Hey Kids;
Your mother has been on my case for the last several months, wanting me to journal/keep a diary. As I explained to her, I only like writing for an audience. So I decided to resume these daily emails to you kiddies as a way to honor her request and keep my literary skills from rusting away. As I said yesterday, I’m pretty much only doing haiku from now on. It’s so obscure that no one can take offense at it. In fact, a reporter at the New York Times, John Schwartz, called one of my haikus today ‘nice.’ Which is a high compliment from any professional big city reporter. This is what I sent him:
an old skein of yarn --
golden bronze with long neglect;
stale wool smells like rice.
Does it make any sense? Not to me. I just wrote down impressions as they appeared in my mind from seeing a skein of yarn by your mother’s recliner. By the way, did you know we have 2 brand new recliners now? Thanks to Sarah & Jonny. They sold us their old ones. The only word for them is a Thai word – “sabaay.” Which means comfortable and more than comfortable.
I was teaching your mother to speak Thai during our daily walks at the Rec Center, since we walk a good 35 minutes each time. She learned about 28 Thai words, and some simple sentence and question constructions, but as soon as I taught her how to say ‘I don’t want to’ (may ow) she started saying that to me every time I suggested we learn some more Thai. Which is okay – we find other things to talk about now.
We talk a lot about food. Your mother and I watched a YouTube video on how to make Irish soda bread together. Then we went in the kitchen and worked on it together. I had previously tried to make Irish soda bread about a year ago but it turned out terrible so I dropped the whole thing. But there are days when I feel like I want to be doing more things with your mother than I am currently doing, and so I determined we would learn together and bake Irish soda bread together. Naturally enough, your mother did most of the work on the first loaf. Which turned out superb. You only need 4 ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. Then I started making the loaves, which looked like misshapen troll heads. Still, they weren’t horrible. Now that I’ve had some experience I make a loaf each day. That runs into a lot of buttermilk! And buttermilk is getting scarce in the dairy section of supermarkets around here. I wonder why? Your mother pretty much concentrates now on desserts. She made some Cheerios marshmallow bars this morning that look mighty good. I’m going to have one with my late lunch/early dinner at 4 p.m.
Next I think we’ll tackle donuts. Again, I tried making cake donuts last summer. I bought the donut molds and special mix and everything. But again, they turned out very crumby. Literally – they fell apart before I could get them out of the mold. So your mother and I will watch some YouTube videos, take notes, and try it again. Maybe this weekend, when she doesn’t have to work at H & R Block and we don’t have any rewrites to do.
That is, if no one kidnaps her for rides to the airport or for shopping trips. As you can imagine there are a lot of old ladies in our building who don’t drive. Up until 3 weeks ago they didn’t bother Amy with requests for rides. But then one of ‘em asked for a ride to the SLC airport, and the damn broke. Now every time someone knocks on our door I get a cold chill down my spine, thinking somebody is going to steal Amy away from me for long hours of pointless and boring shopping. Maybe I’m being selfish and unrighteous, but there’s a bus runs regularly half a block away and there are several good Senior rideshare programs available that cost very little. So why take my bride away from me? A ride to church I wouldn’t mind – it’s only 3 blocks away.
Oh well, it just goes to prove once again that your mother is a much finer spirit than I am. She is always happy to honor a request for a ride, while I do nothing but grumble about it. It might be different if these hitchhikers paid her a little gas money . . .
Well, at least we’ll get to watch one episode of Perry Mason together before she leaves for work this afternoon. I don’t know why, but the show keeps me enthralled – mostly by the look of the cars and the fashions from 60 years ago. The cars look like boats or rocketships and the ladies all wear white gloves and big ornate hates with feathers and ribbons. And the men all have skinny black neckties. Your mother and I cannot agree on the merits of Mr. Mason, as portrayed by Raymond Burr. During the intro he’s always looking up and giving a fiendish smile – I wouldn’t trust him with a bag of sawdust. But your mother insists it’s just a knowing and self-confident smile, meant to reassure the client. Me, I’m all for secretary Della Street and private detective Paul Drake. They are stand up guys – and gals. What we’ll do when we’ve finished watching al the showsl on Amazon Prime I do not know – maybe learn how to clog dance together. I tried to learn how to crochet with your mother teaching me, so we could do it together in the evening. But my eyes just can’t see well enough to count the loops. So I had to give it up. Still, your mother made me a pair of slippers. Very nice. Open-toed.
Right now your mother is sitting next to me in her recliner, eating sauteed greens with a bison burger. It’s making me very hungry, but I’ll wait until the soda bread cools off enough to slice – then have a thick slice with some sausage gravy and a fried egg.
We live like kings and queens around here, dontcha think?
Taa-taa for now, my little gerrymanders.
Love, Heinie Manush.
P.S. I’m emailing a photo of today’s loaf of soda bread to all of you separately.
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