Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall – Thanksgiving Calm

    Friday, our daughter Ellen walked in the door, accepted my hug, and dropped her suitcase by the kitchen table. She scrunched her eyebrows and, with her right index finger extended, pivoted left then right. “Are we having Thanksgiving dinner tonight?”

    “Yes,” I said feeling guilty.

    “But there's no chaos in the kitchen.” Ellen looked from her husband Chris lugging in another suitcase to her dad, her brother Spencer Charles, and back at me. “Everyone's calm.”

    Spencer Charles chuckled. “The chaos happened yesterday.”

    Her dad nodded.

    Actually the injure-myself hustle had started Wednesday. Between games of Ticket to Ride with Spencer Charles, I roasted a homegrown pumpkin and mashed it through the food mill. Not till evening, when I cut celery, onions, and bread cubes to assemble into stuffing Thursday morning, did I slice a quarter inch chunk of skin off my thumb. A bandage kept blood out of the pumpkin pie I baked before bed.

    Thursday, I jumped up from the breakfast table and fetched apples from the fridge. With an apple pie and stuffing baking in the oven, I set the timer and played backgammon with Spencer Charles at the kitchen table. Periodically I pulled the stuffing out of the oven and called both Spencers over to look. “Is it done yet?”

    Spencer Charles shrugged.

    Spence said, “It's done when you think its done.”

    Sigh.

    I stuck the stuffing back into the oven and waited for the bing of the pie timer to pull out both pie and stuffing. Next I roasted the turkey along with an experiment–two Jack-Be-Little pumpkins filled with applesauce made from Wells Wood apples.

    Avoiding my hustle, Spence waited till I flopped in the Adirondack chair to catch my breath before making his mashed potatoes and gravy.

    At a cozy three person dinner, I pronounced the experiment a successful failure. The Jack Be Littles' rich, nutty-squash flavor blended perfectly with the applesauce, but scraping the squash from the inside of the shell was too much mess and work for guests.

    Thursday's food tasted great but didn't invoke a celebrating Thanksgiving feeling. 

   Friday I'd only baked a double batch of pumpkin cookies to keep calm for Ellen and Chris' arrival.

    Giving Chris a welcoming hug when he set his suitcase beside Ellen's, I said, “I cooked ahead so I could enjoy your company. I hope you don't mind warmed up leftovers.”

    “Fine with me,” said Chris.

    Ellen pursed her lips.

    I gave Ellen another hug before pulling two containers and a covered platter from the refrigerator. With a minimum of hustle, I heated leftovers one by one in the microwave then put it in the oven to stay warm.

    While Spence cooked fresh gravy and heated frozen Wells Wood asparagus and purple green beans on the stove top, aromas of poultry seasoning, mashed potatoes then turkey floated from the closed oven. I set the table with the new log cabin place mats I'd sewed with a yellow center symbolizing welcome.

    All five of us sitting together and sharing stories over the meal filled my stomach and nourished my soul.

    It doesn't have to be chaotic to be Thanksgiving.

 

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall – With a Vengeance

 

Annette’s fourth Zoe Chambers mystery engaged me. Like her three preceding 

novels, Annette switches POV between Zoe. a paramedic plus assistant coroner, 

and Pete, a police chief. The murders targets first responders—firemen, police 

officers, and paramedics. Zoe and Pete are in the crosshairs.

The time span would have been appropriate for a short story, but Annette applies

maximum tension, reveals in depth personalities, and weave subplots. Her red 

herrings worked well. I didn’t guess the villain until he caught Zoe. Amazingly, in

the tense, morbid scenes, she adds humor. A master writer.

I’m looking forward to the fifth Zoe Chambers mystery, though if her publisher 

would let her, she could dub them the Zoe and Pete mysteries.

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall – Whack-Crack 

    With morning temperatures in the twenties twice this week, garden work slowed giving Spence time to cut firewood for the winter of 2017-2018. “I need to keep my baby Janet warm,” he said. Saturday afternoon, in yellow waders, a tattered red sweatshirt, and a red baseball cap, he loaded his tools in the tractor bucket and rode to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    The rumble of the tractor motor diminished, and I bit my fingernails. Would he blow up his shoulder again?

    Last November, pains had shot through his left shoulder, arm, and wrist. He applied Ben Gay, slept with a blanket bunched under the shoulder, and swallowed my arthritis-acetaminophen pills. Like a knucklehead, he endured the pain for two months before checking with Dr. Moore, his general practitioner.

    She diagnosed a muscle strain or bruise and prescribed a muscle relaxer. That didn't help. The pain was worst at night making it hard for Spence to sleep. On a second visit, Dr. Moore said the symptoms sounded like a torn rotator cup and ordered an MRI.

    In March Spence checked with Dr. Anderson, an orthopedist. After studying the MRI results, he said Spence definitely had a torn rotator cup. Surgery was possible but not recommended.

    Recalling the pain and agony stories of a friend who'd undergone that surgery, Spence agreed.

The orthopedist gave Spence a cortisone shot and told him to come back any time he needed another shot.

    Spence had one question. “Can I still split wood?”

    “If you don't want to be in pain,” Dr. Anderson said, “buy a wood splitter.”

    He probably wasn't recommending a hand tool.

    This September, Spence ordered a light weight Fiskars X27 Super SplittingAxe. When the Amazon shipping carton arrived, he pulled the axe out, reverently unsnapped the blade cover, and held the axe toward me. “Look, it has wings.”

    I didn't see any wings. “Where?”

    He fingered the axe head where it flared into a slight wedge. “Wings turn an axe into a splitting axe. Wood splits with one stroke.”

    Saturday morning, he invited me to the end of the south field. Beside the wood pallet, maple logs lay scattered across the grass. He balanced a log on end, raised his axe, swung, and whack-crack, the log split in two. Amazing. He repeated the balance, whack-crack miracle again and again until his Tom-Sawyer act got me.

    “Let me try,” I said reaching for the axe.

    He stacked the cut logs on the pallet.

    I set a six inch diameter log on end, swung, and whack-crack–the log split. No jarring or shoulder pain. A miracle. I swung three times and split three logs. I should have stopped then.

    On successive tries, logs wobbled. I missed my target, and the blade dug into sod releasing a moist-soil fragrance. I also bounced the axe off some dense maple logs and jarred my shoulders. After no success with particularity hard maple log, I handed the axe to Spence.

    He swung at the stubborn log.

    The splitting axe stuck in the dense wood.

    He hammered in a wedge to free the axe. The wedge stuck too.

    I lost count somewhere around fifty of how many hammer strokes it took to free the axe then the wedge, and finally split the log. I wasn't disappointed I hadn't split that gnarled log with one stroke but wondered about the shoulder Spence had blown up.

    Later, after a lunch break, Spence drove the tractor with his tools in the bucket to the maple with three trunks that had fallen across Deer Creek.

    Fingernails bitten short, I scuffed dry leaves and followed with my camera.

    He splashed across the creek, revved his chain saw, and cut through maple branches. Saw dust flew, and aroma of maple reached me on the other bank.

    He tossed thin branches into a brush pile and threw cut logs to the island. When he had enough cut off, he climbed down the bank into the creek and pulled the ten foot maple branch onto the island. He cut more logs. Panting, he stacked the logs on a fallen maple trunk, ducked under, transferred the logs to the next trunk, stepped over, and carried the logs to the tractor bucket.

    “Why don't you stop for a water break?” I didn't want him to aggravate his rotator cup. “You could use a rest.”

    “I am resting,” he said. “Carrying logs is resting from the heavy work.”

    Had he blown up his shoulder again?

    “It aches,” he said Sunday morning. “But it always aches.”

Reflections on the Seventh Week of Fall – Uncle Jim

    Uncle Jim, the last of my dad's generation, died at age ninety-three on Monday. An empty sadness distracted me Tuesday morning while adding toppings to my breakfast oatmeal. Thoughts of how he valued people, loved his family, and smiled when he listened to whatever I had to say, swirled in my foggy mind, and I searched in vain for the walnuts in the cupboard. Thursday, recalling snippets of Uncle Jim fixing motors, riding tractors, and admiring nature, I reached for the almond milk in the fridge and picked up the misplaced, chilled walnuts.

    During the unfocused week, my mind kept settling on two Uncle Jim boat stories and a question. Was Uncle Jim really buck naked in Presque Isle Bay?

    Jim never told stories about fixing motors on navy ships in WWII, but Dad, the older brother, told the story of them rowing across Presque Isle Bay. Their boat swamped. Dad wore swim trunks, but Uncle Jim wore clothes. With much chuckling, Dad said Jim stripped and jumped into the water buck naked. They treaded water till a neighbor came along and pulled them into his boat.

    “But Dad,” I'd said. “Did Uncle Jim have to walk home naked?”

    Smiling indulgently, Dad shook his head. “The neighbor had extra clothes.”

    After Dad died, I wanted to hear Jim's version of the story to decide if Dad had just been teasing me or if Jim had really treaded water buck naked. I got my chance one Sunday afternoon when Jim sat on my front porch. I asked, “When the rowboat swamped and dumped you and Dad into the bay, were you really buck naked?”

    Uncle Jim's lips twitched. He chuckled softly, gazed into the woods, but didn't answer my question. Instead he said, “That isn't the best boat story.”

    Jim told the story of taking his grandsons Russell and Nate, aged nine and seven at the time, fishing on Canadohta Lake in a motor boat. The outboard motor stalled. When it restarted, the boat jerked, and Jim flew overboard. He surfaced. The boat whipped around in tight circles. Jim waited for the boat to come around, grabbed the side, and wondered if he'd have the strength to hang on until the gas tank emptied.

    At the funeral this week, I asked Russell and Nate, now forty and thirty-eight, about their wild boat ride with Uncle Jim.

    Nate beamed and smiled from ear to ear. “While he stood and started the motor,” Nate bent, pulled an imaginary cord, and continued, “he told me, 'Never stand and start the boat, Nate.'”

    Russell whirled his finger in tight circles. “We were terrified whirling in circles.”

    Because Jim hadn't told me the end of the story, I asked, “Did another boat come to your rescue?

    “No.” Russell grinned and shrugged. “Somehow he shut the motor off from under the boat.”

    Nate chuckled and sniffed back tears. “He was my superhero. I thought he could fix anything.” Nate paused to stifle a sob. “I've never been tempted to stand and start a motor. I learned that lesson from him.”

    Wiping my eyes while an American Legion soldier played “Taps” on his bugle, I wondered if my nieces and nephews will have learned lessons of humility, persistence, and dedication to family from me.

    I'll miss Uncle Jim.

    And I'll always wear presentable underwear when I'm in a boat.