Peggy, I Get It

Years ago Dennis went around Douglas County looking at old buildings and interviewing their owners. The most interesting person he met was an invalid old woman, who was widely known in Kansas as Peggy of the Flint Hills. That was her pen name for the column she wrote for the Topeka Capitol Journal for 55 years.

In spite of being locally famous, she somehow ended up living alone in a stone cottage in rural Douglas County with numerous cats. Peggy was mostly bedfast but the cats weren’t. There was no litter box so the floors were a mess. 

Peggy didn’t seem to care that her life circumstances were less than ideal because she had her books, probably collected throughout her career as a journalist. She was reading them over again, one by one, and when she finished one she gave it away to a visitor. Handing Dennis a book, Peggy remarked, “When they are all gone, I will die.”

At the time I didn’t greatly understand Peggy. I was rather disapproving of her situation, but now I have become an old woman, I identify closely with her. I can’t travel anymore, and if truth be known, I wouldn’t care to even if I could. 

Why put myself through the hassles of travel when I can sit in my comfortable chair with a cup of coffee and open a book. Through a book I visit any place in the world, meet people of every culture, and even travel through time backward or forward.

I never met Peggy and don’t even know her real name. I can only guess that she died, happy with her books. I hope that only a few of them remained in her library. I do sort of wonder what became of her cats.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer

Past the Cusp

Past the cusp of transition into being elderly, I’m now acutely aware of things one needs in order to be active when one reaches this stage. 

Bill gave me a cane years ago, when I was traveling by air and needed some support walking long corridors, Except for that use, I left it propped against a corner in the dining room. Now that has changed. The cane, awkward as it is to handle, has become my frequent companion when I go out. I drop it, it’s hard to fit into the car beside me, and finding a way to keep it accessible when I sit is not easy. It's made to collapse in length, which would be handy, but my hands aren't strong enough to fold it. Those inconveniences, though, aren’t enough to discourage me from using it. 

Holding the handle of a grocery cart is also good at giving me stability while cruising the aisles. Thanks to grocery carts, grocery shopping ha my main form of exercise.

Grab bars in the shower now are indispensible, whereas they used to be a convenience.

I bought a button hook (useless) and nail clippers for designed for handicapped people (also useless ). 

These things are just the tip of an ever-growing iceberg. Recently I bought a rolling walker that has a seat where I can rest when the back pain becomes overwhelming. I’ve had my eye on those for over a year, after seeing an elderly man resting on one during an evening walk. and recently meeting a woman at the grocery store who graciously let me try hers for a moment. Walking with it is as easy as walking a grocery cart. The down side is that I can’t lift it in and out of the car, but when Dennis and I go together, he will do that for me. I’m very lucky to be married to that good man.

Yesterday, UPS delivered another enabler. This time it’s a lumbar brace. I’ve hesitated to open and try it on because the packaging pictures a man with body-builder muscles modeling one. If the model were a frail old woman, I wouldn’t hesitate to try it on. But I know when back pain interferes with my meal preparation, on it will go, if my crippled  hands can use the Velcro fasteners.

That’s the trouble with the design of many “enablers;” often they don’t work. The designers didn’t consider all the forms of disability. Sometimes I wonder if they were even tested. 

If only I had a 3-D printer, I could custom design my own enablers as well as some for my friends.

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer 

El Nino, the Spoiler

When Halloween is over, many older Americans head south, seeking sunshine and warmth for the cold northern winter months. They call us “Snowbirds,” because, like many birds, we fly south.

Normally this is a good solution for bones that creak and muscles that ache in cold weather. We bask in southern sunshine and count ourselves lucky to be here.

This year, though, we aren’t so lucky, for El Nino has intervened. El Nino is the weather pattern that brings one cold front after another roaring in from the Pacific Ocean, clouding the skies and dropping rain on the Sonoran Desert. 

Our neighbor Val Bay shared his photo that tells the tale of Tucson skies this winter.

This cloudy weather is a reminder of how lucky we are to be here most years. We can be thankful that El Nino won’t last forever and that this year the desert will gloriously bloom, although we won’t be here to see it. 

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer 

A Spicy Romance

When I was a girl, a special treat was going to the drug store to drink malts at the soda fountain. After the soda jerk took our order, we saw him assemble the ingredients in a stainless steel jar, and whirl them in the electric malt maker. Then we saw him pour most of the contents into a glass and present it to us, along with the can, which still contained some malt, and a can of ground nutmeg to sprinkle on.

Nutmeg was not to be found in our kitchen at home, but it was the traditional addition to malts at Baumgartner’s Drug Store. For me, nutmeg was love at first taste and when I married, at twenty, I included a can of nutmeg in my rather limited spice collection.

Nutmeg, I now know, is best when freshly grated, so I have replaced cans of ground nutmeg with whole nutmegs and a nutmeg grater or microplane. 

The spice has numerous, but not extensive, uses. First of all, nutmeg is essential to grate over egg custard before baking. Making a tender egg custard is easy and it tastes marvelous served with berries such as fresh red raspberries .

Egg Custard

In a 1½  quart baking dish beat (in this order):

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups milk

Set the baking dish in a pan of hot water and bake at 350º for 50 minutes. Only the edges need be set when you remove it from the oven. The custard will continue to set as it cools.

Second, this spice complements certain dishes made with members of the brassica family, cauliflower, spinach, and broccoli. Nutmeg is delicious in creamed spinach. It’s also delicious in my favorite broccoli soup* and can similarly be added to cauliflower dishes.

Oddly, I don’t like nutmeg in apple pie, although most apple pies I’ve encountered use it. Romance, as we all learn, can be a bit fickle.

*Published on this blog on April, 23, 2013, titled “Back to Soup.”

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer 

Our Lucky Day

Unpacking a dusty cardboard box that had been undisturbed for more than a decade, Marianne found a lizard amongst the box’s contents. She was startled and later said that she had reacted as if the four-inch-long creature were dangerous. Ozzie soon carried the box into the garage so that the lizard could escape. 

When Marianne, who is visiting here from Kansas, heard that Arizonans consider having a lizard in one’s house to be good luck, she embraced that  aGecko, which is one of the five subspecies of the Western Banded Gecko.

Our gecko is almost, if not fully, grown. The species ranges in size from four to six inches. They are shy, nocturnal creatures, foraging at night for insects and small spiders. 

I sure hope that our gecko decides to stick around. Many things will happen in 2019, and we all need some good luck with them. 

Copyright 2019 by Shirley Domer 

Art in the Sonoran Desert

It seems strange to be in Tucson in December with a steady rain pouring down. The same thing happened yesterday. Today, though, there’s thunder and lightening, making me feel more as if I were at home in Kansas. Even so, I'm thinking of desert art.

Some people who live in the Arizona desert country use the desert as a junkyard, abandoning old metal pieces to the elements. These pieces survive for years of burning heat and monsoon rains. Other desert-dwelling people like going into the desert to shoot their guns. They shoot up cacti but their favored targets are those abandoned metal pieces.  

Our friend Gabe, who is a welder of ornamental and artistic pieces, likes to walk in the desert, collecting the old metal, including the metal used as a target. After he flattens and shapes them, they become pieces of art.

I love found art, and have many examples on display in my home. I was naturally drawn to Gabe’s art, and told him so. My enthusiasm earned me two gifts from Gabe. 

Last year he presented me with this piece. Gabe offered to hammer it out flat, but I loved it just as it was.

When we returned to Tucson this fall, I discovered another gift. This one has not been a shooter’s target. The shape is wrong for that purpose. The piece appears not to hove been in the desert long enough to develop rust. Grant tied it to the shed wall with wire for display..

I love these pieces partly because, like me and like many of us, they are bent and twisted, but they have survived. 

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

And All That Stuff*

After they had both retired Mother and Dad left their six-room house and moved into a two-bedroom apartment. I was amazed to see how little they took with them when they moved. The 1930’s dining table, six chairs, and buffet were at my house, I knew their Haviland china for twelve, sterling sliver tableware, and the teardrop crystal were now part of my brother’s household. But where was all the other stuff? 

There hadn’t been room in the 1925 bungalow’s small rooms for a lot of stuff. I finally figured out that Mother had pared life’s necessities to their bare essentials. Her bathroom medicine chest seemed spacious because just a few things lined its selves. Her bedroom closet, likewise, seemed much larger than it was because Mother had simplified her wardrobe to a few coordinated polyester outfits, housecoat, and winter coat. Gone were the costume jewelry, the cultured pearls, the blouses that needed to be ironed, the pants and blouses that didn’t go with any other piece of clothing, the high-heeled shoes. The only nonessential she didn’t throw out was her dozen or so bottles of cologne. 

Mother died at 78. Now I’m 83 and longing to be as free of stuff as my mother was. I’m tired of the boxes of materials and tools, pictures on the walls, books and papers, and all the other stuff in drawers and closets and cubbyholes. I want simplicity like Mother achieved.  I’d better get cracking on that right away.

Early autumn on the patio

*I use the term "stuff" rather than "things" because of the verb "stuff" means fill tightly with something.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer