the age where I can just rely on general good health to generate more general good health. So, I've started walking and hiking (two physical activities I actually love.) And my husband and I joined a gym, so we could take a few exercise classes and use indoor exercise equipment such as ellipticals or treadmills on days that it's just too cold or stormy to walk outside.

I've been going to an occasional water aerobics class, and actually have been enjoying that. Pretty good for a woman who as a kid was terrified of water and who didn't learn to swim until she was pregnant with her second child.

However, I've discovered that there are risks associated with being a writer and going to the gym. I keep getting distracted by the other characters at the gym. I need to be careful. One of these days, I'm going to get so distracted that I go flying off the back of the elliptical, and then everyone else will have a story.

Still, how can I not get distracted? Here are a few samples:

Every now and then, a life lesson (and resolution) comes winging in from an unlikely source. In this case, it was from the Twilight Zone…

A little background:

Because I work from home, every now and then I indulge in the guilty pleasure of watching TV while eating lunch. Not reading, not catching up on email, not sorting mail, not starting dinner while eating lunch... but plopping down in front of the TV while eating lunch.

Most mid-day TV, though, is, well, pretty unappetizing, so just tuning in to tune in doesn’t work for me.

So I decided that I needed to DVR a show that I could view in 20 minutes or so, that wouldn’t likely conspire with my lunch to give me heart burn, and that wouldn’t make me think “just one more, just one more!” thus trashing my afternoon productivity. (My current favorite show, Breaking Bad, was right out on all three counts—plus I’m watching the series with my husband.)

I DVRed Twilight Zone. Of course, there’s the original version (1959-1964), the first revival (1985-1989) and the second revival (2002-2003). My DVR is set to pick up the original and the first revival.

Now, in my opinion, the 1980s Twilight Zones are… pretty cheesy. But those are the ones I occasionally watch at lunch. Remember my criteria—about 20 minutes worth, long enough for a sandwich or salad. A mindless distraction. And I’m in no danger of ‘watching just one more.” One episode of a mid-1980s Twilight Zone is enough to last me for a few weeks.

Well, a week or so ago I flipped on one such episode, started munching away on my turkey-and-mayo-on-whole-wheat, and then stopped, mid-chew, agog.

There, starring in the episode, was a middle and high school acquaintance of mine. Playing a singer- turned Elvis Impersonator-turned Elvis, in pure Twilight Zone fashion.

As a kid, I collected a few things. Stamps. Pennies. Rocks.

But as an adult, I've never been a collector. I have enough trouble keeping track of and organizing the items in my life I have to have--tax records. A computer. Clothes. I can't imagine curating and managing a collection.


(I do have a large assortment of books--eight large bookshelves worth, in fact. Plus books stacked on tables, on the floor, on my desk... but that's not a collection. That's a requirement. Rather like breathing.)

At some point, I remember hearing someone say that three of anything constitutes a collection. So, I've studiously made sure not to personally gather more than two of anything.

Until now.

In the photo above, you see THREE bobbleheads.

Uh oh. Looks like I have a collection after all.

I love this little turtle candle holder., for several reasons:

• My youngest daughter gave it to me years ago, when she was a little girl. She went on a school trip to Florida to swim with manatees, and brought this back for me. So the candle holder reminds me of her.
• It's perfect for holding non-scented votive candles, which I light when I write. When my attention, self-discipline or confidence start to go astray, I can focus on the little flame burning away.
• And the little flame makes me think of the childhood song, "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine," as well as the admonition to not keep one's light under a barrel. My writing is my little light, which I try to use to create stories as a gift to others.
• The turtle also makes me think of the fable, 'the tortoise and the hare.' Yes, I know that a turtle isn't the same critter as a tortoise, but thinking of that fable reminds me of another admonition: "slow and steady wins the race." And since working on novels seems to be a VERY sloooow process for me, I like to think that eventually, I'll finish the novel I'm working on!

By the way, the notebook the turtle candle holder is sitting on? The journal for my current work-in-progress!

Though my 1961 Frigidaire oven lacks the artistry of Dali's works, its built in clock does have a thing or two to say about the nature of time.

And not just that it's, say, five minutes past 6:00. Or that the cake will be done in ten minutes.

Our oven, original to our 1961 house, was a best-in-class cooking/baking/roasting tool of its day. Certainly, that's true if you believe the the owner's manual... which we have. (We, meaning my husband and I, were but a newborn babe and just a twinkle in daddy's eye at the time our house was built... but we bought our house 7 years ago from the original owner, who meticulously kept all original paperwork and every record of updates to our house. We received the paperwork along with the house.)

Six years ago, my older daughter was in ninth grade and wanted me to take her to Target so that she could pick out a gift for her younger (seventh grade) sister.

Fine. To her delight, Target had a bin of discounted movie DVDs. Perfect for a ninth grader's budget. She handed me a DVD and asked what I thought of this particular movie for her little sister. She hadn't heard of it, but the description on the back looked good.

I read the back of the movie DVD case, thought the title sounded vaguely familiar, but shrugged and said "sure, that's a good gift," and hurried us to the check out. I hadn't paid much attention to movie releases the previous year--rare for me, because I LOVE movies--but we'd moved the previous year, and I'd been distracted from paying much attention to movie culture while getting our new home in order. And that day, I was again in a hurry, juggling work, family, and birthday preparations.

A few mornings later, after my husband had left for work and my older daughter for high school, my younger daughter came down earlier than usual for breakfast before heading off to jr. high.

"Mom," she said, with great seriousness. "We need to talk..."

Donna, the heroine from MY ONE SQUARE INCH OF ALASKA, faces several challenges in the kitchen, but I think she would have liked this old-fashioned cookie back in the 1950s. They're still yummy today!

This recipe for Snickerdoodles is from my Grandmother Lourainey Hurley (who, by the way, was nothing like the grandmother in ALASKA...) passed down to me by my Aunt Opal.  

Now, here's the backstory. I'd love to tell you of all the great times I sat at my Grandma's kitchen table and munched on those amazing cookies.

But I can't. I never even knew she made those cookies when I was a little kid. Our visits from our home in Ohio to hers in southern Kentucky were fairly rare, and didn't synchronize with her Snickerdoodle baking schedule.