A French Stew, conclusion

Angus and the band began to play, and this was the song they sang:

I know a woman
who lives down the way...

her smile feeds the flowers
her kindness flows like rain...

she has a way of making
the brown earth green again

She...talks to the devas
sending magic to every seed she sows
She... plants goodness all around her
she's the garden lady
she's the one who knows...

tell me garden lady
how does your garden grow...

Halfway through the song, Hemp took out a flute and began playing it. The notes were sweet and purring, and the acoustic guitars sounded like soft ripples of water. It was a surprise to hear them play music that was actually --pretty. But Elena wasn't sure the nice instrumentals were enough to compensate for what was lacking. Without the high volume of their guitars, their voices were flat and unimpressive. And the melody was simple, and somewhat repetitive. But the boys seemed so absorbed as they played, like they really took the song seriously. You had to give them that.

They called themselves The Threshers, after the machine that was used in the 19th century to separate the grain from stalks and husks. The name suited their usual style of industrial-sized, wheat-from-the-chaff  rock and roll.

When the song was finished, Elena clapped. "That was beautiful," she said.

Lyle gaped at the band, surprised they could play anything that wasn't entirely obnoxious. "Well," he said. "That's something else. You say my Meredith was the inspiration for that?"

Angus nodded. Hemp stepped forward, as if to take possession of the song. "So many times when I came over here, I'd see her out there, working in the garden. I always thought of her as the garden lady. And she gave me some advice once. You could ask her anything about plants, and she knew the answer. So it came to me one day to write a song."

"You know," Angus said to Lyle,"She gave me a present. I had helped her with some digging and moving some pots around. So she gave me a wind chime. I finally got around to hanging it up. It's out there, on my porch."

Oh, Elena thought. So that's where that unlikely bit of delicacy came from.

"Is that right?" Lyle said. "Meredith gave you that? Well, I nearly clobbered myself on it."

"Ah," Angus said. "You noticed it then." 

Elena and Lyle didn't hang around for the rest of the rehearsal. Elena said, "I guess we should be going," and no one argued. But Angus said to Lyle, "Thanks for stopping by, man." 
 
As Elena walked with Lyle to his house, he said, "Well, that was interesting. It smelled like they were smoking dope in there. Did you notice that?"  Elena had noticed the tell-tale smell of cannabis. But she only said, "Oh, I don't know about that."
 
Lyle shook his head. "They're alright, I guess. But it pains me to think of Meredith having to be neighborly with a bunch of potheads. We stayed in this neighborhood too long. I should have gotten her out of here. When it stared going downhill." 
 
Elena said, "But it sounds like Meredith liked those guys." 
 
"Meredith had to be nice to everybody. That's just the way she was. But I'll tell you one thing. She had no use for their fool guitar playing. She said it drove her up the wall." Lyle paused in reflection, then grinned. "Ha!!  He thinks she gave him that wind chime as a thank you. I think she was sending him a message. That's her way of telling him not everything has to blow your ears off! But...he's too dense to get it."
 
A week passed, and then an arctic blast blew in, dumping six inches of snow. Elena was able to stay home from work, and she spent the morning lazing about, drinking coffee. Slowly, her thoughts turned away from her novel, to her neighbors. She wondered if Lyle was snowbound. Right up until Meredith had had the heart attack, she had been robust and strong and she had been the one to shovel the walk when it snowed. This was the first real snow of the winter, the first snow since she had died.
 
Elena put on her coat and snowboots and tromped over to Lyle's house, to see if he needed her to help dig him out. Lyle seemed so thin and tired, and she didn't think he should be outside trying to plow through six inches of snow. 
 
But when she got to his house, she saw that his walk and his porch had already been neatly shoveled.    
 
Elena knocked on the door, trying to break through the game show she could hear on the TV. Lyle answered and let her inside. 
 
"I came to see about your sidewalk. But I see it's already shoveled," she said.
 
Lyle smiled. "Yep. That Angus from next door came over and did that. Ha! I didn't think he got up so early in the morning. I always see lights on in his house at all hours. But...he came over and did it."

"Wow," Elena said. "That was thoughtful of him."

"And he gave me something," Lyle said. Lyle went back into the kitchen to retrieve whatever it was. Elena saw him pick up something small, she couldn't tell what, and walk back to her with it inside his hand.

Lyle held out his hand to reveal two ear plugs. "He said these ought to plug up the noise."

Elena laughed. "Well, that is one way to do it."

Behind Lyle, a game show contestant was squealing in triumph. She had just won a new washer and dryer. Elena wondered how Lyle could even hear the band over his TV. But Lyle acted as if the TV's noise was as demure as the refrigerator's hum.

"Well," Elena asked, "Do they work?"

Lyle shrugged. "I won't really know for sure until those boys start blasting away again. But I'll tell you one thing. I can't hear their mongrel dog barking anymore."

"Well, that's something," said Elena. She couldn't hear it either, with The Price is Right blaring like that.

"Here, let me show you," said Lyle. With an arcing sweep of his arm, he ceremoniously placed an ear plug into one ear, and then the other. He turned his head from side to side.

"No sir. I can't hear a thing!" he was nearly shouting. "Tell me, is that dog barking?"

Elena listened. All she could hear was a studio audience yelling out answers. "Five hundred dollars!"  "Four fifty!" "Five seventy-five!"

"Yes, he's barking," Elena said, nodding emphatically.

"DON'T HEAR A THING!" Lyle bellowed. His gave Elena a smile. "NOTHING BUT PEACE AND QUIET!"

The End

Bach Is In The House

You'll never guess where I was Sunday night, between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00. You would not imagine that I would be hanging out in a mansion on Ward Parkway, mingling and schmoozing with a crowd of affluent, high brow types. But there I was, sipping my red wine and pretending that I was one of the beautiful people, and that this was just the sort of well-appointed gathering I was accustomed to.


How did I come to be there? Who let me inside? The truth is, I hadn't exactly been invited. Admission had come at a price, the price of a ticket to the Hauskonzert by the Bach Aria Soloists. Roger had bought the tickets as a Valentine's Day gift for me.

The Bach Aria Soloists is a small group of Kansas City musicians who perform music by Bach and Bach-inspired composers, and they put on these hauskonzerts three times a year, so as to provide an intimate chamber music setting for hearing the music as it was originally intended, and to give rubes like me the chance to rub elbows with the cultural elite. 

Each hauskonzert is hosted in a lovely (rich-ass) home, and includes drinks before the concert, and afterwards, a killer reception full of sumptuous eats.

This particular hauskonzert was going to be a special Valentine's-themed concert, featuring "love" works by Bach, Edward Elgar, Fritz Kreisler, and Gabriel Faure.

When the time for the concert came, Roger and I made our way to the tony address on Ward Parkway, and found a majestic brick colonial with huge white columns adorning the front. This is one of those ultra-swank homes I have driven by a gazillion times, but never thought I would ever step inside.

As we approached it we saw that the big wrought iron gates that were normally shut tight were flung open for us, and we drove right up the circle drive, as if we were somebodies. The valets played along, and acted like we were somebodies too, quickly taking the car off our hands.

From the outside, I would have pictured this home ornately furnished, flush with luxurious fabrics and gleaming antiques. Instead, the interior was ultra-modern and sleek and I suspect, was very Feng Shui. The style seemed Japanese-influenced, with clean, geometric lines and very few curves, and a minimalistic approach to decoration. Even the abstract art on the walls, while bold, was primarily monochromatic. Along one wall was what appeared to be a shoji screen.

Roger and I went to the free bar and got cups of red wine, then drifted around aimlessly. We wandered through the kitchen area, and like some of the other guests, we ogled the reception food that was covered with plastic wrap. An army's worth of sushi!--catered by Jun's restaurant---awaited our greedy appetites. Behind the counter, the wall behind the stove and sink was illuminated with an eye-catching display of colored light. "Look," I whispered. "The wall is hot pink." It seemed like an odd color choice for the kitchen. But as I watched, the color faded to rose, which then morphed into orange, which turned to yellow, and so on, until the light had cycled all the way through the color wheel and back again.

But forget the eye candy. The concert was the main thing, and it was marvelous. Violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane, who founded Bach Aria Soloists, made me want to cry, her playing was so beautiful. Elizabeth is a virtuoso who has played all over the globe. Kansas City is lucky to have her. I have had the opportunity to speak to her casually, because she brings her son Ethan to our house for jazz piano lessons. Musically speaking, I consider her royalty, but in person she is as full of warmth and grace as her music is.

Beau Bledsoe played brilliant guitar. I've enjoyed hearing him many times but most memorably, when he played with Tango Lorca for my 40th birthday party, and for a work holiday party. Rebecca Lloyd sang French operatic numbers in a soaring soprano, and Elisa Bickers was stunning on piano and harpsichord.

After the concert, we joined the line for the food. While standing in line, Elizabeth introduced us to a man whom she said was Elisa Bickers' husband. Looking at him directly for the first time, and seeing that he wore an earring in each ear, I immediately recognized him as Lilah's honors English teacher!

Poor man, I can't help but think he looked like a trapped animal as I loudly identified him. I wasn't sure he was all that pleased to run into two parents. He was probably groaning inwardly at the thought of having to talk about school. And what did I do? I launched into a discussion of The Book Thief, which he had assigned to Lilah's class, and which I was in the middle of reading myself. "What did you think of the narration?" I asked him. I was genuinely curious, because I was having my own issues with it. I didn't necessarily mind that Death was the narrator, since this was a story about Nazi Germany, but I found the narrator's constant fragmented interruptions and announcements to be increasingly annoying and getting in the way of the story. The narrator intrudes with a glibness that to me sounds too much like the author signalling his cleverness.

Anyway, Mr. Bickers and I were both saved from our conversation by the sushi table, which had at last come within reach. We had only tiny plastic plates, but I loaded mine up as best I could. I tried putting ponzu sauce (what is that??) on my plate, but it rolled around like a loose marble and spread over everything. I waffled over the wasabi. First I skipped it, out of fear, then I went back and put a smidge of it on my plate, but in the end, I left it untouched. My drink was empty and I had no way to put out the fire. There were several colorful permutations of sushi, and something deep-fried that might have been a prawn.

Roger and I found seats next to the 90 year old mother of Benny Lee, the Taiwan-born and raised owner of the house. I know she's 90 because Lee had introduced her at the start of the concert to the whole room, and announced that she'd flown 6,000 miles to be there.

We had a choice of using either a fork or a chop stick, and naturally everyone at our table was using chopsticks, including Roger. So I wanted to try to use them too. This didn't worry me too much, because I thought I had actually learned to use chopsticks successfully on some prior occasion. And really, how hard could it be?

Well, it turned out to be plenty hard. In my attempt to grab my sushi roll with the two sticks, I repeatedly stabbed it instead, which pushed the inside portion of neatly packed bits completely out of the coiled center and made the whole piece of sushi fall apart. But using a fork didn't work much better. Just trying to grab it with my fork produced the same effect of pushing out the center and making the whole roll collapse. I ended up having to improvise with a combination of fork, chopstick and finger to get it from the plate to my mouth. I can only imagine what Benny Lee's 90 year old mother must have been thinking.

Thank goodness dessert was just a simple heart cookie with pink or red frosting.

When it came time to go, the valets fetched our car with brisk efficiency. But while I was waiting in the foyer, I had time to look up and notice the light fixture hanging overhead -a marvel of modern design made up of dozens of white sheets of metal that looked like the petals of a flower and suggested kinetic sculptures I've seen in museums.

But then our car pulled up and we stepped away from the Lee home back to reality. It was a very cold night, but the car was warmed up for us, the ease of which was the last bit of luxury we could grab, along with the extra heart cookie we had swiped to take home to the girls. The richness of the music though, we could keep forever.

Bach Aria Soloists --Rebecca Lloyd, Beau Bledsoe, Elisa Bickers, and Elizabeth Suh Lane

A French Stew, pt. 6

"Have I met the band?! Ha!" Lyle's shaggy eyebrows jumped and his eyes widened. "I don't need to meet them, I can hear them!"

Lyle sat straight up in his chair, indignant. His outrage had brought him back to life. This encouraged Elena to push him even more."

"They're not bad guys. They just like loud music. Why don't we go say hello? You can meet Angus, at least. He's the one who lives there. He is our neighbor."

“Yeah, that’s the trouble. This used to be a respectable neighborhood." Lyle jabbed his pipe in the direction of Angus’s house. "We didn’t have hoodlums like that living next door.”  "Well, if I go over there you know what I'll say to them. I’ll tell them to TURN THAT RACKET DOWN."

Elena knew that that is exactly what Lyle was likely to say to them. He wasn't going to be joining their fan club. Yet she thought that Lyle and Angus should meet just the same. And she wasn’t sure what she expected to come of it. Nothing, really. But she felt a need to enlist the other neighbors indirectly, so as to make them aware of Lyle. Deep down she knew, if she let herself admit it, she didn’t want to be the only one looking out for him.

Elena was wondering how she could persuade Lyle to go next door, when to her surprise he suddenly said, "Well, if we're going to go pay a social call, we better do it soon, before the hour gets to be too ungodly.

So there they were a few minutes later, making their way across the cracked sidewalk, past the decaying leaves leftover from the previous autumn, lying un-raked in Angus’s yard, up the crickety steps that led to the porch, Lyle following Elena, and bending so as not to get beaned by the jingly wind chime that hung too low from the porch.

Angus lived in an old Victorian like Lyle, but his was in much worse condition. He rented out the bottom floor, which also gave him use of the porch. And he’d been using it alright, if you could call it that. A decrepit sofa that was losing its stuffing gave Angus a place to sit and smoke while listening to his classic rock radio station. Next to that, sat a rusty car radiator, accompanied by a forlorn jumble of pvc pipes that seemed completely pointless, a pair of grey concrete blocks, a toaster oven with blackened metal, a worn out shoe missing its tongue, and a chipped coffee mug tossed onto the scene for good measure. Lyle's eyes fell on the untidy collection of objects, and he wrinkled up his nose, as if he could smell them.

The only item that looked new and clean and still had its shine was the wind chime.

When Angus came to the door, his Van Halen tee was rumpled and his eyes looked bloodshot and sleepy. He was tall and lean, with long, blond hair that flowed down in waves to his shoulders, looking like a mountain stream flowing across many ridges on its way to the valley. In contrast to his height, his face was boyish, even slightly feminine. Close up, he looked no more than twenty.

He blinked at Lyle and Elena with a puzzled expression. "Oh. Hey."

Elena said, "I'm sorry to barge in on you like this, but we just wanted to stop by and say hi.. This is Lyle...he lives next door...you know....Meredith's husband..."

Angus's face slowly lit with recognition, switches flipping on one by one.

"Oh yeahhhh..." He opened the door and gestured them inside. “Come on in.” They stepped in out of the cold, onto a worn shag carpet. Angus gazed on Lyle with sympathy, while scratching the side of his head. “Oh man…Uh…Lyle, I’m sorry to hear about your wife." He shook his head. "That's a tough one. Meredith…oh man, she was a good person." Lyle stared at Angus, as if he couldn't comprehend that Angus was capable of showing appreciation for Meredith.

Angus tossed a lock of his hair back over his shoulder. It seemed like a nervous gesture, him not sure what should come next. "Well, we're rehearsing," he began hesitantly, "but you can hang out for a bit if you want. Come on back and meet the guys."

Lyle threw up his hand as if waving the invitation away. "Thank you. But I'm going home!"

"Oh come on, Lyle. Let’s just stay for a few minutes," Elena said.

"You stay if you want to. No offense, young man, but I can't take the noise! You need to TURN DOWN THOSE GUITARS!" Lyle shouted as if he hadn’t been able to contain himself a moment longer.

Angus didn't look as if any offense was taken. Instead, a smile crept up the side of his face, betraying an obvious pride he felt in his band's decibel levels. But he held back from gloating in front of Lyle. He said, "I guess we get pretty loud, huh? Well, uh, we got this acoustic number we’re working on. We can play that for you. It's kind of a pretty song, actually. No loud guitars."

Elena furrowed her brow at Lyle, daring him to try and refuse. Lyle just shrugged with a weary but resigned expression. They walked down a narrow hallway, into a room at the back of the house that had once been a bedroom. Now, it seemed to be a catch-all room for Angus’s crap. Along the wall, was an old fireplace with the opening boarded up. A radiator clanged and hissed. The floor was covered in a faded and stained carpet, but high above their heads, elaborate plaster molding on the ceiling suggested the house had once enjoyed a grander era, when its occupants had more class. 

Waiting for Angus were four guys, who traded a look of impatience amongst each other when they saw Angus returning with Elena and Lyle. But they softened when Angus introduced them to Lyle. They seemed to know who Meredith was.

Their names were Hemp, Neal, Chevy, and Wayne, and they were all various flavors of young, long-haired and scruffy. All except for Chevy, who could have been around thirty-five, and wore his hair short and spiky.

“Okay,” Angus said. “We’re going to do this song for you that Hemp wrote. It was inspired by someone we all know and love. It’s called.... Garden Lady.”

A French Stew, pt. 5

Lyle wore a thin, moth-eaten shirt, his bony shoulders drooping, his ghostly pipe dripping smoke, as he stood on the edge of a vast patch of unruly ground criss-crossed with weeds and thistles and tree shoots, saying to no one in particular, "The damn squirrels can have it for all I care." 

That's what Elena imagined as she heard the blown-out desolation in Lyle's voice, saw the sad tuck of his sunken features. His eyes, which had been sharp pricks of light when he'd first arrived, had gone cloudy. Elena realized that the garden she had had in her mind, a lush and bountiful oasis in full bloom, was part of a landscape that Lyle no longer occupied. A dream world that had evaporated.

She could appreciate how it felt to have an entire landscape disappear. When Marcel had left her, the Paris she had roamed and courted and adored had vanished. Morrissey sings of throwing his arms around Paris because only stone and steel accept his love. But for Elena it was the opposite. When Marcel rejected her, it seemed that  Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame were rejecting her as well. Certainly, the gargoyles rejected her.

Yes, a living garden would feel like a cruel lie.

"I understand why you feel that way about the garden," she said. "Nothing is the same without Meredith." Lyle slowly nodded.

He took out his pipe. "Where's your smoking section?" he asked.

"Right here," Elena said. She grabbed the ashtray and pushed it toward him. Greetings from Cyprus. The island of Aphrodite.

Lyle fiddled with his lighter, and seeing that he was done, Elena took his dishes and walked back to the sink. "I'll bring out the peanut brittle. Will you have some coffee?," she asked hopefully. She didn't want Lyle to run off too soon. She was thinking how crass her offer to take over the garden might have sounded. At best, it might have come off as tone-deaf. At worst --opportunistic. She didn't want him leaving with that impression.

Yes, Lyle said, he would have some coffee, and none of that decaf crap. He didn't care that it was the evening. He stayed up late most nights anyway, watching Johnny Carson. 


Elena got out the coffee and began scooping it into a filter, grateful for another ritual to dispel the awkwardness. Un tasse de caffe: c'est toujours la camarade fidele, jamais le troisieme roue. A cup of coffee: always a faithful companion, never a third wheel.

 From where she stood, Elena could see the back of Lyle's bald head, the way his large ears rose up like two eager stalks of corn. so that he looked like something that had been been growing out of her chair. Something vulnerable and easily cut down.


As the coffee began brewing, Elena took the peanut brittle out of the baggie Lyle had brought, and placed it onto a plate. In the quiet kitchen, the slabs of brittle clunked against the delicate china like small bricks.  "By the way," Lyle called out from the table, "that is the last of the peanut brittle. The last batch she made."

Elena stared at the plate in her hands. And after these remnants are gone, what will be left?  "I am honored to have you share it with me," she said. .


Elena served the peanut brittle and the coffee. "Here you go, Lyle," she said, making an extra effort to say his first name.

They sat in silence, drinking, breaking peanut brittle apart inside their mouths. Elena had heard about societies where people took tea together in silence, where that was enough. Just being in the same place together. That might work if Elena and Lyle were truly in the same place, but Elena knew the measure of grief between them was lopsided. She missed Meredith terribly, but not in every corner of her life, the way Lyle did. And Marcel....well...that grief was like a very deep wound that had scabbed over, but it wasn't like losing an entire limb.

"This peanut brittle is very good!" Elena said. It had a hint of molasses.

"She's been making this for 20 years," Lyle said.

Just then, a familiar sound broke through the wall. "Twaanngg!!!" A guitar plugged in, an amp turned up. And then another. And another. Guitars piling up onto each other.

"Sonofabitch. There they go again," said Lyle.

For Elena, the cacophony coming from their neighbor was welcome. She was relieved for the distraction, and for how it chased away what had felt like cobwebs growing onto her and Lyle. Maybe it was the driving guitars, or the wine in her blood, or the caffeine, but Elena felt a sudden impulse. She caught Lyle's eye.  

"Lyle," she said. "Have you ever met the band next door?"

A French Stew, pt. 4

Elena set a place for Lyle. He would be over in a few minutes. Elena had told him, "Come as you are." But he had said he should change his shirt at least. The one he was wearing had moth holes.

Ever since Meredith had died, Elena had wanted to reach out to Lyle in some way. Cook for him, yes, that had crossed her mind as something easy. She liked to cook. But a meal was quickly shared and forgotten. She wanted to do something for him that was more lasting. She just didn't know what.

Right now the thing to do was slice the baguette, put out an ash tray. She had friends who smoked and she knew the drill. She didn't like making them step outside. An ash tray made smokers feel welcome. And this particular ash tray, a vintage souvenir she'd picked up at a second-hand shop, winked at the smoker with the congenial script: "Greetings from Cyprus. The Island of Aphrodite."

Elena was wishing it was cigarettes that Lyle smoked, instead of pipes. She wouldn't hesitate to bum one off of him, because she would be needing a puff or two herself, to help her relax amid the awkwardness of playing hostess to him. She'd had the wine yes, but a cigarette to pull on was something else again. How true the French proverb, "Un feu dans la main est mieux que deux dans le bide." A fire in the hand is worth two in the belly.

If she had more time, Elena would run down to Blinky's on the corner to buy herself a pack. She could see now that her impulse to invite Lyle over was a misstep. She should have thought this through, and been more prepared.

But too late. For there he was, knocking. She let him in and took his coat and his offering. He had brought peanut brittle and a couple of cans of Schlitz beer.

This was only the 2nd time Lyle had been inside her house. The first time was the day he came to bump off her squirrels. He hadn't fired a shot though, and she wondered if his posturing with the shot gun was all for show. Anyhow, he had claimed success. "Those squirrels know a threat when they see one," he had said. "If they're smart, they'll leave and never come back. But I don't know. Your squirrels might be too dumb. The dumb ones are the worst." Lyle McCready was an expert on squirrels.

Elena examined the beer. Lyle seemed to take her curiousity for appreciation. He grinned. "That beer is ice cold," he said. "The only way I like it. We should drink it now."

Elena thought of the wine glasses she had set on the table, the red wine that had permeated the broth of the stew, and that was meant to be drunk with this meal. The flavor of boeuf bourguignon was centered on the unique essence that is wine, and should not be compromised by an ignoble beer. Lyle was asking her to commit a culinary indecency. For a moment she was torn. Didn't she owe it to him to steer him toward the correct experience of this dish? But she could not bring herself to do it. He seemed too pleased to have something to share.

"An ice cold beer would hit the spot," she said. "It's been getting hot in that kitchen." Elena took the cans from Lyle and headed into the kitchen for glasses. Lyle followed her.

"The peanut brittle is for later. Sort of a dessert," Lyle said.

"Thank you. It's been a long time since I've had peanut brittle."

"I know what you're thinking. But I still have my original teeth, and they're hard as rocks. I got a set of real tough choppers."

"I believe it," Elena said.

"Did Meredith ever tell you that I can pull a truck with my teeth?"

"No!" Elena glanced up from her pouring with genuine awe.

"Ha!" Lyle slapped his knee. "That's because it isn't true. I just tell that story to see if people will believe it."

So....Lyle McCready was a real kidder. Meredith was glad to see he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

"But the part about my teeth being tough is true. My roots just go on forever. When a dentist has to pull a tooth, he has a terrible time."

Elena served the stew. Lyle dug in immediately. The stew had turned out well. But the beer...well, it clashed. Lyle didn't seem to notice.

"This is pretty good," he said. "Meredith said you were a heck of a cook."

Elena smiled, remembering how Meredith was always interested in her experiments, but only as a spectator. Whenever Elena offered her a recipe, Meredith said no, she didn't think Lyle would care for it. She hadn't said it with bitterness or resignation, but with the light air of someone who feels the level of variety in their life is more than plenty.

"Meredith gave me cuttings so I could grow my own herbs." Elena said. She paused, steeping herself in a memory. "That was some beautiful garden she had."

Lyle nodded. "She had a way."

They ate in silence for a few moments. Elena wondered what would happen to the garden now. Meredith had been the one to keep it going. And then it came to her, that that was the thing. The thing she could do for Lyle.

"Lyle," she said, "Do you have any plans for the garden? Will you be wanting to plant anything, come spring?"

Elena waited for an answer, but none came. She watched Lyle, who was chewing silently, a dark furrow in his brow. If he was worried about how he was going to do all that work himself, she was eager to put his mind at ease.

"Lyle, I was thinking...what if I came over and tended your garden? I do the work, you let me have a few tomatoes in exchange?"

Lyle had stopped eating, but hadn't looked up. He was staring down at a chunk of boeuf. Elena grew uneasy at his lack of response. He probably doubted she was up for all that work. She certainly was no match for Meredith, but she could keep it from turning into a dismal weed-patch.

She pressed on. " I would be happy to do it. I've always wanted a garden. And it would be win-win. I need a garden...you need a gardener."

Elena studied Lyle's face, waiting. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"All to hell," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just gonna let it all go to hell."

A French Stew, pt. 3

Elena shivered on Lyle McCready's porch. How hard must she work to give away her beef stew? The TV inside was blaring. Some cop show. Her rap on the door had been drowned out by police sirens.

Elena knocked a second time, and then turned her gaze to the house next door. No rock and roll tonight. The guitar-playing neighbor was out, and he must have taken his dog, because her movements in the dark had not set off the usual round of barking. The only sound coming from the house was an unlikely, faint, high-pitched tinkling that shifted in the breeze and conjured up images of cherubs and nursery rooms. The self-proclaimed Shredding Beast had hung a set of metal wind chimes from his porch.

Elena rang Lyle McCready's doorbell, knowing full well it didn't work. Such was her tendency - to repeat the futile and hope for a different result than before. Knocking again seemed futile too, but on her 3rd and last try, the door opened a crack, and Lyle's face peered out at her.

"Oh, it's you," he said. "I thought it was more of those Jehovahs."

Lyle McCready was pale and bony-shouldered, liked to keep a lit pipe close at hand, and was, to hear him tell it, beset by Jehovah Witnesses.

"They bring around that boy with the Down's Syndrome, so I always have to be polite to them. That encourages them right back." he had told her.

Lyle invited her in. He puffed on his pipe. "What is it? Caught a squirrel in your attic again?"

She laughed. "No, no squirrel this time." And if there was, the last thing she would do was send him crawling around her attic with that ancient shotgun of his. It had made him feel useful, she knew, to try and fix her squirrel problem, but the way his hands shook that day as he raised the barrel had made her swear she would never even say the word "squirrel" around him again.

"No, I was just wondering whether you've already had supper. I made some stew. I need someone to help me eat it."

Lyle squinted at Elena. He seemed either tired or starved. "Is it some of that fancy French cooking?"

"Well, it's just beef stew....just beef and onions and mushrooms....but yes, it is French."

Lyle looked thoughtful. "Fine by me. I had some good meals over there during WWII."

"Oh," Elena said. "I think you will like this. Beef Bourguignon. It is very rich."

Lyle puffed on his pipe, then said yes.

Elena hurried back to her house to tend to the stew. Several years ago, she would not have imagined herself inviting Lyle McCready to dinner.

It was his wife, Meredith with whom she had exchanged neighborly pleasantries that began to feel like a friendship ---a shared plant clipping, a borrowed book, an occasional cup of tea. Elena had grown fond of Meredith, but had barely known Mr. McCready at all. And that was how she had thought of him--as Mr. McCready. It had certainly seemed appropriate to address him as Mr. McCready at the funeral home, as a way of communicating proper respect for his grief. And she probably would have continued to address him as Mr. McCready from that day onward. But a few days after the funeral, she had dropped off a plate of brownies, and when, turning to leave she had said, "Take care, Mr. McCready," he had stopped her. "Call me Lyle," he had said. He didn't want her calling him Mr. McCready, because that was what the Jehovahs and telemarketers called him.

But she guessed there was another reason. Maybe he needed to hear a female voice saying the name Lyle, every chance he could get, because he would be hearing it so seldom, now that his wife of 60 years had died.

A French Stew pt. 2

It grew dark. Elena emptied a third glass of wine. Marcel was not forgotten, but had become a dim smudge in the background of her mind, like a figure standing behind wavy glass, blurry and indistinct. What is that French proverb she had heard during her stay in Provence? "Garder souille le carreau. C'est plus facile de faiire semblant personne ne present pas." Keep the window panes dirty. It makes it easier to pretend that nobody is there.

The stew had been in the oven for three hours, but it was not finished. Next Elena must strain the broth, and whisk in the beurre manie. Then she would add the pearl onions and mushrooms, which she had watchfully burnished to delicate perfection.

Elena put a spoon to her mouth to test the seasoning. Hmmm....another clove of garlic and a dash more thyme. At least, to her taste. And there wasn't anybody else to consider.

But actually, there was somebody. She had thought of him, during her 2nd glass of wine, when she had heard the mutt from next door barking. Lyle McCready.

The dog didn't belong to him, but to the neighbor they both shared, and about whom they both commiserated. A neighbor who played loud classic rock on his radio while he smoked on the front porch. Who had friends arriving with guitar cases, then disappearing inside, where they plugged in their amps and played guitar riffs that tore right through the siding into her kitchen nook.

Secretly, she didn't really mind it. She liked the jagged guitar chords at odd hours. She found the neighbor and his long-haired visitors, earnest and amusing. But to Lyle, she let on like she was annoyed, so that the unruly neighbor would be at least one thing they would always have to talk about.

She pictured Lyle sitting alone and hungry in the late-century Victorian two doors down. She imagined that he might like a good home-cooked meal. So she made a decision, while chasing the last bits of crushed garlic into the pot --to turn the burner on low, remove her apron, and walk over to invite him.

A French Stew

 Such a warm January day. Too warm, Elena knew, to make beef bourguignon. Such a hearty French stew required hours in the oven. She would be roasting. Her small house with the tin roof would be like a can of beans, ready to pop!

Ah, but who cares if it's hot? Elena thought. She'd been craving the stew for days. If she had to, she could remove her clothing.

Ha! That lecher across the street would like that.

Well, she'd already bought the meat. She might as well go ahead.

Elena removed the brown wrapper.

Hadn't she told the butcher to cut the chuck roast into pieces the size of half his fist? He must have very big fists.

Elena cut the chuck down further, browned it, and then came her favorite part of the recipe. The deglazing.

This meant pouring wine into the pan and scraping the leftover bits of meat off the bottom.
 
Elena liked this step best, because it seemed the most French. She guessed there was a freedom she felt in opening a bottle of wine and pouring it liberally. A feeling of extravagance, that seemed foreign to everything she'd been taught about cooking as a girl. And a feeling of moral laxity, of European permissiveness, in allowing a substance as debauched as wine to play such an elemental role in a dish this modest. That was the dividing line right there. Without the wine, it would be just another midwestern stew.

Of course, there was also the beurre manie, the flour and butter dough she would add toward the end as a thickener. That too, was very French. Because her own mother would never have bothered to knead together flour and butter --with real butter!--to ensure that the flour particles would enter the broth properly, without causing lumps. No, she would have simply added flour and been done with it.

As the afternoon wore on, the stew cooked and her house grew warm and fragrant. Beads of sweat formed on her brow. But not from the heat. From remembering.

Ah, Marcel, the trapeze artist.....

He had the strength and balance to walk over anything, but he could not resist the smell of a good beef bourguignon. It had been a sure way to bring him down off the wire.


Elena saw it again vividly, in slow motion. The sudden slip, the hard landing, the cold, lifeless eyes turned up at her, the day he fell. Fell out of love with her.  

George Takei Is The Broker of Star Peace

Sometime last month, after William Shatner and Carrie Fisher got into a feud over which was better, Star Trek or Star Wars, George Takei intervened by filming the above video message, urging them to make peace with each other.  

In the video he begins,

"Fellow star folks. Cool it down, and shut your big worm holes! Each is wonderful in its own special way..."

Takei says this is a time when all "starfriends" need to band together, because of an "ominous mutual threat to all science fiction." He says, " It’s called ‘Twilight’ and it is really, really bad. Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie, or epic battle. In its place, we have vampires that sparkle, and moan, and go to high school."

I am listening George, and even though I do think Star Trek is WAY BETTER than Star Wars, I will refrain from antogonizing any fellow starfriends, because I have had it up to here with vampires. Oh, and zombies. We should all live long and prosper, and be vampire and zombie-free. May the force be with us. And may it bring us another Star Trek movie.

George Takei Is Coming To Kansas City

George Takei is coming to Kansas City next week! I was reminded of this when I heard him on a local radio show this morning---being hilarious ---plugging his upcoming show. 

He will be appearing at the Kauffman center for a "Sci-Fi Spectacular" , with the Kansas Symphony Orchestra. Audience members are invited to "travel to the edge of the universe with music from the biggest and best science fiction TV shows and movies, including Avatar, Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Takei will be there to provide *dramatic narration*. There will even be a laser light show!
 
I probably don't have to tell you that this is right up my dork-baitin,' geekozoid alley. T'would do my old Trekkie heart good to experience George Takei in this fashion.   

For you see, I have long loved George Takei.  Because of him, I have learned many things.

He was one of my favorites on Star Trek, in his portrayal of Sulu. It wasn't so much the cool way he cranked up the warp speed at Kirk's command ....

It was more the humor and liveliness he exhibited in other scenes --running through the corridors of the ship with a fencing foil, frollicking on shore leave. I picked up on the fact that he was a colorful person, but I had no idea at the time that he might be gay. Now that he's come out, I think --"Well, I knew there was something about him." It wouldn't be the only time that the person I found the most interesting turned out to be gay.

Anyway, I was fascinated by him, and became curious about his Japanese heritage. Soon I became curious about anything having to do with Japan or Japanese Americans. And so I did what curious people did back in those days. I went to the library and checked out as many books as I could find on the subject.

Somewhere along the way I read Takei's biography, and learned that he had been sent with his family to a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. I read all I could find on the internment camps, and I did a report on them for school.

I also came across articles about our bombing of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and first-hand accounts of survivors, and so became preoccupied with the history of those events. When it was time to do another report for school, one where we had to stand up in front of the class and talk, I knew what my topic would be. I still have a vivid memory of giving that report and using the overhead projector to show pictures from the destruction of Hiroshima.

All this self-directed learning, from my weird obsession with George Takei!

Note: There was some weird technical glitch the first time I published this post, and a bunch of my editing was somehow deleted or not saved, so the first version was a real mess. Thanks to H.B. for bringing my attention to it. One of the things that had been deleted was some stuff about George Takei being a broker of Star peace, intervening in a feud between William Shatner and Carrie Fisher. Well, I'll have to save that for another time.

Oh and by the way, I just checked and the Sci-Fi Spectacular appears to be sold out. Snif.

New Food Trends I Can Do Without

Lap cheong sausage. It keeps in the fridge for weeks. I don't want to be looking at some old piece of sausage in my fridge for weeks.

Whey. I saw a big vat of it in the store. Now you can buy it to use in a sauce or pickle things, or drink in a tonic. Isn't it a nasty dairy by-product leftover from curdling milk?

Scotch eggs. This is when you wrap cooked eggs in sausage meat, cover it with breading and fry it. Sounds more like Botched eggs to me.

Pea tendrils. When I think of tendrils, I think of Little Shop of Horrors. Octopi. Something alive, grabbing...I will say no more.

Pomegranate. I like the flavor of pomegranate seeds. But I'll be danged if I'm gonna go to the trouble of extracting them.

French macarons. They are supposed to be the latest pastry craze, taking the place of cupcakes. But they  are hard to make, involving meringues and such, and expensive to buy.

My feelings are echoed by Sarah Cox, editor of Curbed Detroit, who said,

"Macarons are faddish and stupid. So were cupcakes, but they were just the right amount of faddish and stupid. Do we really need something even MORE faddish and stupid? Any idiot can make a cupcake.. But macarons... now that is not the people's dessert.”

I Was Retro When Retro Wasn't Cool

I am convinced that I had a previous life, in the 1940's. It would explain why I am so old school. Why I have a fondness for "mid-century" design and for vintage cars, and out-dated control panels with chunky dials. And why the hell I was listening to Glenn Miller records at the age of 13!

 In this previous life, I was a volunteer rolling bandages for the USO during World War II. I was only 16, but I did my part for the cause and worked tirelessly.

My name was Garbo. My parents had named me after the actress Greta Garbo, hoping that I would take after her class and beauty. They didn't give me her first name, because they were afraid people would tease me, giving me the nickname, "Regretta."  They hadn't anticipated how my classmates would mangle the name Garbo just as readily, calling me "Garbanzo," "Hobo" and "Garbage."

I was a cheerful little bandage roller, dancing at my station as the radio in the warehouse played the big bands of the day. I just loved swing music! But my tender life was cut short one tragic afternoon as I rolled bandages, when a big stack of boxes, full of rolled bandages, fell on me and and knocked me dead. Cranial trauma. You wouldn't think bandages could be so heavy.

Anyway, I shot out of my body quicker than you could say "Loose lips sink ships." But at that particular moment, the radio was playing one of my favorite songs, so I hovered over the scene, and while USO staff struggled in vain to revive me, I listened. It was that Perfidia tune that goes, "And now.....I know my love is not for you....and so I take it back with a sigh, perfidious one, goodbye...goodbye...goodbye....goodbye......GOODBYE!!!!".....

 I couldn't stick around very long, because my soul was light and wispy like smoke, and it kept trying to rise. And that's the last thing I remember from that life. I guess about 19 years or so passed, and then I was sent back down in 1963, and given a new body---no small inconvenience for my mother! She had thought our family was already complete.

Though I was only a baby in the mid-sixties, I already had the soul of a young, teenaged girl, whose life had been interrupted. And so I quickly latched onto the pop music surrounding my toddlerhood, embracing the hippie counter-culture, but ever holding an odd, inexplicable wistfulness for 1940's swing. And every so often, it surfaces, just long enough to embarrass my children. The arm goes up and the hand flutters back and forth, to the long-ago rhythm of a big band tune.   

Red Letter Day

Today that family pack of ground beef I bought expires, requiring me to tear it apart with my bare hands and put it into little baggies to freeze for later.

Today is the day I replace the empty can of  Reddi-Whip.

Today we will begin to notice how much our dog smells.

Today I'll finally throw out that jar of hamburger grease.

Today I burn the last candle.

Today I'll receive back all the Girl Scout cookies our troop has not sold.

Today I'll take a walk to my dream house.

Today I'll master "I am the walrus" on Beatles Rock Band.

Today I'll begin carrying a notebook wherever I go.

Today I'll blow the dust off my fiddle. I won't play it, but I'll blow the dust off.

Today I'll sync my Ipod to Itunes for the first time.

Today I'll hang my 2012 calendar.

What Your Tea Drinking Style Reveals About You

If you are a tea drinker, you don't need costly psycho-therapy. Knowing how and what you drink is like looking through a wide-open window to your mind. Use the list below as a handy guide to common tea-drinking behaviors and corresponding disorders.

You boil just enough water for one cup. -- Narcissistic.
You dislike using a tea bag more than once. -- Obsessive compulsive.
You spray Reddi-Whip on top of your chai.--- Arrested development.
You turn your nose down at Lipton.--- Elitist.
You often burn your tongue.--- Self-mutilator.
You don't really enjoy your tea because you're wishing you had coffee instead.--- Emotionally unavailable; fearing commitment.
When the bag breaks and you find grounds floating in your tea, it doesn't surprise you.--- Nihilistic.
You have only steeped, you have never infused.--- Small-minded; fearful of change.
You drink English Breakfast only at breakfast.--- Neurotic.
You do weird things like put black pepper in your tea.--- Masochistic.
You reheat your cup multiple times in carbon-centric devices.--- Terra-cidal.
You pretend to like green tea even though you can't stand it.--- Lacking authenticity.
You drink tea as an excuse to eat biscotti and scones.---Eating disorder.
You never buy fair trade.---Imperialistic with genocidal tendencies.
You time with precision the minutes your tea has been steeping.--- Anal-retentive.
You use second-hand tea bags when making tea for others.--- Passive aggressive.
You careen wildly back and forth between black tea and herbal --- Bipolar.

Snow: Precautions and Little-Known Facts

When a winter storm comes, do exactly as the weatherman tells you. Heed all warnings. And take the following precautions:

Eat more. You never know when you might get caught in a drift, and have to live off your own body fat.

 Snow attracts wild animals. Leave scraps of fresh meat in the middle of the street to keep the roving packs from your door.

 No sleeping outside. Snow looks so nice and soft, but it's a silent killer. Resist all urges to cleave to its frosty bosom.

 Snow on the ground makes the air colder. This increases your risk of hypothermia, which can strike without warning. Therefore, be a moving target. Run, don't walk, to and from your car. If someone you know shouts hello and tries to engage you, toss them a hasty wave and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

 Avoid shoveling, constructing forts, and building snow beings. You might tire and be overcome with a powerful urge to lie down in the snow. See point no. 4.

 Dress to be seen. If you must be outside and on foot for any considerable distance--walking around retail parking lots, etc. -- wear fluorescent colors at all times.

 Be sensible. When discussing the weather with others, stay within cultural norms. Kate Bush notwithstanding, "shnamistoflopp'n" , "creaky-creaky" and "phlegm de neige" are not words for snow. *

If you get caught outside in severe weather, remember that squirrels are your allies and a valuable resource. Especially when cooked over an open fire.

Here are some little-known snow facts that may fascinate you:

Snow contains not only water but is charged with ion particles that intermittently heighten sexual powers.

Snow that you manage to catch on your tongue is weaker, inferior snow, and can make you sick.

Snow fairies are all around us, but hard to see because they have white skin, hair, and lips.

It takes more alcohol to get intoxicated when it's snowing outside than it normally does, so drink accordingly.

White-outs are not really natural phenomena, but are events engineered by the military when they want to move around top-secret, heavy equipment..

The town of Bledsoe, Ohio hires someone to go around and count snow men so they can pad their population numbers.

If you give your dog apple cider vinegar and honey, his urine won't turn the snow yellow.



*These are three of Kate Bush's words from her recently released cd, "50 Words for Snow."