Bali Ha'i is calling...

I spent the last weekend with family, which was glorious. The perfect visit, other than it was too short, as they all are. But I spent Saturday evening at a play, then eating pizza with my sister and husband, and I never have enough relaxing time with my little sister. Then Sunday spent the afternoon with my parents, and I don't know where the time went, but it was at least two hours later than we'd planned by the time we were back in the car headed south. Time with family should be measured in days, not hours.

Someone* once said "The play's the thing" and this last weekend that was true. it was the reason for our trip. My favorite nephew Branden was in the Bartlesville High School's production of South Pacific and of course he was marvelous (he really was). And Bali Ha'i has been in my head ever since.

You know, when I think of Branden, I don't think of the tall, lanky fellow who will graduate high school in either "13 days or three weeks" (as he told me turns out his days counted were only the school days so three weeks was the answer I was looking for). I think of little Branden, maybe three or four years old, running, climbing curtains, making noise (LOTS of noise)... the kid cleaned up real nice, with a sly wit (that I so appreciate), who teases with the best of 'em in the family. And my family IS a family of teasers. And he'd point out, right quick, that he's also my least favorite nephew. I suppose that's true, since he's the only nephew, but my story is that he's my favorite nephew and I'm sticking to it.

My dad was wound up after the play, started telling WW2 memories, most I'd never heard. Said that to my sister the next morning and she boggled "you'd never heard those?!?" and untactfully pointed out that Dad wasn't wound up, he was baked, as in three sheets to the wind, as in plastered, as in (fill in your favorite expression here). I had asked her if he had gotten that hard to understand or if it was my ears, she wouldn't speak to my ears, but put the fourth or so brandy as the reason for the mumbling. Duh. I didn't know. Live and learn.

Anyway, it was a great trip, other than being sore from the drive up and back. I had told daughter Lisa that I would only have a third of the backseat, that the dog would demand the other two-thirds and she just looked at me skeptical like she does. But 'tis true, Pepper likes to sit in the middle and the middle he will take, plus all the room on the other side of the middle, and will be disgruntled because I'm taking up a portion of HIS territory. And so it was.

The funniest bit was how Pepper would lay down, his rear end towards me, but with this back legs all crunched under his belly and his butt in the air. Then he'd make these great big sighs to show everybody how crunched he was and how I needed to find somewhere else to be. It would have been more effective if his nose was closer to the side door (usually there was a foot or more between nose and end of the seat) but he did make the point he was suffering. At one point he'd wanted to look out my window and I encouraged him to go ahead and look and somehow he got between my back and the seat and then went to sleep. Back legs all stretched out, happy happy dog. He's a pip.

It will probably be me alone going to Branden's graduation, it's Mike's weekend to work and Lisa says she needs every minute she can find in the office because of her FLDS cases. I'll miss them in the car, even Pepper, but I'll enjoy all the room!!

* Okay so I know exactly who said "the play's the thing," it was Hamlet planning to have King Claudius give himself away for the murder of Hamlet's father. I guess, actually, Shakespeare wrote it, but he had Hamlet say it. I said "someone" not because I didn't know but because "someone" just scanned better in the paragraph.

Angel Food Memories

(first published on CrossLeft January 31, 2008)

I made an angel food cake this morning, the diabetic's favorite because there is so little fat in it. Yes, I'm diabetic, one who always remembers and never forgets: SALSA is a free food. Bake a few low-fat tortillas in a low oven for a while, break them into chip-size pieces and eat with salsa, the free food, a snack even my endocrinologist would smile at.

But it's the angel food cake I made this morning, my husband goes in to work late today and he wanted a good snack. He's not diabetic but he won't ever turn down a piece or three of angel food cake. I baked it in one of those new plastic silicone pans, and it looks like the silicone didn't melt into the cake so I reckon it's a success. Mike (the hubster) was moaning because I said it wasn't going to come out of the pan until it was cool, and uh I was a little eager, too, so we devised a plan. We'd eat off the top crust while it was hot, then level off the cake even with the top of the pan, then call it a brand new dessert for supper. We figured the kid would not figure out what all she had missed.

But while we're standing there, picking off the top crust of this cake, and you know the top crusty part is the best part, we both remembered a cold afternoon from years ago. We'd gone up to Idabel (Oklahoma) to clean out Aunt Clara's and Aunt Sarah's gutters for the winter. These two great-aunts lived across the street from each other and our coming to clean out their gutters wasn't as altruistic as it sounds... mostly their gutters were clogged with pecans from their pecan trees.

So we gathered the easy pecans to gather (the ones in the gutters) and picked up a few, then Aunt Clara came out with a grocery bag full of pecans, saying she remembered we liked them (who doesn't??) and had just picked up a few for us. A few being the full brown grocery bag full. And she said Aunt Johnnie said for us to carry her over to Johnnie's because Sarah was already over there.

Now, out of all my grandmother's sisters, and she had a LOT of sisters, Aunt Johnnie was my favorite cook. Nothing diabetic-friendly about her cooking, which was surely why it was so awfully good. Her 'nanner pudding was the best in the world, I swear it was. So no problem, running over there. We trundled Aunt Clara into the (pecan filled) car right quick, and drove the few blocks to Aunt Johnnie's house. And when we got there, we could smell something sweet and good as we walked up the drive.

And yes! Aunt Johnnie had made an angel food cake... and her and Aunt Sarah were standing, pulling pieces off the hot cake, buttering them, and eating. So nothing else to do but help them devour this cake, and I had NEVER buttered angel food cake, and probably never would again, but there, that cold afternoon, with muscles just starting to ache from the unaccustomed labor, nothing would ever taste so good.

The memories are especially sweet, all my many great-aunts are with my grandmother in sister-sister heaven now, but to be there with those three, in my favorite kitchen of them all, pinching big chunks of angel food cake right out of the tube pan and then slathering butter on the cake, it is a memory picture to hold close to my heart. And the three of them talking, all at the same time, telling us and each other of family members not there. When that sweet cake was down to maybe an inch from the bottom of the pan (or top of the cake, depending on how you look at it), Aunt Johnnie declared it cool enough to take out of the pan, and then cut that very short ring of cake into five equal pieces, And we each ate our final wedge with our fingers and put the pan into the kitchen sink.

I wish I could somehow make a parable out of this, but that is beyond my skill, it's barely even a story. It's a slice of memory, no, not a slice, it's a big pinched off piece of sweet memory. One that on this cool winter day I share with you. What's your sweetest memory of people, places and times gone by? It's likely to be a picture, like this one of mine, that you have to make a word picture to share it. Do make your word picture and share it, if not here then with your family. Nobody else has it, it's yours alone until you share. And they are worth sharing, I do believe this.

So sit and think, remember back, let a favorite memory warm you today.