Reflections - Janeite’s Delight 

Celebrating Jane

When it comes to Jane Austen, I’m a fanatic.

I’d stood in Catherine’s farmhouse dining room and followed her directions.

“Spread your arms wide.” Having volunteered to sew a Regency dress for me to wear at a Jane Austen ball, Catherine circled me. “Raise them over your head.” Before taking a stitch in the actual ball gown, she tested the pattern by sewing a prototype dress out of one of her old sheets. “Bend forward.”

All the snaps on the back bodice popped.

Catherine mumbled. “I’ll change the snaps to hooks.” She scribbled a note. “Stand straight.”

Stretching into a yoga mountain pose, I gazed through the tall window at the March sunshine peeking through clouds. My fingertips brushed against the smooth, blue marbled cotton. Her old sheets were much prettier than my holey, dingy-white ones destined for a rag bag.

Catherine tugged at the skirt. “I’ll add two inches for the hem.” She jotted another note.

“Your  prototype is lovely. Good enough to wear at a ball.”

Catherine smirked, deepening her rosy dimples. “Wear it around the house.”

“I could wear it for Jane Austen’s birthday no matter what I do.”

We giggled.

In the nine intervening months, I reflected on my hasty remark. Wearing the dress to celebrate Jane appealed to me. The “no matter what” could be a problem. I kept my Google calendar clear for December 16. No hands and knees bathroom scrubbing. No swimming—well, COVID-19 took care of that. And COVID meant no tea party with friends. I would spend the day celebrating on my own.

You’ll never get the push up bra on by yourself.

Maybe if I kneel by the bed and lean into it.

Your breasts will flop out when you hook the contraption.

I can wear my sports bra.

That won’t look authentic.

For fifteen hours, I’ll need a comfortable fit, not an authentic look.

On December 16, Jane’s 245th birthday, I pulled Catherine’s prototype off the hanger and stared at the short puffy sleeves. I would freeze in the summer dress unless . . .

I pulled on long underwear and a black turtleneck before slipping into the dress. Reaching back, my fingers traced the empire waistband without finding the hook. I moved up and down, fumbling until I touched a smooth, hard button. Aha. I could use the buttons that Catherine substituted for hooks on the bodice . . . if each arm grew a foot longer and formed a second elbow.

“Spence,” I yelled. “I need your help!”

From the great room came his chummy, talking-to-cats voice. “Come on fellas. Janet needs us.”

Spence arrived with the three cats trailing him.

“Will you button and hook the back of the dress for me? I can’t reach.”

The empire waistline tightened. He’d found the hook.

No wonder Jane’s heroines always had maids. But who helped the maids? Obliging husbands like mine?

The cats wove around us.

“These buttons are slippery . . .and small . . . okay. Got them.” He patted my back. “You look like Jane Austen.”

As if! But buttoned in, my day with two celebratory events and whatever else began. First the cake.

With the skirt swishing and the arm bands snug against the layered sleeves, I hummed and cleared the kitchen for baking Authentic English Gingerbread Cake from the recipe provided by the Pittsburgh JASNA group.

At the beginning of December, I had checked the cupboards for ingredients. We lacked three. I could substitute olive oil for butter because of my lactose intolerance and skip the rum for soaking raisins. I didn’t want to skip the candied orange peels. The day before Jane’s birthday, I’d prepared the peels from two navel oranges. Scraping pulp, slicing peels into quarter inch wide strips, then boiling and boiling with sugar proved a sticky process.

Pulling up the image of the recipe on my laptop, I squinted at the tiny print and reached for ingredients—flour, molasses, brown sugar.

The brown sugar bag on the top shelf held a tablespoon of sugar. I’d seen a bag with at least a cup. Climbing onto a chair in the long dress could be dangerous. I tiptoed and stretched. “Did you use the brown sugar, Spence? I can’t find it.”

“It’s on the top shelf.” He moved Gilbert’s paws off his computer keyboard. “Kitties don’t use computers,” he said.

I waved the bag with the tiny amount of brown sugar at the man and cat.

Spence put his computer down and tiptoed to pull every bag off the top shelf. “Huh. Maybe there’s some in the basement.” He banged down the metal stairs to the cold cellar and shouted, “None here.” Returning, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want me to get some in Cochranton?”

“Yes. Please,”

He left.

Recipe from Pittsburgh JASNA Group

I lined cupcake tins with papers, squinted at the recipe, and fetched the other ingredients. Since my new sifter only held three cups, I sifted in two batches—two cups of flour, a tablespoon of ginger, and a tablespoon of allspice each time. Next I needed to cut the orange peels. Though they'd been drying since the afternoon before, they stuck to my fingers when I sliced them. I popped a strip into my mouth and licked each sticky finger. Tangy sweet orange exploded on my tongue. Squinting, I skimmed down the list of ingredients to find the amount of orange peel. Yikes! I’d misread the measurements for spices.

Spence opened the door. “Here’s your brown sugar.” He dropped the bag on the kitchen table.

“I made a fatal error. I used tablespoons of spice instead of teaspoons.”

He tucked a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “No worries. It will taste even better.”

Not as confident as Spence, I finished the batter—only catching one more mistake. I forgot the soda so put it in with a little more milk before stirring in the raisins and candied orange peels.

A heavenly gingerbread aroma floated out of the oven and made three cat noses quiver. When the gingerbread had baked, I set the cupcakes on the kitchen table to cool and covered them with a tea towel to protect them from Rills. He eats anything and everything without gaining weight—his only trait that makes me jealous.

With the gingerbread secure, I prepared for my second celebratory event, a walk in the Regency dress like Jane had done thousands of times. The outdoor temperature on the kitchen weather station registered 26° F (-3° C). Flurries drifted past the sliding glass door. Not the best weather for a summer Regency dress.

But all Jane’s heroines walk no matter the weather. Marianne Dashwood walked in wind and rain, Elizabeth Bennet walked through mud, and Fanny Price walked in extreme heat. I could manage the snow if I had more than long underwear to keep me warm. I pulled on jeans under the ample skirt, layered two thick sweatshirts, then added boots, a scarf, stocking knit cap, and mittens.

Spence’s and my boots left a line of parallel prints in a dusting of snow. A chickadee sang chick-a-dee-dee-dee to warn that people invaded its territory. A blue jay called jeer, jeer, jeer. Flurries intensified chilling my face and making me expect to inhale a few. I also expected the necessity of holding my dress up to my knees for the hike up Creek Road hill. Neither happened.

My boots never caught in the skirt. The skirt entangled my legs. With each step forward, the fabric wrapped my shins and calves.

Grabbing the sides of the skirt at knee level, I yanked the fabric away from my legs, spread it wide, and let go. Step, step, step, untangle. Sheesh. With the extra exertions to manage the skirt, I panted loud enough for the cats to hear back at Wells Wood.

Spence, who never pants, stopped three quarters of the way to our two snag turning point. “Do you want to turn around now?”

Give up? Not me. I could do this. I paused to catch enough breath for a weak “no.” Tugging the skirt away from my legs, I wondered if Jane’s heroines ever had this problem. The novels didn’t say.

At our turn around point by two snags, I gazed down the switchback hill and hoped the walk downhill would be easier.

As if defending itself from a kicking horse, the skirt continued to wrap itself around my legs. Together, the dress and I strode-strode-swaddled, strode-strode-stretched all the way to babbling Deer Creek. Exhausted like Jane’s heroine Anne Elliot, I was “very glad of” Spence’s arm to support me the rest of the way home.

Inside the log house, I brewed Twinings herbal tea in honor of Jane and bit into the Authentic English Gingerbread Cake.

Scrumptious.

Moist gingerbread with a tweak of sweet, tangy orange tingled my taste buds. Spence had been right. The extra spice made up for the lack of butter and rum. As if I were Rills, I downed four of the cupcakes before getting Spence’s help out of the dress.

It wasn’t the solo celebration I’d planned. Spence had to rescue me again and again. But, thanks to Spence and Catherine, I had a Jane Austen birthday celebration I’ll never forget.

Celebrating Jane with Ande

 Reflections - Possum Puzzle

11-28-20 Possum in North Garden

The possum puzzled me. It crouched on the north garden stubble and raised its chin toward the afternoon sun.

Bang. On this first day of the 2020 antler deer season, a hunter must have spotted a buck in our woods. Spence lets a trusted neighbor’s group hunt at Wells Wood to help limit deer damage in the garden. Bang.

The possum didn’t flinch. It played dead while keeping its eyes on my husband and me. We stood a don’t-disturb-the-critter distance away.

Unable to contain the obvious question, I blurted, “Why is the possum out in the daytime?”

Spence adjusted his tractor cap. “Maybe it’s sick.”

It’s rare, not impossible, for this nocturnal marsupial to be out in the day. In the last twenty years of visiting then living at Wells Wood, Spence and I had seen two other possums in daylight. 

On a sunny March afternoon, we’d spotted a trail of prints in the snow. Five thin digits straddled a line drawn by a bare tail. Heads bent toward our boots, we followed the trail through the north garden, across the old driveway, and around a hemlock tree.

The trail ended.

2-17-2007 Possum in Hemlock

Puzzled, we looked up and into the large black eyes of a possum staring at us. From a branch at our shoulder level, the critter had observed our every step. I stepped back in deference to the sharp teeth in its long snout, pulled my soon-to-be-drowned-during-a-creek-walk camera from my pocket, and clicked the shutter release.

Walking on another snowy day years later, a hiss, choo-choo sounded overhead. Our heads jerked up.

On a maple branch four feet above us, a baby possum glared, straightened, then sat like a statue. 

12-1-13 Possum in Maple

Both those possums had clung to tree branches. This one rested on the ground. “Sick” made sense. The possum watched me circle to take its photo just as the red hawk had before it died last July.

An orange clad hunter walked out of our woods and up the old driveway.

Spence waved to the tall man with a rifle slung over his orange-jacketed back.

“Maybe the hunters disturbed the possum in its den.” I took the cap off my zoom lens and peered through the viewfinder. “It looks healthy to me.”

The next afternoon, I inserted a photo—of helper-cat Ande holding down auditing paperwork—into my November 29, “Misleading Ledger” blog.

Spence’s tractor rumbled across the south field to the house. The front door opened with a swoosh. “Almost ran over the possum,” Spence said. “It wasn’t bothered by the tractor. It looked up and wiggled its nose.” The door swooshed closed.

I hit the publish button, grabbed my camera, and joined Spence on the deck. 

Below us, the possum wobble-walked with its pink nose millimeters from the ground. Oblivious to the gawking humans, it paused to scarf up morsels.

Spence folded his arms across his chest. “I hope it doesn’t go into Mr. Hooper.”

Spence’s portable hoop house gleamed in the sunshine twenty feet from the possum.

“It seems more interested in eating slugs and insects in the yard.” I rubbed Spence’s back.

“I hope it’s eating voles. They do a lot of damage in the garden.” He left.

The tractor rumbled to the garage.

I gazed at the possum zigzagging, circling, and making figure eights on the south lawn. Hunger drove this critter. When I moved to get a better angle of the possum’s tail, the deck floor creaked.

The critter stopped, played possum, but stared at me with bright eyes. Its white and gray fur lay wild-animal smooth. It resembled an alert cat surveying its owner’s peculiar behavior—not a dying animal resting in pain or exhaustion.

Bang. The rifle shot in the valley announced the first ever Pennsylvania deer hunting on a Sunday.

The possum didn’t take its eyes off me.

I didn’t take my eyes off the possum, but I blinked first and contemplated the possum’s reason for breaking its nocturnal habit.

Not sick. Disturbed by hunters possibly. Out in the day to eat definitely.

Inside, I checked my theories online.

Some facts surprised me:

Possums have fifty teeth, more than any other mammal.

One possum eats about five thousand ticks a year.

Possums night vision is poor so they find food with hearing and scent.

The reasons for possums being out during the day didn’t—sickness, disturbed by hunters or dogs, and hunger. Especially nursing females.

Our possum could be a jill. I did the math. If she got pregnant in October, the end of mating season, she would still have a litter of joeys nursing in her pouch. She would need to forage in the daytime to keep them fed.

Though I couldn’t expect to see the nocturnal animal three days in a row, I peeked out from my umbrella during the all day rain Monday.

She didn’t appear.

Nor did she emerge Tuesday and Wednesday when fourteen inches of snow fell.

“The possum’s holed up keeping warm and dry,” Spence said each time I reported I couldn't find her.

Whatever her reasons for staying in or venturing out, she can dine on Wells Wood garden pests any time.

11-29-20 Possum on South Lawn

Reflections - Misleading Ledger (Part Two)

Auditing Still Life

Spence returned from the October 12 township meeting, petted the cats, and said, “Veronica resigned.”

A hoot stuck in my throat.

Veronica, the second French Creek Township secretary-treasurer of the year, managed the overwhelming job by deferring to the supervisors or PSATS for every decision. Though her resignation boded well for the township, it meant the two other elected auditors and I had to balance Veronica’s books—when we finished the books from Zina, the previous secretary-treasurer who kept the infamous, misleading ledger.

“Oh my,” I whispered.

The elected auditors had already worked eighteen hours getting closer to solving Zina’s accounts. But closer isn’t to-the-penny which is how Nancy, the lead auditor, has accounted for decades. Because Nancy worried about the amount of time we were spending on the books, I offered to meet off the clock without Carol, the newest auditor who wanted every penny she earned from the township.

A week later, Nancy arrived masked and covered my kitchen table with spreadsheets of Zina’s state accounts. “It’s got to be one transaction in the wrong place.” Nancy added notebook papers with totals for each of the categories. “We just have to find it.”

Looking for a specific revenue or expenditure in Zina’s books was like looking for a naked hickory nut at the bottom of an acre-wide leaf pile.

And Nancy’s one translation theory didn’t hold up. We found two transactions—a bill marked paid but not paid and a paycheck recorded in the state account but paid with general money. That left an extra $1441.93.

Fingertips dancing on calculators, we checked the beginning bank balances, the ending bank balances, and the three revenues—liquid fuels (gas tax), turnback payments (road maintenance funds), and bank account interests. No problems. Nancy waved a spreadsheet. “The error had to be in expenditures.”

We added them for the trillionth time. Still off by $1441.93.

Butt numbing from hours sitting, I said, “Let’s check the bank statement against her printout ledger again.”

One by one, I read the amount of the check from the bank statement.

Nancy stared at Zina’s ledger. “Yes.” 

I put a blue dot beside Nancy’s orange check and Carol’s green dot. Every amount matched. Wondering where we’d find the error, I put the statement in the folder.

“Wait. There’s one more.”

I pulled the statement out and scanned the list. “All the bank entries are accounted for.” I checked twice more.  “I don’t have another expenditure.”

“There’s another here for one thousand four hundred forty—”

I jumped out of the chair, tossed the blue pencil over my head, and screamed, “Woohoo!”

Three cats scratched their claws into the hardwood floor and scurried to the bedroom.

We’d balanced Zina’s state account. Had we made her general balance worse?

The morning of October 26, Nancy’s cheery voice greeted me over the phone. “I got Zina’s general to balance within sixty-nine dollars. I want you to check my numbers.”

Hours later, Nancy placed her tote bag on my kitchen table. “Gretchen called. She asked me to come over because she had some questions.”

Gretchen, the third township secretary-treasurer of the year, had asked the head elected auditor for help? No wonder Nancy’s voice had sounded so cheery.

Ande leaped onto the table and rubbed his whiskers against the bag handles.

“Gretchen got the computer out. She changed the paycheck that was in the state account and should have been in general.” Nancy petted Ande and smirked.  “Gretchen discovered the books are a mess. Because she’s new and doesn’t want to make waves, she wants the auditors to take the heat for exposing the errors.”

“Great! We can work with her!” We’d already taken heat for asking the previous two secretary-treasurers questions. A little more heat wouldn’t hurt.

Nancy reached around Ande to pull notebooks and papers out of her bag.

Ande rolled then set his front paws on Nancy’s notebook.

She spread the general ledger and the check detail printouts beside the cat. With her pen, she pointed from one sheet to the other showing Zina had recorded two deposits and thirteen checks in August but didn’t make the transactions until September. Those fifteen misleading entries threw the ending August balance out of whack. And that was the month Zina had trained Veronica. I dreaded checking Veronica’s books—assuming we finished Zina’s general account.

Nancy eased the notebook from under Ande’s legs. “I need that. You can have this one.” She slid a folder back under.

Ande blinked but guarded the substitute.

While I checked Nancy’s detailed figures, Ande jumped down from the table and Gilbert jumped up. He walked across the calculator getting a percentage. I deleted that. But in each of four calculations without the cat’s assistance, I found a mistake in Nancy's 406 account numbers. “We’re off one hundred seventeen dollars and forty-five cents, not sixty nine.”

Nancy and I checked every revenue and every expenditure twice more.

Still $117.45 off.

“That ruins my idea of finding the sixty-nine dollars in the December-January transition mess.”  Nancy slammed her pen against the papers and pushed her chair away from the table.

Rills jumped beside Gilbert. The two cats sat side by side and stared at Nancy’s masked face.

I shuffled through papers. Obviously, going over the accounts one more time would be futile. “We need a plan. What should we do next?”

“Cry.”

Taking a deep yoga breath, I forced my foggy brain to think. “We could wait for the October bank statement. Zina’s transactions don’t always clear the next month.”

November 4, five days before the township meeting, I swept the porch, dug out the chair cushions I’d put in winter storage after our first laying snow, and set up three wooden tray tables. Though wind whipped my hair, the sunshine and 66° F (19° C) air temperature made a balmy day for auditing COVID-style on the porch. Nancy and I wore masks and windbreakers. Carol, the first-year auditor, came mask-less and kept her winter coat on. “I’ll sit by the gate. The wind’s blowing in this direction.”

Nancy pulled papers from her tote bag, secured them on a clipboard, and handed them to Carol. “Gretchen printed out computer ledgers for August 15 through October 30. Check Veronica’s state accounts with Janet. I’ll work on the general.”

Nancy plopped onto the love seat and pulled out more papers.

I grabbed the files for September and October expenditures. While I read the company, check number, and amount for each bill, Carol searched for the item on the ledger.

“This is confusing,” Nancy mumbled. “I’m not grasping it.”

Carol’s face paled.

“It’s Zina’s ledger,” I said to lower Carol’s concern. “Of course it’s confusing.”

 

“Actually, it’s Veronica’s ledger.” Nancy’s underlined a questionable category number.

After Carol and I finished totaling accounts and following paper trails, I said, “Everything checks out, Nancy.”

“Good.” Nancy kept her eyes on Veronica's figures. “Show Carol how to balance the state funds.”

“Okay, Carol. Add the opening bank balance and the revenues. Subtract the expenditures and you get . . .”

Carol straightened in her chair. “Twenty-nine thousand nine hundred fifty dollars and seventy-six cents.”

I gritted my teeth. Carol is the most accurate calculator of the three of us, but maybe she hit the wrong key. “Let’s try it again. I’ll do it too.”

Bending over our calculators, we did the math and both came up with—

“The same number.” Carol pushed her glasses higher on her nose.

Nancy marked her place with the pencil point. “What’s wrong?”

I rubbed my temple. “We have over nine thousand dollars too much.”

“Did you check transfers?”

Carol and I nodded like bobbleheads.

“Well they are treated as expenditures because the money goes to the payroll account.”

Duh.

After recalculating, I had good news. “We’re only short thirty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents this time.”

“Did you add the interest?”

I flipped through my notes. “We added the three interests listed on the ledgers for the three accounts.”

“You should only have two. September and October. Ignore August.”

Carol’s face morphed from worried to impressed.

We recalculated and matched the bank’s ending balance. I jumped out of the chair, wiggled my fanny, and gyrated to the beat of the wind chimes which would have earned me a hefty fine and a penalty if I’d been in a football end zone. Both Zina’s and Veronica’s state accounts balanced.

Porch Audit

We just had to balance their general accounts.

Carol left to cook for her church’s potluck.

Before Nancy left, she and I checked general revenues and expenses—ready to balance next time.

But Nancy didn’t wait until next time. Because she had left the two cartons of township records on the log table in my great room, she called daily.

“How many bills did Hillside submit for gravel in September?”

“What was the general checking account balance on August 31?”

“When were taxes last deposited by Berkheimer?”

My answers didn’t balance the accounts.

Wearing masks on November 5, Nancy and I squeezed on one side of the kitchen table while Spence unloaded groceries on the other side.

“I want to check Veronica’s categories with you,” Nancy said. “Then we can add her numbers.”

That accomplished, we calculated—off by more than three thousand dollars.

During the next week, Nancy called twice a day.

“I think I found the mistake . . . oh . . . no. That didn’t work. Never mind.”

“Did Byler’s Hardware send two bills or one in October?”

“Why is the number of John’s reimbursement check crossed out?”

In my dreams, I scoured the ledgers for three thousand dollars.

The next Thursday, Nancy petted Ande then handed me her personal spreadsheets for corrected revenues and expenses. “Grethen printed a trial balance. We need to match the computer’s categories with my calculations.” Still petting Ande, Nancy sat and read the first amount on Gretchen’s printout.

I scrutinized Nancy’s sheets. We reconciled several mismatched items then reached the 406.05 account. Gretchen had $43.82 more than Nancy’s totals. “That number sounds familiar,” I mumbled.

Nancy chuckled. “They do after a while.” She sifted through our handwritten notes of anomalies. 

I picked up the seventy-seven page ledger Veronica had given us and ran through all the 405.06 accounts searching for that amount.

“Found it!” we shouted in unison.

Nancy held up a slip of paper. “You’d written a note that the check hadn’t cleared.”

 

Finger on the ledger line, I said, “In December of twenty-nineteen, Zina wrote a reimbursement check to Dan for that amount.”

Nancy whipped out her folder of township minutes. “Zina reported the public auditors canceled the check to get last year’s accounts to balance. She must have zeroed out the check in the bank account but left it on the ledger.” Nancy patted my back. “You are a breath of fresh air.”

It’s hard to be a breath of fresh air wearing a mask in the kitchen. I blushed but Nancy couldn’t see.

We found two more checks the public auditors canceled but Zina neglected to remove from the ledger. That left $190.60 to reconcile.

Nancy packed her papers and walked to the door. With her hand on the door knob she said, “I’m going to meet with Gretchen next week, have her put all our corrections in the computer, and then we’ll check for that hundred ninety dollars. It can only be in one or two places.”

I waited by the phone. Nancy didn’t call for six days in a row. Was she sick? Did her computer break down? Had her husband been in an accident?

The Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, I decided to call Nancy. I reached for the phone and it rang.

“Hi, stranger.” Nancy’s voice sounded weary over the line. “I spent a whole afternoon at Gretchen’s. We got the corrections into the computer.”

“Do you want to meet to finish the audit?” I glanced at my mostly blank calendar to see which days would work best.

“No. Checking the accounts one more time won’t change anything.”

She had a point.

“The money can only be another check the public auditors canceled and Zina didn’t remove from the ledger or a transaction one of the secretaries forgot to list.”

Nancy was right again.

“We’ll find out which when we audit Gretchen’s books next February.”

Next February?

No more auditing until February?

I hung up the phone and yelled, “Woohoo!”

Ande Helps