It is Wednesday, the 19th of May. I am sitting in the quietude of the living room of The Bungalow, listening to the faint sounds of the myriad of birds, stretching their wings and warming up their vocal chords to serenade the neighborhood this morning. I cannot describe how lovely it is here on this dead-end street, perched above the bird sanctuary. And I cannot help but compare our 10th Street houses, full to the gills with kind and interesting people (and on a sunny, warm day, streets filled with flocks of playful children) to the homes of those avian counterparts out there somewhere in those kudzu-covered trees at the end of our street…we all line our nests as comfortably as we are able to, and bring food to share with our loved ones.
The Bungalow…we can’t seem to come up with any name other than that…we’ve hoped that something poetic or literary like The Whitman or Twelve Oaks (or, in this case, Two Pines) would reveal itself to us as a name for this place, but all that keeps coming out of our mouths is The Bungalow. So, knowing that places often name themselves, and also knowing that bungalow is as bungalow does, I think that The Bungalow is The Bungalow. I could be wrong about this, so we won’t be ordering up a shingle for the front porch, but I have a distinct feeling in my gut that The Bungalow has spoken…
Work is progressing on The Bungalow, and the Newton ‘plex is completely vacated now. The Bungalow living room (or front parlor if William Faulkner were writing about this entry) is painted, with furniture more or less placed. And the dining room is painted…yet still filled with boxes waiting to be unpacked or placed in other (unfinished) rooms. I am beginning to think that the boxes are getting randy every night when the lights are off, creating a population explosion of the corrugated kind. It is out of hand, I must say, but something that has to be lived with as we make progress in other parts of the house. The dining room will remain the holding room until further notice.
Slim and I took a break from work (he from his job, me from the house as I had taken a week of vacation to supposedly whip things into shape) this past Friday and headed North a piece to the mountains of Mentone. I am ashamed to admit that I have never been to Mentone before, but Kansas Slim had photographed the area on a couple of occasions, and some church friends had offered their cabin on the brow to him for the weekend. It was Rhododendron Festival time, so I envisioned masses of sweaty tourists filling the rhododendron-lined streets, snapping photos and jostling about. But no, that was not to be. Nothing turned out to be what I imagined it would be. Mentone during the Rhododendron Festival is rather sweet and not over-filled with anything, tourist or rhododendron. Slim’s friends forewarned us that Mentone during the Rhododendron Festival would be low-key, and they were very much correct on that description. But their “cabin on the brow” remark turned out to be an understatement. The cabin is actually a picturesque little mountain home with two bathrooms, a full kitchen with small dining area, a sleeping porch, an attic, and Direct TV. There is a divine screened-in porch off the living room, sporting another quaint dining area and a seating area of what amounts to be a herd of rocking chairs (Slim couldn’t help but query about a long-tailed cat). The property, which indeed stretches along the brow of the mountain, is home to not just the one cabin, but also serves as home to a rather large manor-like house (being built by the brother-in-law of the owner), a stone apple house, a tractor shed, and a third vacant house that serves as storage (and was purchased in order to obtain the stone apple house). Essentially, the cabin we stayed in was a small part of a rather large family compound…and we didn’t “rough it” at all out there in the woods. As a matter of fact, we had a splendid time relaxing away from the moving boxes and paint cans and lists of things to be done. We dined on steaks and salad, and desserted on a shared Napoleon. After dinner, we explored the compound, walking off our meal. Sleep came early and hard, the cool mountain air running me under the covers, the memory of a hard week of moving left behind, slipping away with the breeze.
Morning dawned, and brought with it a severe hunger for some vittles. The only eatery that I had ever heard of in Mentone was the Southern-Living-recommended Wildflower Café. Slim, who had dined there before, recalled the food being decent, but nothing to write home about. I found it to be about what we could cook up in our own kitchen on a lazy day (which would be healthy and tasty), but even better because we didn’t have to do it ourselves, and it was served in an interesting flower-child-like environment. When we arrived, a bluegrass band was warming up on the side porch, and the wait staff were all either sporting straw cowboy hats, or trying to decide whether or not to sport a straw cowboy hat for the day. Everyone seemed real friendly, staff and customers alike, and when a rather large and healthy dragonfly flew across our table and flung itself at one of the windows across the room trying to find a safe passage out into the cool shadows of the porch, Slim and I asked the customer who was sitting there if she would mind us raising the window for a moment to see if the big guy would fly out. She very helpfully agreed, and Slim strong-armed the window up. The dragonfly floated out (I imagined for a moment that it looked back at us over its shoulder and waved goodbye, but dragonflies don’t have shoulders, nor do they have hands with which to wave). I’ll have you know that Slim lost absolutely no man card points that day for letting a trapped dragonfly out of a window in a room full of women. Admiring eyes from every direction affirmed this notion, making my little ‘ole heart go pitter-patter at his chivalry. I rather proudly sat back down across from him and smiled the whole time as I waited on my Mediterranean Wrap…
And while I waited on that wrap, the kitchen staff were having one heck of a good time in the back, so much so that one of the waitresses had to go up to the “order up” window and yell back at them, “No sandwich profanity in the public area!” Now I’m no sailor, but I don’t think I’d mind sandwich profanity at all, so I was real disappointed to hear her order them to stop whatever it was that they were saying that may have offended HER ears. Personally, I’ve never heard sandwich profanity, and I felt it was a darn shame that here was a woman taking it upon herself to stop me from hearing it while I finally had the chance! I grumbled on the inside a bit, and never did hear anything said at all that could’ve been construed as profanity that morning, sandwich or otherwise. And to think that with all the schooling I’ve received, I’ve remained so uneducated. We returned to Gadsden later with me a whole lot rested, but just a little short on worldly knowledge of certain culinary cursing…
The other day I mailed my first letter. The mailbox on The Bungalow is made of iron, and is fashioned to resemble what I believe to be an old pony express bag, complete with “leather flap top and buckled straps.” Not knowing the protocol for sending mail from this Bessemered pony express bag, I clipped my outgoing mail to the front of the box with a sturdy clothespin (left there by Miss Mildred, who I assumed sent her outgoing mail in the same fashion). I did not realize at the time, but I had propped the top of the mailbox with the clothespin, leaving about a two-inch gap open. Early the next day, when I stepped out to sweep the porch, I noticed that my outgoing mail was gone, but that the clothespin was still propping open the mailbox. As I unclipped the pin, I saw moss and pecan tree schmutz sticking out from the bottom of the box. Stretching on tip-toe, I peered down into the box to spy the beginnings of a very soft nest for some animal-or-bird-sort of creature (one that, like me, enjoys a comfy bed). Indeed, we line our nests as comfortably as we are able to…
Listening to: Miles Davis.
Eating: The sweetest corn on the cob, ever (I say that every time I have the first corn of the season)!
Reading: Just finished Columbine by Cullen. It did me in. I waited a couple of years to read this for a reason. When I lived in Denver and was employed by JEFFCO, I worked with just enough high-risk teens from that school to know it would hit too close to home. It did. Saving my reading for the Russian Book Club now…ahhhh…(read with a Russian accent) The summer of the Russians...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Historic District Adjacent
Well, because I didn’t think finishing up grad school was enough work, I decided last month that I was going to buy a house, too. What I set my sights on was an 80 year-old Craftsman Bungalow located in an old, yet “up and coming” part of downtown Gadsden. “Up and coming” is code for a “mixed” or “diverse” neighborhood. Not the kind of neighborhood that most white Southerners driving through would stop and say, “Wow, I like the looks of that street!” As a matter of fact, it is the kind of street that honestly does have a “wrong side,” or at least a wrong section. What I mean by that is this: 10th Street is bisected and chopped up in a number of places by different streets throughout the downtown area. The particular side of 10th on which I bought, is a section bisected by Randall (Randall is the street that leads me to a number of my favorite people and places); it is the southern dead-end tail of South 10th Street. And although there are decoy houses at the beginning of our street (houses in ill-repair that make people think our street isn’t that fabulous), evidently this section of 10th is the good section; the bad section of 10th is a tiny bit farther North, and is…well, according to some folks around here, not as good, I suppose. Because I have friends who live on the not-so-good part of 10th, I won’t speak real ill of it. And I won’t speak real ill of it because I really never figured out what made it not-so-good.
Now, our part of So. 10th is really quiet. Our neighbors are a mix of young and old, singles and marrieds, blacks and whites, furred and feathered. This is a neighborhood where children play, dogs bark and people tend their yards. Folks stop by (as evidenced last night when across-the-street neighbors Janice and Nathan walked over to introduce themselves), and birds fly overhead regularly on their way to the bird sanctuary, which is a stone’s throw (a very steep stone’s throw) from the house. Not all of our neighbors are alive. There is an old cemetery in the woods somewhere a bit east of the dead end, and there is the beloved feline of the previous owner, Ms.Vinson who is buried in the backyard of our place. At the closing yesterday, Ms. Vinson’s daughter told me to be mindful if I do any gardening out back; they were not able to bury the old girl very deep. That is a piece of information I will heed. I feel it proper to honor the dead, whether it is two-legged or four.
The house was built in 1929, and is all-brick construction. There is a rather pastoral-looking full brick garage behind the house that is impossible in which to get a car, and a large fenced-in back yard that slopes away from the house (according to Ms. Brannon, Ms. Vinson’s daughter, the back yard was a peach orchard at one time). My two favorite features are the schmancy porte cochere, and the deep dark porch. I’ve been on that porch many times now, at different times of the day, and I have ALWAYS felt a cross breeze. Ms. Vinson rhapsodized yesterday about how when Mr. Brannon (Ms. Vinson’s first husband) was house hunting for the two of them, she never even saw the inside of the house before she agreed with her husband to buy the place. Evidently, while Mr. Brannon was looking at the inside of the house, she was sitting on the porch falling in love with the cross breeze. What Ms. Vinson (then Brannon) did not see until later were the living room, dining room, three-bedrooms (the third is small enough that one questions its distinction as a room), one bathroom boasting a jade green tub that looks like a spearmint throat lozenge, an efficient galley kitchen, mud room (which would’ve been a porch then), and spacious basement. The narrow plank oak hardwood floors, currently covered in carpet (but not for long), would have been exposed, and the plaster walls & ceiling, concealed by paneling and ceiling tile at the moment, would’ve been in their Craftsman glory. The yard is exploding with flora: hydrangeas, azaleas, nandinas, money plant, ivy, fig, forsythia, sweet shrub, and shamrock. There are two pecan trees in the back yard, and two enormous pine trees gobbling up the sidewalk and obscuring the front of the house (they will have to go, and be replaced with trees more suitable to the size and architecture of the house). Ms. Vinson must’ve become quite the gardener during her 53 years there. Slim and I will take up where she left off…
Listening to Parachutes by Coldplay and eating a good deal of fast food, which I will put a stop to once I finish up my class work in the next two weeks. Graduation is at the beginning of May. I will not be walking in the ceremony. More on that later. And yes, I really do mean that I will be posting to my blog more often. I’m surprised that my posting of this blog didn’t shut the whole innernets down…
Now, our part of So. 10th is really quiet. Our neighbors are a mix of young and old, singles and marrieds, blacks and whites, furred and feathered. This is a neighborhood where children play, dogs bark and people tend their yards. Folks stop by (as evidenced last night when across-the-street neighbors Janice and Nathan walked over to introduce themselves), and birds fly overhead regularly on their way to the bird sanctuary, which is a stone’s throw (a very steep stone’s throw) from the house. Not all of our neighbors are alive. There is an old cemetery in the woods somewhere a bit east of the dead end, and there is the beloved feline of the previous owner, Ms.Vinson who is buried in the backyard of our place. At the closing yesterday, Ms. Vinson’s daughter told me to be mindful if I do any gardening out back; they were not able to bury the old girl very deep. That is a piece of information I will heed. I feel it proper to honor the dead, whether it is two-legged or four.
The house was built in 1929, and is all-brick construction. There is a rather pastoral-looking full brick garage behind the house that is impossible in which to get a car, and a large fenced-in back yard that slopes away from the house (according to Ms. Brannon, Ms. Vinson’s daughter, the back yard was a peach orchard at one time). My two favorite features are the schmancy porte cochere, and the deep dark porch. I’ve been on that porch many times now, at different times of the day, and I have ALWAYS felt a cross breeze. Ms. Vinson rhapsodized yesterday about how when Mr. Brannon (Ms. Vinson’s first husband) was house hunting for the two of them, she never even saw the inside of the house before she agreed with her husband to buy the place. Evidently, while Mr. Brannon was looking at the inside of the house, she was sitting on the porch falling in love with the cross breeze. What Ms. Vinson (then Brannon) did not see until later were the living room, dining room, three-bedrooms (the third is small enough that one questions its distinction as a room), one bathroom boasting a jade green tub that looks like a spearmint throat lozenge, an efficient galley kitchen, mud room (which would’ve been a porch then), and spacious basement. The narrow plank oak hardwood floors, currently covered in carpet (but not for long), would have been exposed, and the plaster walls & ceiling, concealed by paneling and ceiling tile at the moment, would’ve been in their Craftsman glory. The yard is exploding with flora: hydrangeas, azaleas, nandinas, money plant, ivy, fig, forsythia, sweet shrub, and shamrock. There are two pecan trees in the back yard, and two enormous pine trees gobbling up the sidewalk and obscuring the front of the house (they will have to go, and be replaced with trees more suitable to the size and architecture of the house). Ms. Vinson must’ve become quite the gardener during her 53 years there. Slim and I will take up where she left off…
Listening to Parachutes by Coldplay and eating a good deal of fast food, which I will put a stop to once I finish up my class work in the next two weeks. Graduation is at the beginning of May. I will not be walking in the ceremony. More on that later. And yes, I really do mean that I will be posting to my blog more often. I’m surprised that my posting of this blog didn’t shut the whole innernets down…
Friday, November 20, 2009
Goldie Locks & the Three Chairs
This is an entry that I started a month ago and I am finally just now ending it. Mid October, Dad went into the hospital to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm repaired. The aneurysm was quite large, 10cm, and we were warned that the surgery would be as difficult, if not more so, than Dad’s triple by-pass surgery of two years ago. About a week and a half after the surgery, still not recovering as he should be, Dad’s surgeon placed a nasal gastric tube into his stomach to remove the fluid and air that had built up there. In the following days, Dad continued to grow even sicker from an unknown source of infection (all x-rays were coming back clean), until (about twelve days after the initial surgery) a team of doctors opened him back up for exploratory surgery. They removed a very dead and gangrenous gall bladder, and placed him in SICU. There he remained for another eleven days of close observation. He moved back on the eighth floor for over a week, improving a little more each day. We were finally able to spring him from the joint Wednesday. It was a glorious morning yesterday when I saw Dad emerge from his bedroom while I was drinking my coffee. It is too mild of a statement to say that I am glad he is home.
Here are a couple of the more humorous entries from Dad’s hospital stay, or the time that we like to refer to as Dr. Ferguson’s Science Experiment:
Dad’s doctors are an eclectic team, each with his own distinct personality and style. Dr. Ferguson is like a strangely confident and intelligent Kramer from Seinfeld, bursting through the door (almost skidding to a halt) with uncontained medical enthusiasm. Fergie, as my Dad calls him, always shoots it to you with the bad case scenario first just so that when things go blindingly well, you are thrilled to find that you are still alive. Dr. Vipul Amin, Dad’s GI man, is a spiritual yogi of a doctor who promised to not hurt him, and then didn’t hurt him as he re-inserted an NG tube back down Dad’s nose and into his stomach. “LOOK at me, Mr. Roark,” Dr. Amin commanded in his steady voice. “I will not hurt you.” He pushed the tube in. “That is the only discomfort you will feel. Look at me and focus on my eyes…” And finally, there is Dr. Alberto Echeverri, whose demeanor is so soothing, so calming, that you believe everything will be okay if he says it will be so. Dr. Echeverri is the type of doctor who will be walking with his colleagues, see you across the lobby and call out to you so that he can find out how you are doing and how you feel your patient is doing. He always takes time to talk about the surgical and healing processes, and he always wants to know how you as the caregiver are holding up.
And Dad’s nurses are like a major weather front of medical care. In SICU there is the thunder storm of charge nurses, Janie, who runs a tight, orderly and informative ship. Then there is LeeAnn, Dad’s heartbreakingly caring SICU nurse, who is married to the equally heartbreakingly caring Sid. Dad was fortunate enough to have seven days of care from LeeAnn, while receiving seven nights of care from Sid. The two of them together are a tornado of extra special nursing. On the eighth floor there is Joy, Candace, Kayla, and a plethora of other nurses who are like a full-on tropical storm of NG tubes, Jackson Pratts, catheters, IVs and spirometers. And then there are hurricanes Susan and Cindy. If not for the persistence of Susan and Cindy in the weeks following the first surgery, the second exploratory surgery may not have happened when it did. All of these nurses took such a personal interest in my Dad’s care, that they began to see him as family, and acted accordingly. They have been the truest good stewards of my Dad’s health. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
Now, in addition to Dad being down and out, Kansas Slim has had a bit of a run of bad luck, too. Last Sunday while warming up for a cyclocross race at Sloss Furnace, he took a spill and hurt his wrist. He was unable to compete in the race, and by the time he had driven home, the wrist had swollen to an unnatural size. His doctor didn’t have an opening until Tuesday, at which time it was determined that Slim’s wrist was probably broken. A visit to an orthopedist confirmed that yes, indeed, the wrist was broken…so broken as to require surgery. There were two options: apply an external fixator, or open it up for a plate and screws. Neither of the options sat too well with Slim, but there was simply no choice on his part. Surgery came and went on Thursday with the latter of the two options being the choicest for the injury. So, Slim, with a new set of internal hardware, is on his way to recovery. Things have gone well so far, but the pain has recently taken on a new dimension. I’ve never broken a bone, nor have I ever had anything screwed into one of my bones, but I would imagine that eventually a person who has had either of those things happen to them would experience a kind of pain that emanates from the bone in such a way as to make them want to bite that part of their body off. Slim looks as though he is ready to start chewing at his wrist any moment now…
I part with some words from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden that I shared with Dad recently.
Here are a couple of the more humorous entries from Dad’s hospital stay, or the time that we like to refer to as Dr. Ferguson’s Science Experiment:
22 October 2009 Day Three in the hospital with Dad.
Massive abdominal aortic aneurysm, 10cm. Planned surgery. Just got him from the ICU, and he’s adjusting to the room. He’s had difficulty breathing since last night, and is just now getting his oxygen levels back to where they need to be. We were schooled on how Dad is supposed to get himself up. He does it the right way when hospital staff are looking, and his own way when they are not. Had a moment with him earlier when he decided that he wanted to get back into the bed because it could be adjusted up into recliner form. He found the bed to be unsatisfactory after sitting there for all of two seconds, and decided that he wanted to sit in the real recliner across the room. Now the room is not very big, so this shouldn’t have been an issue, but FOR REALS this is the most cramped room ever, and when a drug-hazed Dad says he wants to do something, he starts moving, and asks questions later. It is just like a NY apartment, five rooms of furniture crammed into one room. I warned dad that the chair he was interested in moving to was a rolling chair, and that it sat no straighter than the bed. He wanted in it anyway. Had to move him out the other side of the bed, make him stand there while I moved his IV and fluids, put pads down on the chair and finally let him sit. He sat for about five seconds before declaring the chair to not be as comfortable as the first chair. Alright, Goldie Locks…
23 Oct 2009 Zapruder Tape, Part II, Take I
Off the IV for half a day now, and they are not giving him fluids. In fact, they gave him another diuretic to take off any excess fluid. He is dry now. Moved to a larger room. Bought Dad a small cactus garden to brighten up his little postage stamp of the hospital. On the card I write “Treat this plant like they are treating you…give it very little water. Love, your girls.” In addition, I thought a nice football shaped balloon with ALABAMA across the belly would be a pleasant touch to his accommodations, considering the Alabama Tennessee game tomorrow. Dad is catching some shut-eye, and I am enjoying a chapter of The Secret Garden when all of a sudden a gun-shot goes off in the room. I bolt upright, gasping for breath while looking around for Lee Harvey Oswald, and see no assassin, no gun, just the ALABAMA balloon falling flaccidly to the ground, gaping wound from over-inflation…I look across the room to the sleeping trucker, and he’s no longer asleep. His eyes are wide open and he’s looking at me. “Did you have the big one?” he asks. I stammer a moment, say something about the balloon exploding, and then ask him if he’s okay, does he feel lightheaded? He gives me a weak but almost conspiratorial smile and says that it didn’t bother him a bit, but wants to know if I’m okay. After I put my head between my legs, and breathe deeply, I am okay.
Dad’s doctors are an eclectic team, each with his own distinct personality and style. Dr. Ferguson is like a strangely confident and intelligent Kramer from Seinfeld, bursting through the door (almost skidding to a halt) with uncontained medical enthusiasm. Fergie, as my Dad calls him, always shoots it to you with the bad case scenario first just so that when things go blindingly well, you are thrilled to find that you are still alive. Dr. Vipul Amin, Dad’s GI man, is a spiritual yogi of a doctor who promised to not hurt him, and then didn’t hurt him as he re-inserted an NG tube back down Dad’s nose and into his stomach. “LOOK at me, Mr. Roark,” Dr. Amin commanded in his steady voice. “I will not hurt you.” He pushed the tube in. “That is the only discomfort you will feel. Look at me and focus on my eyes…” And finally, there is Dr. Alberto Echeverri, whose demeanor is so soothing, so calming, that you believe everything will be okay if he says it will be so. Dr. Echeverri is the type of doctor who will be walking with his colleagues, see you across the lobby and call out to you so that he can find out how you are doing and how you feel your patient is doing. He always takes time to talk about the surgical and healing processes, and he always wants to know how you as the caregiver are holding up.
And Dad’s nurses are like a major weather front of medical care. In SICU there is the thunder storm of charge nurses, Janie, who runs a tight, orderly and informative ship. Then there is LeeAnn, Dad’s heartbreakingly caring SICU nurse, who is married to the equally heartbreakingly caring Sid. Dad was fortunate enough to have seven days of care from LeeAnn, while receiving seven nights of care from Sid. The two of them together are a tornado of extra special nursing. On the eighth floor there is Joy, Candace, Kayla, and a plethora of other nurses who are like a full-on tropical storm of NG tubes, Jackson Pratts, catheters, IVs and spirometers. And then there are hurricanes Susan and Cindy. If not for the persistence of Susan and Cindy in the weeks following the first surgery, the second exploratory surgery may not have happened when it did. All of these nurses took such a personal interest in my Dad’s care, that they began to see him as family, and acted accordingly. They have been the truest good stewards of my Dad’s health. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
Now, in addition to Dad being down and out, Kansas Slim has had a bit of a run of bad luck, too. Last Sunday while warming up for a cyclocross race at Sloss Furnace, he took a spill and hurt his wrist. He was unable to compete in the race, and by the time he had driven home, the wrist had swollen to an unnatural size. His doctor didn’t have an opening until Tuesday, at which time it was determined that Slim’s wrist was probably broken. A visit to an orthopedist confirmed that yes, indeed, the wrist was broken…so broken as to require surgery. There were two options: apply an external fixator, or open it up for a plate and screws. Neither of the options sat too well with Slim, but there was simply no choice on his part. Surgery came and went on Thursday with the latter of the two options being the choicest for the injury. So, Slim, with a new set of internal hardware, is on his way to recovery. Things have gone well so far, but the pain has recently taken on a new dimension. I’ve never broken a bone, nor have I ever had anything screwed into one of my bones, but I would imagine that eventually a person who has had either of those things happen to them would experience a kind of pain that emanates from the bone in such a way as to make them want to bite that part of their body off. Slim looks as though he is ready to start chewing at his wrist any moment now…
I part with some words from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden that I shared with Dad recently.
“When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood…His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple…Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in a n agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.
‘Where you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow.’”
Friday, September 11, 2009
September Song
I was living in Capital Hill, Denver, CO. We were having a poetry festival that weekend and had writers flying in from all over. My sister and her future husband were visiting from AL. When I woke that morning the first plane had already hit...the second plane followed. I was stunned and confused...worried about my friends who live in NY, worried about our traveling poets who would've been flying out of NY that morning, worried about whatever was happening, because at that moment no one really knew what was happening. None of our frantic calls to NY were going through. The capital was a block away from my apartment, so my neighborhood was locked down. It was surreal. Later that day (or perhaps it was the next, the days all blended), my sister and I walked down to a neighborhood shop just to get out for air. In amongst the chachskis, I found a matchbox with a black and white image of the NY skyline on it. The focus of the image was the Twin Towers. I still have that matchbox.
September Song
Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
These precious days I'll spend with you
Frank Sinatra sings it best...
September Song
Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
These precious days I'll spend with you
Frank Sinatra sings it best...
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Destination: The Urban Family Cincinnati
The GPL reopened Monday after being closed since May 3 because of a terribly leaky roof. A great deal has happened in the past two weeks, most importantly, the birth of our wee Fleegan friend, Cash Dean Catoe. Cash was born in a rather theatrical way, after what seemed to be a pretty typical pregnancy, and the theatrics have only just now begun to subside. He’s a pretty little guy, with red lips and a massive head of hair, and when you hold him, he scrunches down on you like he’s trying to burrow into you. It like he’s not quite ready to be out of the oven, and he’s trying to get back in…
So, while the Catoes were in Birmingham celebrating the birth of 2.0, Slim and I were headed to Cincinnati, the city where I was born. The reason for the trip was to see some of my old Ithaca Urban Family, the famed Brian & Olga Davies. It had been about 9 or 10 years since I had last seen B&O. They had two children during that time, two children whom I had never met, Diego and Marco.
Heading out on a road trip is always fun; heading out on a road trip with someone who is as equally excitable and eager to gawk at (and photograph) roadside curiosities (like the big Brown Squirrel selling furniture in Knoxville, and the road sign for Big Bone Lick, and further down the road, the sign for TMI) as oneself is even more fun. It was a trip of unanswered banana phone calls to friends, and split second decisions to stop at a liquor emporium in KY in the hopes of finding the elusive Original Barrel Bourbon that I just cannot find any longer (freaking Brigadoon of bourbon). By the time we tooled into the Natty, it was after 6PM, and the temperature was blessedly in the upper 70s. We slipped along the lovely Ohio River, and turned into the historic O’Bryonville neighborhood.
The Davies home is located on the corner of a very quiet street that intersects with a very busy thoroughfare. The property is almost triangular, with a tall hedge of camellias cushioning the sounds from the busy side street, and a fenced in back yard where the boys play (while we were there, the boys rarely played in the back yard…they preferred the front yard, or the home of the neighbor, strolling off in their pajamas under the pretext of looking for lizards, and ending up in the neighbor’s house long enough for Olga to have to phone over to have them sent home…they were like the smallest neighborhood ambassadors, spreading their sunny cheer, reminding me of myself and my sister when we were little). The lovely two-story stuccoed house is over a hundred years old, boasts hardwood floors, tall ceilings, and nooks & crannies throughout. The kitchen is magnificent in its amenities. I stood slack-jawed at the marble cabinet tops, double ovens, a stove hood of sleek German line (name promptly forgotten), butler’s sink, and an espresso maker. A Breville espresso maker. An espresso maker that, in the hands of master espresso maker Brian Davies, produced the gateway cup of espresso that knocked me completely off the strict one-cup-of-coffee-a-day wagon. This espresso was soft, like a blanket, and rich in aroma and taste, like a bar of dark chocolate; not too acidic, not too caffeinated…just right. I wanted to lie down in that espresso, and roll in it…
When we arrived just after 6 that evening, Olga was preparing to host a new mom’s PTA meeting for Diego’s school. She was dressed to kill in a white fitted suit, black three-inch heels and a black t-shirt with hot pink lettering that read “Party Girls.” She looked like the third partner of Crocket and Tubbs, and if I had not seen her without her jacket, I would’ve thought she was strapped and packing heat. The PTA plan was to have a mixer featuring heavy hours devours and drinks for the moms…sounded like a PTA group I could get behind. Olga promised to return from PTA in time to have late drinks with us before we toddled off to bed. In the four hours that Olga was gone, Slim, Brian, Diego, Marco and myself walked hand-in-hand up to O’Bryon’s Irish Pub for grub, and then, under the direct request of the imploring Marco, toured Owl’s Nest Park. As we made our way into the dark park, heading towards the swings & slides, Diego made some remark about the bad people who stay in the park at night. Now, Slim and I recognize a parent’s scare tactic when we see one (the best scare tactic to use on Marco is to tell him that whatever bad thing it is that he is doing will result in him getting hurt, and will make him bleed…because evidently, a bleeding Marco is the worst thing in the world that Marco can imagine…and rightly so. A bleeding Carol is not very appealing to me), and wanting to continue into the park without causing great distress to the youngsters, we (including Brian) replied that as long as WE adults were there with them, THEY would be safe. It is only when little children venture into a park alone at night are they in such danger from bad people. The park was donated to the city in 1905, and was a part of a former estate. It is a well-maintained wide-open green space, with a very nice playground. The boys love it. It is a loveable place.
True to her word, after several hours of catching up with Brian, and getting to know the confident Diego and the painfully expressive Marco, Olga returned. We finished the evening off with home-brined olives, glasses of Luis Philip Edwards, and lots of stories. We fell into bed at around 2AM, an hour that has long known my absence.
Morning broke with temperatures in the upper 50s. Olga & Brian slept in while Slim and I followed Diego outside for some fresh air. As Diego searched for lizards, we sat on the front porch waking up. I began to shiver, so I got up to go get my hoodie and discovered the front door was locked. Marco stood on the other side of the glass, looking at me trying to get in, smiling. I smiled back at him, pointed at the lock and asked him to unlock the door. He reached and reached for the dead bolt, but it was not within grasp. With one of his many million dollar expressions, he became frantic at my being locked out and his not being able to assist me, and finally, he dissolved into tears. I told him through the glass that it was okay, to please not cry, but he took off up the stairs for help (I imagined the scene: him running into Olga and Brian’s bedroom, crying and ineffectively trying to tell them that Slim, Diego and I were locked out of the house. Olga & Brian would be caught in a Lassie-like moment when Brian would shout “It’s Timmy! He’s down the well!”). While Marco was upstairs trying to get help, the ever good natured and very cool Diego showed up from his lizard hunt and strong-armed his way into the side porch door, which, unbeknownst to us, had been unlocked that morning when the boys had exited it earlier. I confirmed with Brian later over the breakfast of “leftovers” Olga laid out for us (toast, lox & vodka cream cheese, caviar, and blueberries) that yes, when Marco came into their bedroom, it was like a Lassie episode…and they never could coax the plot out of Marco.
We spent the afternoon at Findlay Market, where Slim and I bought some Hungarian Red garlic and a sad excuse of a black & white cookie. The market was terrific, with locally grown produce, locally raised & butchered meats, cheeses & sweets, as well as soaps, lotions, salts and various other market wares. We worked up a very hefty appetite while we were there, which proved a good thing, for our evening meal (our last supper with the Davies before leaving the next day) was to be a traditional Puerto Rican dinner of beans, rice, pork and tostones. Now, Olga’s cooking is legendary; I learned a great deal from her when I lived below the Davies in NY. And I had spoken on a number of occasions to Slim about the cooking prowess of Olga as well. We thought we were properly prepared for the meal…but no one can EVER be properly prepared for the awesomeness of one of Olga’s meals. She had taken two racks of pork chops (unsliced) the day before, had rubbed them with olive oil & Sazon and left them to marinate. She also pressure-cooked a pot of red beans on the same day. Then, about four hours before we were to eat, she roasted the pork in the oven and reheated the beans on the stove. A pot of rice was made, and plantains were cut and soaked in Adobo water for the tostones. The cooking of the tostones was a thrill to watch; I had forgotten Olga’s methods for making the perfect product. Olga took the Adobo-bathed plantain slices and placed them into a pan of hot oil and cooked them until they were golden. Then she removed them to drain and cool, and flattened them with the bottom of a bowl. Later, right before we ate, she tossed them back into the hot oil to finish cooking; the end result was a crisp, flat tasty chip that the eater could dunk into an olive oil, mashed garlic and Adobo mixture. Dinner consisted of a heavenly chop cut off of the pork rack, a scoop of rice, a scoop of beans, some tostones…and some wine. This meal was (as always with Olgita) perfecto! I don’t think we were able to stay awake for too long after eating…we all drifted off into dreams of sailing down olive oil rivers on rafts made of tostones…
We took our leave very leisurely the next day. Intending to get on the road by 9AM, we finally pulled away from the curb at around Noon. Leaving was made less difficult with a promise from the Davies to come soon to Alabama for a visit. And Slim and I promised that we would not wait too terribly long to return to Ohio…one mention of my Aunt Marilyn’s farm across the river in Covington, a farm that also had a pool, perked the ears of Diego and Marco. Yes, I think Natty is moving into heavy rotation with Chatty these days…
Post Script: After much searching on the internet, I finally found Original Barrel Brand Bourbon Whiskey from Heaven Hill Distilleries in Bardstown, KY, availability in the US: Unknown. It looks like they don’t make it anymore…can you hear the tears streaming down my cheeks as I type this?
So, while the Catoes were in Birmingham celebrating the birth of 2.0, Slim and I were headed to Cincinnati, the city where I was born. The reason for the trip was to see some of my old Ithaca Urban Family, the famed Brian & Olga Davies. It had been about 9 or 10 years since I had last seen B&O. They had two children during that time, two children whom I had never met, Diego and Marco.
Heading out on a road trip is always fun; heading out on a road trip with someone who is as equally excitable and eager to gawk at (and photograph) roadside curiosities (like the big Brown Squirrel selling furniture in Knoxville, and the road sign for Big Bone Lick, and further down the road, the sign for TMI) as oneself is even more fun. It was a trip of unanswered banana phone calls to friends, and split second decisions to stop at a liquor emporium in KY in the hopes of finding the elusive Original Barrel Bourbon that I just cannot find any longer (freaking Brigadoon of bourbon). By the time we tooled into the Natty, it was after 6PM, and the temperature was blessedly in the upper 70s. We slipped along the lovely Ohio River, and turned into the historic O’Bryonville neighborhood.
The Davies home is located on the corner of a very quiet street that intersects with a very busy thoroughfare. The property is almost triangular, with a tall hedge of camellias cushioning the sounds from the busy side street, and a fenced in back yard where the boys play (while we were there, the boys rarely played in the back yard…they preferred the front yard, or the home of the neighbor, strolling off in their pajamas under the pretext of looking for lizards, and ending up in the neighbor’s house long enough for Olga to have to phone over to have them sent home…they were like the smallest neighborhood ambassadors, spreading their sunny cheer, reminding me of myself and my sister when we were little). The lovely two-story stuccoed house is over a hundred years old, boasts hardwood floors, tall ceilings, and nooks & crannies throughout. The kitchen is magnificent in its amenities. I stood slack-jawed at the marble cabinet tops, double ovens, a stove hood of sleek German line (name promptly forgotten), butler’s sink, and an espresso maker. A Breville espresso maker. An espresso maker that, in the hands of master espresso maker Brian Davies, produced the gateway cup of espresso that knocked me completely off the strict one-cup-of-coffee-a-day wagon. This espresso was soft, like a blanket, and rich in aroma and taste, like a bar of dark chocolate; not too acidic, not too caffeinated…just right. I wanted to lie down in that espresso, and roll in it…
When we arrived just after 6 that evening, Olga was preparing to host a new mom’s PTA meeting for Diego’s school. She was dressed to kill in a white fitted suit, black three-inch heels and a black t-shirt with hot pink lettering that read “Party Girls.” She looked like the third partner of Crocket and Tubbs, and if I had not seen her without her jacket, I would’ve thought she was strapped and packing heat. The PTA plan was to have a mixer featuring heavy hours devours and drinks for the moms…sounded like a PTA group I could get behind. Olga promised to return from PTA in time to have late drinks with us before we toddled off to bed. In the four hours that Olga was gone, Slim, Brian, Diego, Marco and myself walked hand-in-hand up to O’Bryon’s Irish Pub for grub, and then, under the direct request of the imploring Marco, toured Owl’s Nest Park. As we made our way into the dark park, heading towards the swings & slides, Diego made some remark about the bad people who stay in the park at night. Now, Slim and I recognize a parent’s scare tactic when we see one (the best scare tactic to use on Marco is to tell him that whatever bad thing it is that he is doing will result in him getting hurt, and will make him bleed…because evidently, a bleeding Marco is the worst thing in the world that Marco can imagine…and rightly so. A bleeding Carol is not very appealing to me), and wanting to continue into the park without causing great distress to the youngsters, we (including Brian) replied that as long as WE adults were there with them, THEY would be safe. It is only when little children venture into a park alone at night are they in such danger from bad people. The park was donated to the city in 1905, and was a part of a former estate. It is a well-maintained wide-open green space, with a very nice playground. The boys love it. It is a loveable place.
True to her word, after several hours of catching up with Brian, and getting to know the confident Diego and the painfully expressive Marco, Olga returned. We finished the evening off with home-brined olives, glasses of Luis Philip Edwards, and lots of stories. We fell into bed at around 2AM, an hour that has long known my absence.
Morning broke with temperatures in the upper 50s. Olga & Brian slept in while Slim and I followed Diego outside for some fresh air. As Diego searched for lizards, we sat on the front porch waking up. I began to shiver, so I got up to go get my hoodie and discovered the front door was locked. Marco stood on the other side of the glass, looking at me trying to get in, smiling. I smiled back at him, pointed at the lock and asked him to unlock the door. He reached and reached for the dead bolt, but it was not within grasp. With one of his many million dollar expressions, he became frantic at my being locked out and his not being able to assist me, and finally, he dissolved into tears. I told him through the glass that it was okay, to please not cry, but he took off up the stairs for help (I imagined the scene: him running into Olga and Brian’s bedroom, crying and ineffectively trying to tell them that Slim, Diego and I were locked out of the house. Olga & Brian would be caught in a Lassie-like moment when Brian would shout “It’s Timmy! He’s down the well!”). While Marco was upstairs trying to get help, the ever good natured and very cool Diego showed up from his lizard hunt and strong-armed his way into the side porch door, which, unbeknownst to us, had been unlocked that morning when the boys had exited it earlier. I confirmed with Brian later over the breakfast of “leftovers” Olga laid out for us (toast, lox & vodka cream cheese, caviar, and blueberries) that yes, when Marco came into their bedroom, it was like a Lassie episode…and they never could coax the plot out of Marco.
We spent the afternoon at Findlay Market, where Slim and I bought some Hungarian Red garlic and a sad excuse of a black & white cookie. The market was terrific, with locally grown produce, locally raised & butchered meats, cheeses & sweets, as well as soaps, lotions, salts and various other market wares. We worked up a very hefty appetite while we were there, which proved a good thing, for our evening meal (our last supper with the Davies before leaving the next day) was to be a traditional Puerto Rican dinner of beans, rice, pork and tostones. Now, Olga’s cooking is legendary; I learned a great deal from her when I lived below the Davies in NY. And I had spoken on a number of occasions to Slim about the cooking prowess of Olga as well. We thought we were properly prepared for the meal…but no one can EVER be properly prepared for the awesomeness of one of Olga’s meals. She had taken two racks of pork chops (unsliced) the day before, had rubbed them with olive oil & Sazon and left them to marinate. She also pressure-cooked a pot of red beans on the same day. Then, about four hours before we were to eat, she roasted the pork in the oven and reheated the beans on the stove. A pot of rice was made, and plantains were cut and soaked in Adobo water for the tostones. The cooking of the tostones was a thrill to watch; I had forgotten Olga’s methods for making the perfect product. Olga took the Adobo-bathed plantain slices and placed them into a pan of hot oil and cooked them until they were golden. Then she removed them to drain and cool, and flattened them with the bottom of a bowl. Later, right before we ate, she tossed them back into the hot oil to finish cooking; the end result was a crisp, flat tasty chip that the eater could dunk into an olive oil, mashed garlic and Adobo mixture. Dinner consisted of a heavenly chop cut off of the pork rack, a scoop of rice, a scoop of beans, some tostones…and some wine. This meal was (as always with Olgita) perfecto! I don’t think we were able to stay awake for too long after eating…we all drifted off into dreams of sailing down olive oil rivers on rafts made of tostones…
We took our leave very leisurely the next day. Intending to get on the road by 9AM, we finally pulled away from the curb at around Noon. Leaving was made less difficult with a promise from the Davies to come soon to Alabama for a visit. And Slim and I promised that we would not wait too terribly long to return to Ohio…one mention of my Aunt Marilyn’s farm across the river in Covington, a farm that also had a pool, perked the ears of Diego and Marco. Yes, I think Natty is moving into heavy rotation with Chatty these days…
Post Script: After much searching on the internet, I finally found Original Barrel Brand Bourbon Whiskey from Heaven Hill Distilleries in Bardstown, KY, availability in the US: Unknown. It looks like they don’t make it anymore…can you hear the tears streaming down my cheeks as I type this?
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tag Team Wildlife
I apologize for the long delay in blogging. School and work are getting in the way of my blogging time, and I regret that I have not finished my latest friends-giving-birth & fabulous vacation/travel blog entry. I promise that I will finish that entry soon, hopefully sometime this weekend. In the meantime, my sister recently shared some old emails I wrote to her and mom back when I lived in Denver. Evidently she thought them funny enough or informative enough to save for posterity (or maybe she knew I would be so terribly forgetful one day). I have to say that when I re-read this email, I had to laugh at what happened back in September 2002…September 7 of 2002, to be exact…and to marvel over the long-forgotten eight-mile hike that I took with friends that day in Estes Park. This email was entitled: Tag Team Wildlife
And so ends the story of Tag Team Wildlife...
We got on the road on time, and headed up to Estes Park which is where the Stanley Hotel is located (think Steven King’s The Shining). Didn’t see the hotel, but we did see a bunch of Highlanders in their kilts since the park was hosting their Scotch-Irish festival.
After parking in the lot and suiting up, we waited for the bus to come and pick us up to take us to the glacier trail head. The first part of the trail was really smooth and easy to hike and took us up onto a switch-back course where you could look out over the valley and see the mountains covered with Aspen trees just beginning to turn for Fall. The Aspens made a yellow stripe through the evergreen pines and it was so very pretty. The color of yellow the Aspens sported was the color of a squash, and the leaves on the ground looked like slices of squash, ready to be eaten.
After about a half mile, the trail became rugged, taking us around the top of the mountain. From that point on, the hike became alternately easy, then moderate until we got to the first lake, The Locke.
The Locke was (at its entrance) somewhat small, and opened out into the space between the mountains, becoming bigger and bigger in the middle, then at the other end becoming smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the waterfall region of the mountains where we were headed. We decided to eat lunch on a big rock overlooking the Locke. While I sat on my rock, Friend #1 went down to the waterside to eat his sandwich, where a beautiful Grey Jay flew down on a limb above his head to watch him eat. Then another Grey Jay flew in on the same limb to also watch him eat. I heard a scurrying up behind me and turned to see a chipmunk staring at my sandwich. I turned back around and thought about the warnings of “Do Not Feed The Animals.” Just then, I saw Friend #1 throw a piece of bread down on the ground for the jays to eat and thought, “Maybe we shouldn’t feed these birds because THEY, in fact, are animals...” About that time one of the jays bombed Friend #1’s hand, knocking the rest of his sandwich to the ground and in a flurry, snatched it up and took off. Meanwhile, the chipmunk was alternately running at me from different directions in what I now believe to be an attempt at making me think he was not one, but many chipmunks, and that I would become scared and give up my food to the army of chipmunks who were waging a war at me. Then, all of a sudden, a duck flew out of the trees and began to go after Friend #2. And when Friend #2 got up and moved away, the duck came after me! I was laughing almost too hard to move or defend myself. We decided to get the hell out of our peaceful spot of respite, and on our way out, we stopped to warn the hikers spreading out their lunch on a poolside rock to beware of the animals. We could hear their surprised cries and laughs as we got down the trail and knew that they had not seriously heeded our warnings.
We headed along the trail until we got up to a point of incline where the hiking was about to turn into rock scrambling and climbing, and decided to rest. We began talking to this lone hiker from Iowa who was a former art teacher and outdoors enthusiast who was now retired. And because his wife had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and couldn’t hike anymore, he hiked alone. Iowa would catch up with us periodically and pass, and then we would pass him, back and forth, throughout the remainder of the hike. While walking beside me, he described the glacier lakes at the top and said he would see us there. And then he took off.
The climb to the lakes was at times tricky, but we went slowly and made it to the first lake called Lake of Glass. Clouds had moved into the area at that point and we had to put on our hooded jackets to stay warm. As he promised, we met up with Iowa again and he encouraged us to keep going up to the next lake, the last lake, called Sky Lake. He said it was most beautiful, and that you could see the glaciers really well there. We all took off, including Iowa, and hiked into the top lake. Oh, what a site it was! The clouds moved out just as we were coming into the clearing, so the lake reflected half blue sky and half grey. The color of the water was a teal/emerald. There were rock pyres on one side resembling the Eiffel Tower, while on the other side were remnants of the glaciers. The glaciers looked like smooth grey glass. They were a lot smaller than I had hoped them to be (one dreams of enormous glaciers) but the drought had decreased their size considerably the last couple of years.
We enjoyed the sight and rested there at Sky Lake for about an hour, testing the water temperature (very cold) and eating a snack for return hiking energy and then began our descent. We lost Iowa for awhile as he took an alternate route down the mountain, but we caught up with him again and hiked together till we got back to the Locke. That is where I sat down with him for awhile as he talked about how much he missed hiking with his wife. This time, when we parted, it was for the last time. I’m sure when he got back to his wife at campsite that evening, he had a lot to say about those crazy kids from Alabama he met up with on the trail.
The rest of our trip was just getting home and finding real food. We had buffalo burgers and beer at the Wyncoop Brewery and then went home. I was in bed by eight.
I hope you enjoyed this tale, and I encourage you to share it with my lovely sister as I will not be typing this damn story again for her benefit regardless of how much love I have for her. I love and miss you all! c
And so ends the story of Tag Team Wildlife...
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A place where pork meat leaps from the bone onto your tortilla…
Before: You asked for what!?!
I can’t even recall when the seed was planted as my heart’s desire birthday gift, but I’m sure that the original soil would have been that fertile field which is the Catoe Parsonage’s back deck. And I’m quite sure that the seed would’ve been blessed by Mr. Catoe as it began to take root in all of our minds. Then, we would’ve watered that seed well with Pinot Grigio or Riesling or Slim’s home brew beer, or a combination of all three, and called it a night. Who would’ve thought that an honest answer to an honestly asked question would evolve from the seedling of an idea to the Sequoyah of reality? What do you want for your birthday, Carol? A pig roast. A Cuban pig roast…
I may have awakened the next morning after that conversation not even remembering hitting the lever of the wheel I had set in motion. I probably had forgotten the talk of Chef Wood procuring a pig, and Kris offering his back yard for the pit, because there had to be a pit, because I must have dreamily recalled my friend Olga talking about the pit pig roasts of her Puerto Rican childhood. And I probably dreamily recalled standing at her kitchen counter in NY, exactly one floor below my kitchen counter of our apartment building, listening to Spanish music, drinking sangria and helping her peel and mash hundreds of cloves of garlic to rub, with Adobo, into the pig she would be serving at her rehearsal dinner. Pit roasted pigs are not something you see every day, especially in Gadsden, AL. Pit roasted pigs are the stuff of legend (and I would later find out, the cautionary warnings to fictitious offspring of the ornery kind…”If you don’t quit hittin’ your sister with that two by four, the headless pig will get you tonight,” or “Ya’ll keep disobeyin’ me, an I’ll let that headless pig come and take u’uns away…”
So, I went for days, possibly weeks without thinking about a pig roast again. Then, one night while having drinks with the Catoes on their back deck, Mr. Catoe says “Well, the Woods think their house will be done in time for the pig roast, so we’re going to have your birthday party over there.” I sat there for a moment or two, contemplating the size and cost of a pig, size of hole for roasting, number of hungry people, where one can find a pig pusher from which to purchase a pig to roast…things like that. Slowly, I began muttering something like, “Um, what if we just buy some pork shoulders to roast? We can get a bunch of those at the Dixie, and not have to worry about finding a pig and digging a pit in the Wood’s yard.” Mr. Catoe, without hesitating, “Oh, but Chef is already on it. He thinks he has a line on a pig, and the yard won’t be landscaped yet anyway, so you can’t mess up what isn’t fixed. And Chef is really excited about this! He’s never pit roasted an entire pig before.” I glanced over at Slim, he sitting there beside me, looking at me as if I was, by suggesting we cook something smaller and easier than a pig, actually suggesting something so disdainful, I may as well have been suggesting we go out and buy the ten for ten dollars Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pies from Johnson’s Giant Food. Any further protestations died on my lips. My friends had taken up the gauntlet I had inadvertently thrown down. The pig roast was as good as done.
I will never know what took place behind Fleegan communication lines to make that pig roast happen, but I do know that Chef and Slim did some research unbeknownst to me. I also know that a very savvy looking invitation was created and sent out by Dame Catoe. And I do know that by the late afternoon of Friday, May 11th of 2009, Liz and I were helping Chef transport from the SUV to the tub of the Wood’s unfinished bathroom an 80lb. half a pig that Chef had just brought from Weaver to Southside. The pig was wrapped in white plastic trash bags, placed by Chef on black plastic to prevent fluid seepage into the back of his truck. Upon opening the back of the truck, the plastic-wrapped pig looked like the body of some unfortunate deceased hitchhiker, stowed away from prying eyes by the person or persons who had done him in. Liz and I marveled out loud to Chef over the eerie dead-body-like-ness of the pig, to which he responded, with a nervous laugh, “Yeah, the guy who sold it to me said that if I got stopped by the cops on the way back, to not look nervous…”
During: To dig, to set fire to, to rub, and then to cook...
The sun was just beginning to go down that Friday evening when we began digging by hand at the scar on the ground that Chef had begun earlier with some large earthmover.
On this old rock pile, with a ball and chain, they call me by a number, not a name! Oh, lord! Gotta do my time. Gotta do my time. With an aching heart. And a worried mind.
Slim, Les, and I dug through the clay farther and farther down, sometimes passing the shovel off to one another so that we could take a break; the Dame and Cookie Magoo observed from a careful distance. The freshly arrived Mr. Catoe, one week away from surgery, and keeping an eye out for the concerned, and possibly disapproving eyes of Dame Catoe, attacked the hole like a hungry man eating a steak. He took some off the sides, plunged into the middle and made short work of everything in between. I think that we all enjoy doing this kind of work. I know I sometimes miss doing it for a living. But my, oh my, it is hard work.
With the hole dug, and the obligatory mock crime scene photos of me laying in the hole taken, heating the hole up was the next order of business. Slim and Chef laid large flagstone rocks in the bottom of the pit, and then stacked pallets in on top. Various kindling was added, and the proper accelerant was drizzled on top. After backing away from the pit at least three times while Chef tried to light the pile (we feared the entire thing would blast itself out of the ground in a big ball of pallet-fire), it finally caught. What a blaze we had! Very prehistoric and terribly effective for the work at hand.
We then fetched the pig (named either Wilbur or Dinner, depending upon who you ask) from the tub, and laid her out to be prepped on an eight-foot table. I cannot describe the conflicting visions of both gruesomeness and mouthwatering tastiness as Chef, Slim and Liz injected marinade into the muscle of the pig. With marinade seeping from multiple puncture wounds, Adobo was rubbed into the skin, and the pig was covered with aluminum foil, wet burlap and then cradled in a bassinette of metal lathe. She was then slung into the hole, topped with sheets of plywood, and covered with a thin layer of dirt. As we walked away from the pit that night to go, tuckered out, to our respective beds, you could hardly tell that anything lay below the mound of disturbed clay in the Wood’s back yard…
Saturday, May 12 2009
When Slim and I arrived the next day to assist with additional party prep, Cookie was already hard at work, transforming the garage from house-building-storage-area to a Cuban cigar bar. Liz and Chef seemed to be everywhere at once, vacuuming in one area, moving things to another area…and the pig was cooking away in its pit in the back yard, filling the air with the most delicious smell. Chef walked out with us to look at the fissures that had formed around one edge of the pit. It was like a big Glade Air Freshener, except the name of this air freshener would’ve been Adobo Rubbed, Pit-Roasted Pig, instead of Pomegranate Spring. Chef commented on how the smell was so rich because, if you thought about it, all of the cuts of pork were cooking at once in that pit…the shoulder, the bacon, the butt…
By party time, we were almost in a frenzy, so excited to see the results of Fleegan ingenuity. It took the same three people who cast the pig into the pit the night before to pull the pig back out. Slim, Chef and Liz hoisted the steaming body from the pit onto a plywood stretcher and carried it up to the table. As birthday girl, I was given the honor of unwrapping the gift, which was now sitting in a rapidly forming pool of tasty juices. As I pulled away layers of foil, glistening meat began falling away from rib bones, leaping towards imaginary tortillas, imaginary pots of black beans. Wilbur/Dinner was cooked to perfection. That WAS some pig…
I found myself (as I’m sure many other folks did that night), hours later, belly full of pig meat, black bean salsa, guacamole, cheese puffs, rice, pie, fruit, and sangria, sitting at a round table in the Cuban Cigar bar area of the party, puffing away on a cigar. I was in my favorite place to be: that place of food, drink and conversation where you can take communion with friends. It was the best birthday ever.
Post Script: It took me awhile to get around to writing this post because, for days after the party, I felt that no matter what I wrote, I wouldn’t be able to properly do justice to what went down. But once I started writing, it wrote itself. I want to thank everyone who was a part of my Cubano Pig Roast Birthday Party. My heart is filled with great happiness for you all being a part of my life.
I can’t even recall when the seed was planted as my heart’s desire birthday gift, but I’m sure that the original soil would have been that fertile field which is the Catoe Parsonage’s back deck. And I’m quite sure that the seed would’ve been blessed by Mr. Catoe as it began to take root in all of our minds. Then, we would’ve watered that seed well with Pinot Grigio or Riesling or Slim’s home brew beer, or a combination of all three, and called it a night. Who would’ve thought that an honest answer to an honestly asked question would evolve from the seedling of an idea to the Sequoyah of reality? What do you want for your birthday, Carol? A pig roast. A Cuban pig roast…
I may have awakened the next morning after that conversation not even remembering hitting the lever of the wheel I had set in motion. I probably had forgotten the talk of Chef Wood procuring a pig, and Kris offering his back yard for the pit, because there had to be a pit, because I must have dreamily recalled my friend Olga talking about the pit pig roasts of her Puerto Rican childhood. And I probably dreamily recalled standing at her kitchen counter in NY, exactly one floor below my kitchen counter of our apartment building, listening to Spanish music, drinking sangria and helping her peel and mash hundreds of cloves of garlic to rub, with Adobo, into the pig she would be serving at her rehearsal dinner. Pit roasted pigs are not something you see every day, especially in Gadsden, AL. Pit roasted pigs are the stuff of legend (and I would later find out, the cautionary warnings to fictitious offspring of the ornery kind…”If you don’t quit hittin’ your sister with that two by four, the headless pig will get you tonight,” or “Ya’ll keep disobeyin’ me, an I’ll let that headless pig come and take u’uns away…”
So, I went for days, possibly weeks without thinking about a pig roast again. Then, one night while having drinks with the Catoes on their back deck, Mr. Catoe says “Well, the Woods think their house will be done in time for the pig roast, so we’re going to have your birthday party over there.” I sat there for a moment or two, contemplating the size and cost of a pig, size of hole for roasting, number of hungry people, where one can find a pig pusher from which to purchase a pig to roast…things like that. Slowly, I began muttering something like, “Um, what if we just buy some pork shoulders to roast? We can get a bunch of those at the Dixie, and not have to worry about finding a pig and digging a pit in the Wood’s yard.” Mr. Catoe, without hesitating, “Oh, but Chef is already on it. He thinks he has a line on a pig, and the yard won’t be landscaped yet anyway, so you can’t mess up what isn’t fixed. And Chef is really excited about this! He’s never pit roasted an entire pig before.” I glanced over at Slim, he sitting there beside me, looking at me as if I was, by suggesting we cook something smaller and easier than a pig, actually suggesting something so disdainful, I may as well have been suggesting we go out and buy the ten for ten dollars Swanson’s Chicken Pot Pies from Johnson’s Giant Food. Any further protestations died on my lips. My friends had taken up the gauntlet I had inadvertently thrown down. The pig roast was as good as done.
I will never know what took place behind Fleegan communication lines to make that pig roast happen, but I do know that Chef and Slim did some research unbeknownst to me. I also know that a very savvy looking invitation was created and sent out by Dame Catoe. And I do know that by the late afternoon of Friday, May 11th of 2009, Liz and I were helping Chef transport from the SUV to the tub of the Wood’s unfinished bathroom an 80lb. half a pig that Chef had just brought from Weaver to Southside. The pig was wrapped in white plastic trash bags, placed by Chef on black plastic to prevent fluid seepage into the back of his truck. Upon opening the back of the truck, the plastic-wrapped pig looked like the body of some unfortunate deceased hitchhiker, stowed away from prying eyes by the person or persons who had done him in. Liz and I marveled out loud to Chef over the eerie dead-body-like-ness of the pig, to which he responded, with a nervous laugh, “Yeah, the guy who sold it to me said that if I got stopped by the cops on the way back, to not look nervous…”
During: To dig, to set fire to, to rub, and then to cook...
The sun was just beginning to go down that Friday evening when we began digging by hand at the scar on the ground that Chef had begun earlier with some large earthmover.
On this old rock pile, with a ball and chain, they call me by a number, not a name! Oh, lord! Gotta do my time. Gotta do my time. With an aching heart. And a worried mind.
Slim, Les, and I dug through the clay farther and farther down, sometimes passing the shovel off to one another so that we could take a break; the Dame and Cookie Magoo observed from a careful distance. The freshly arrived Mr. Catoe, one week away from surgery, and keeping an eye out for the concerned, and possibly disapproving eyes of Dame Catoe, attacked the hole like a hungry man eating a steak. He took some off the sides, plunged into the middle and made short work of everything in between. I think that we all enjoy doing this kind of work. I know I sometimes miss doing it for a living. But my, oh my, it is hard work.
With the hole dug, and the obligatory mock crime scene photos of me laying in the hole taken, heating the hole up was the next order of business. Slim and Chef laid large flagstone rocks in the bottom of the pit, and then stacked pallets in on top. Various kindling was added, and the proper accelerant was drizzled on top. After backing away from the pit at least three times while Chef tried to light the pile (we feared the entire thing would blast itself out of the ground in a big ball of pallet-fire), it finally caught. What a blaze we had! Very prehistoric and terribly effective for the work at hand.
We then fetched the pig (named either Wilbur or Dinner, depending upon who you ask) from the tub, and laid her out to be prepped on an eight-foot table. I cannot describe the conflicting visions of both gruesomeness and mouthwatering tastiness as Chef, Slim and Liz injected marinade into the muscle of the pig. With marinade seeping from multiple puncture wounds, Adobo was rubbed into the skin, and the pig was covered with aluminum foil, wet burlap and then cradled in a bassinette of metal lathe. She was then slung into the hole, topped with sheets of plywood, and covered with a thin layer of dirt. As we walked away from the pit that night to go, tuckered out, to our respective beds, you could hardly tell that anything lay below the mound of disturbed clay in the Wood’s back yard…
Saturday, May 12 2009
When Slim and I arrived the next day to assist with additional party prep, Cookie was already hard at work, transforming the garage from house-building-storage-area to a Cuban cigar bar. Liz and Chef seemed to be everywhere at once, vacuuming in one area, moving things to another area…and the pig was cooking away in its pit in the back yard, filling the air with the most delicious smell. Chef walked out with us to look at the fissures that had formed around one edge of the pit. It was like a big Glade Air Freshener, except the name of this air freshener would’ve been Adobo Rubbed, Pit-Roasted Pig, instead of Pomegranate Spring. Chef commented on how the smell was so rich because, if you thought about it, all of the cuts of pork were cooking at once in that pit…the shoulder, the bacon, the butt…
By party time, we were almost in a frenzy, so excited to see the results of Fleegan ingenuity. It took the same three people who cast the pig into the pit the night before to pull the pig back out. Slim, Chef and Liz hoisted the steaming body from the pit onto a plywood stretcher and carried it up to the table. As birthday girl, I was given the honor of unwrapping the gift, which was now sitting in a rapidly forming pool of tasty juices. As I pulled away layers of foil, glistening meat began falling away from rib bones, leaping towards imaginary tortillas, imaginary pots of black beans. Wilbur/Dinner was cooked to perfection. That WAS some pig…
I found myself (as I’m sure many other folks did that night), hours later, belly full of pig meat, black bean salsa, guacamole, cheese puffs, rice, pie, fruit, and sangria, sitting at a round table in the Cuban Cigar bar area of the party, puffing away on a cigar. I was in my favorite place to be: that place of food, drink and conversation where you can take communion with friends. It was the best birthday ever.
Post Script: It took me awhile to get around to writing this post because, for days after the party, I felt that no matter what I wrote, I wouldn’t be able to properly do justice to what went down. But once I started writing, it wrote itself. I want to thank everyone who was a part of my Cubano Pig Roast Birthday Party. My heart is filled with great happiness for you all being a part of my life.
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