Convenient Mess

 No one likes mess. But "mess" has big advantages. Most kids know about mess because they hear about it every day. "Clean up this mess!" Children aren't invested with the same standards of neatness that we adults are slavish to. When they spread their little block builders all over the floor of their rooms and leave them there, they have a reason. The very next day, they are going to use them again. Maybe. Also, I have seen adult messes that make sense. A number of women I know, who work and rear families and are active in their communities, have them. They do not have magazine kitchens with nothing on the immaculate counters but the glint of quartz. Their counters are littered, some would use that term, with cereal boxes, herbs and spices, cutlery and unidentifiables put there by small hands. We'll say nothing about the floors and their obstacle courses. They are real people.  I had a mother-in-law who came from an era in which when you, as she told me, knew you were going to become a wife, studied homemaking. She had a job but before she donned the veil, she got into housewifery plans immediately. It was in the days when more than likely, babies would follow close on the trips to the altar, therefore, time was necessity. When she got her kitchen, Mary, we shall call her, had the Hope Chest emptied of its china bits and bowls, white linens and pots, now all shining on the shelves. Not only that, she had her tins and jars of tea and flour and other ingredients lined up on the counter, where she could find them in her sleep if necessary. Going further in culinary efficiency, she scanned her recipes so that a month of nutritious and hand made meals were posted on the wall, alongside the essential calendar that hung large and prominent for all to see the house schedule. When I married into the clan, she did not instruct me, but her favorite line was "I know you have your ways, but this is what I find successful". The "I" was stressed and meaningfully so. When I got my own roof to live under along with her only son, she surreptitiously inspected the kitchen for its effectiveness. I was under observation. She told me that I could save x number of steps if I placed certain items in certain places, "but that is only if this were my kitchen". Stress on the "my". I wasn't annoyed, I was too busy with a career and a baby and a big house in a big community to worry about the comment. My mother in law made the best roast beef dinners with those greasy bun things that smell up the kitchen with beef fat, but are absolutely delicious. I never could make them. So much for housewifery. My desk in what I call my Lady Lair, looks a mess. It's my mess exclusively, now that I am a widow. My dear husband used to wind his unused pencils into elastic bands, and the inside of his desk could have been used as a surgery, it was so immaculate. Mine, is quite another story. My desk is littered, some would say, with its mug full of pens and pencils and scissors and yes, a comb and a nail file. I have nail polish and cuticle oil handy, as well as a little dish of my favorite licorice drops. Just in case. Okay, I admit, there is a land line phone to open the front door, a messy, yes, hard copy file of addresses and phone numbers, an old lamp, not to mention the printer and numbers of USB cords hanging down to impeded access to the filing cabinet with its paper files that few use any more but that I like to hold in hand. It's a convenient mess. 

Pretty Not Pretty

 The other day, an organization that is important to me gained a new, "fresh" manager. And things changed. Being a practical soul, all I expect for this group to serve me, is to keep on sending those vital pieces of paper or on-line information. I ask for nothing more than their reliability. But the new administration, all keen or what we used to call "bright and bushy tailed", had other plans. When their latest newsletter came   on hard copy that I thought I had refused, the one I  scan to see if in it there is anything actually useful before discarding.  Lo and behold, this issue, showed a large photograph on the front page of our new person behind the desk. Most of the rest of the page, lauded the individual's education and experience but went on to tell about their likes and family and blah blah blah. I am not being nasty but when I receive a business flyer, I am not interested in delving into every board members favorite sport or vacation spot or exotic university training.  Indeed, I am mildly interested in their name and their background but only that which applies to the job they are doing for me. Thank you very much. The new and I must say, flashy, CEO's picture did make a passing impression on me but not the one it intended. Who wouldn't be dolled up in the great suit and hair work I saw in the picture at the salary we pay this face?  I believe all the hype given, pleased the CEO much more than anyone else in the business. Having found nothing of use in the waste of tree,  into the waste basket it went with all the other daily extensive mess of advertising that the local weekly newspaper doles out adding to the pile of garbage to dump on some poor mountain side. The excuse for this kind of advertising is called "providing employment" while the earth moves steadily burdened by it, toward self destruction. Yearning for more important other matters, I tried to find out where to get my vaccine for Covid when that time arrives. I like to prepare ahead. On line, off I went. These days, when you put in a request for a specific kind of site, you don't get it. What you do get is a very long list of, yes, places offering the subject, but from everywhere in the world causing you to be sure the information isn't that of another country. Has that happened to you? Even if you carefully put in the address line, exactly what you are look for, up comes the listings yet again. Clicking on one of them doesn't get me there either. Yet, another list comes up to select from. Finally, I did come to a site that looked hopeful. It was governmental and I thought, at last I could depend on a practical, detailed page or so of information on exactly what I was looking for. I was searching for where in my area, I would be able to go and get that much anticipated shot against the Covid virus. What I got on line, was a lovely rendering with large titles and pictures, yet again, of smiling faces doing medical jobs but nothing else.  As I scrolled hopefully down the page, there were more  pretty pictures but no information about  where I would be going to get that vaccination. That is all I wanted. I am not interested in pretty pictures. Pretty is not useful. All pretty does is pretty. Why would anyone waste valuable cyber page space with pretty pictures and large type that says nothing helpful? It's our tax money here. Oh yes, there was a little cartoon face down in the corner telling me I could do  virtual contact with it. If you have attempted to communicate with a cartoon, you know what I mean.  If someone "out there" is listening, hey we are not interested in pretty pr cartoon folk. Give us real, give us phone calls, give us text and maps and graphs with actual, useful information. Forget  pretty. 

Creepy Crepes

 Living alone involves a lot of guilt. There are times when the something green growing on left overs insists I waste them. It just happens no matter how hard I try. Cooking for one is harder than cooking for many. This morning, during an inspirational spurt, I decided that the ideal solution to waste-not might be crepes. Crepes are not only delicious with something in them, they are also easy to make in the blender and you can use them in so many ways. One or two crepes become the ideal item for kitchen soloists. I love crepes, but forget to make them as often as I ought. Why? They are very easy to mix up, but you need to know how thick or thin to make the batter. Following a recipe religiously, when you cook or bake isn't always what works best. My recipe for crepes, as an example, doesn't call for enough milk. I like a thin batter. But I forgot that because I haven't used this recipe for so long. The recipe is in a tattered, very old book, I bought when food processors, mine actually, first appeared. It is a greater book than I thought, when I learned that you don't always have to use the food processor to mix things up. I like the whisk myself. It's therapeutic. Back to this morning. In went the eggs, butter, flour and milk. Whiz, whiz in the blender and I was ready to go. The pan is the right size, the element is hot, and all is in place. Now, I am the kind of person for whom the peanut butter on toast, when it falls, never ends up with the peanut butter up. Nor am I, your lucky cook. I am, therefore, mentally prepared when I stir and boil, for a general mess. My first dump into the pan from the blender jar was fine. But, the batter was so thick that it didn't swirl around the pan when I swirled. No. It stopped thickly,  so that the batter was more like a pancake than a crepe. Crepes must be be thin and flexible. This crepe was not. But I soldiered on. Before the next crepe was  poured into the hot pan, I added more milk, and next time, it did pour nicely. Not only did it pour nicely into the pan, it poured onto the hot glass stove top which caused considerable cooking to happen on outside the pan and not inside. Not to worry, after the second crepe that wasn't too foreign looking in the world of crepe, went onto the warm plate, I found I could easily, scrape the spilled batter off the glass stove top. Intermission time was rather lengthy. But I had once again, an immaculate stove top. The next few crepes went quite well until I noticed that there was a lot of gooey stuff at the bottom of the blender. Hmm. When you add milk to a batter, I forgot that you must to mix it in well and blenders have this metal whizzer at the bottom that prevents allowing for flow when it's not on.  But using an old spatula, I managed to stir up the remaining sticky mixture in the bottom, by adding yet more milk. Too much it seems. The next crepe looked much too thin, but I told myself that's the cookery game.  When the last crepe needed turning to brown the other side, somehow my peanut butter curse reappeared, and the crepe ended up folded when I flipped. Unfolding a hot runny crepe is not an easy fix. Especially when there is a very hot pan under it. But hot fingers and all, the last crepe and I got through. There is a happy ending. When I look at my pile of crepes they are beautiful to me. I turned them with the best side up. They're beautiful. To me. And I have visions of  strawberry ice cream or saucy shrimp or creamy spinach in them and me armed with a pie fork ready to dine. 

Bridge Psych

 Bridge is the Chess of cards. Since the pandemic, I have become not only an avid player but an on-line addict of it. My computer and I, BFFs now, are joined at the knee. And Bridge is part of the reason.  I play with real people whose identities are hidden behind the most remarkable selection of nom de plumes ever. Some "handles" are very exotic. Then again, since the golden ring of the anonymity of the anonymous abides, who knows? Bridge is a long learning journey. When I began the game decades ago, my partner suffered arduous sessions trying to quell his embarrassment with the other two avid players. Our work friends who played the game every lunch hour with my husband, gradually changed our socializing card game evenings to an eat-in gourmet dining club. And I was the reason why. I had no card memory at all. . But I didn't give up. I went to Bridge classes. The Bridge master had us display the hands and he went about trying to unravel for us the mysteries of the game. Unfortunately, he got into scoring games and conventions of Bridge and lost me. I quit. Those of you "out there" will becoming impatient that someone like me could be so, shall we say, slow. I couldn't fathom what the point of all these complications were in a mere card game. I used to play Gin Rummy. As to the scoring of Bridge, that was an unfathomable to me. Remembering what was played was seemingly an impossibility. I can't remember my SIN.  But when I no longer had to play with real people at a table, I discovered on-line Bridge and finally, I could relax enough to actually begin to see what was going on with these big handfuls of cards, suits, bidding, scoring, plotting and playing. Like almost any sport, Bridge requires a lot of practice. Practicing on people you know, is not the best idea. Feelings are involved because Bridge involves personality and psychology. When the people in your face aspect, was removed, I flew into the game with fervor. Now, I can determine during the first round of bidding, who has what. I can "read" what a delay in a player's move means. When the first cards are laid down, I know who has what in their hand. Or almost. I can guess who is a planner working out the entire game to come or the one who wings it. I know who is a whiz at play, who is The Thinker, who is the nasty fasty, who is the schemer, who is the dare-devil, who is the plodder, who is the bad loser, who is the renegade. Yes, they're all there. I learned who I am as a Bridge player as well. Good or bad, I fly by the seat of my pants. But sometimes I Kamikaze. I worry not about the total score. I just want to play each hand the best I can and as fast as I can. There is nothing more maddening than playing with someone who takes an eon to put down a card even when there is only one to go. Aha! I see you have had the displeasure of that type, too. I do not get into a tizzy about how-to-score. Being in a group like that, makes me itchy. I take chances. So I have six low cards, king high, sure I am going to step up and bid just in case my partner has those biggies. Rules go hang. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. I will bid my hand, no matter how far behind my score is. I love Bridge and playing it, not worrying about anything else but having the fun of the game. 

Not The Enemy

 In small towns, high school sports are serious competitions. At least amongst the teens. Where I went to school in a satellite city next to a metropolis, there were two high schools. One school, the one I attended because I aspired to university in some way I might find, was called the "snob school" mainly because there were no shops classes such as sewing and cooking labs or mechanical and woodworking shops. Only the rich could afford the luxury of attending university in those days and few scholarships or bursaries were available. I was determined to work my way through. The streets where I happened to live had wide boulevards, tree lined. Tidy sidewalks lay in front of the very large old homes with  back yard orchards or gardens. They were the houses of major company management and business owners of the comfortable old families. I wasn't aware of the "class" system when my family bought a gardener's cottage as our home in the town. It was behind the mansion of the richest timber magnate in the small city. To me, it was just home and my friends, while from the well established families of the neighbourhood, were my best friends and true. I loved being with them and was welcomed always as an "equal" in their fine houses. The two high schools in the area were at opposite ends of the education format. Mine was the academic school, designed for those aspiring to university, while the other, the technical school was where the so-called "wrong side of town" kids went to its shop classes that was its main draw. Otherwise the courses were the same. Their school was more modern and had younger teachers unlike our stuffy old masters. We had only academic courses at our school including Latin and Literatures. We didn't have a gym or sports fields. Both schools were fierce competitors, however, in basketball and even though we only borrowed the YMCA gym across the street for games and the Armory fields for soccer, we fought passionately and it formed the basis of our two schools' social lives. My sister went to Tech as we called it, and I went to the academic school. We each had different life goals. It wasn't anything serious in my family, other than a joking rivalry at the dinner table. But the rivalry was a serious matter among many of the town's teens. You wore your school's colours and styles; you hung out at certain cafes or went to different public venues according to your school. Basketball games had you sitting on opposite sides. You didn't associate with the kids from the "other" school or wear their colours. "They" lived in  different parts of town even. At the family dinner table my sister and I laughed about it. But during the annual snake parade through the town on our one main street, one year, the enmity became serious when our two separate "snakes" collided and fights began. Gritty salt was rubbed on faces. Teen emotions got out of hand. Thereafter, a kind of hatred ensued socially as well. Without realizing it, I was on a "side" and an "enemy". It felt unfair because I had no bad feelings against the other school. What a teen wore, where one lived and what colours didn't matter to me but it became an identity, one not favoured by the opposite school. I harboured a guilt over it, that I didn't own as I was deemed socially an "enemy" because of school basketball. I was not welcome with sister's groups of kids and if I met those of the other school, they crossed the street and giggled behind their hands. I didn't pick a side.  I didn't know them, nor could I understand how I could be an enemy just because I went to a different school. I knew, I was not the enemy.  But that's not how our world saw it.