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Author: Anne Cassidy

Let the Cooking Begin

Let the Cooking Begin

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We’ve measured the tables, all three of them. When joined, there will be 18 feet of dining space with almost as many chairs as we need.

The groceries are (mostly) in the house, and only minor cleaning remains to be done.

Which can only mean one thing: Let the cooking begin! Let the apples be diced and the vinaigrette stirred. Let the celery be chopped, the chestnuts, too, ready to assemble for tomorrow’s stuffing.

Let the turkey breast roast (the extra turkey I’ll have on hand to feed the large crew expected tomorrow). Let the pie crust be rolled and the casseroles baked.

In other words, let as much of tomorrow as possible begin today.

More November

More November

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Novemberness is not a word, but I’m making it one with this post. Why shouldn’t we turn a month into a state of being? Melville did it: “Whenever it is a damp, dreary November in my soul…”

My experience with November is not as gloomy. I’ve always liked the month, the coziness of its early darkness, its lamplit afternoons. Thanksgiving brightening it, distracting us, and at its very end, the birthdays of two people I love.

The syllable “ness” turns adjectives into nouns: goodness, sweetness, faithfulness. The “ness” of “Novemberness” turns a proper noun into a quality or condition. Novemberness is the quality of being November, and this year we have more November to enjoy it.

I speak, of course, of the feast day happening in just two days and its placement this year, which is the latest it can possibly happen, given that it happens on the fourth Thursday of the month. Merchants are decrying it — seven fewer days to shop! — and devotees of Hallmark Christmas films are ignoring it and beginning their seasonal rituals anyway.

But I’m savoring it. I’m reveling in the stillness, in the few bright leaves that still cling to branches. I’m enjoying having more of a month that is too often rushed and folded into holiday folderol. I’m celebrating Novemberness.

A Sabbath

A Sabbath

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Yesterday unwound slowly, with a small baptism and lunch afterward. As the afternoon continued, I thought about the tasks that waited for me back home: schoolwork and prep for Thursday. I have lists, and lists of lists.

But it was so nice to sit and visit, to let the kiddos run in and out of the house, their cheeks rosy with the cold. To listen, to chat, to laugh.

Back home, I realized there was daylight enough still to walk. Then, after dinner, I realized that I still had time to do the reading and viewing required for Tuesday’s class. In other words, I’d completed as much in that compressed schedule as I would have over hours.

I often wish I could do less on Sundays, not just for religious reasons, but because it’s good to pause and take stock, to have one day a week that’s different from the others. Yesterday, without planning to, I almost did.

Europe For All

Europe For All

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This week saw the passing of Arthur Frommer, whose books changed my life. When I traveled to Europe as a student, it was with a wave of other budget-minded travelers whose bibles (and mine) were Frommer’s famous series that began as Europe on $5 a Day. Although that became Europe on $10 (and on up to $95) as the years passed, the philosophy remained the same.

You don’t have to stay in fancy hotels to see the Continent, Frommer told Americans. Stay in guesthouses. Grab a baguette for lunch. Forget about the private bathroom. Live like the locals, in other words. “I wanted to scream at people to tell them they could afford to see the world,” Frommer told the Houston Chronicle, as quoted in his Washington Post obituary.

Frommer was a U.S. Army lawyer stationed in Berlin when he wrote and self published The G.I.’s Guide to Traveling in Europe, which was the genesis of Europe on $5 a Day. By the mid ’60s he quit his successful law practice to concentrate on his guidebook empire.

Frommer, along with low-cost carriers like Icelandic and Laker Airways, made it possible for people like me to wander around Europe soaking up art, music and history. He democratized the “Grand Tour.” He convinced the American public that travel wasn’t just for the well-heeled. It was for all of us. You may want to curse him the next time you’re crammed into the middle seat of a fully booked 737. But as I read about his life this week, all I wanted to say was “thank you.”

Farewell, Toby

Farewell, Toby

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The parakeet Toby died unexpectedly last night. He hadn’t seemed quite himself lately but he had also been moulting, so I attributed his lethargy to this cyclical loss of feathers.

I’ve tried to “loss-proof” pet ownership by having two parakeets. This hasn’t worked, because each of these tiny creatures has a personality. Each is a unique being that has never been before and will never be again. If that’s true of the domestic birds in my care, then it’s also true of the wild birds, the sparrows and cardinals and wrens and woodpeckers. It’s true of the deer, fox and squirrels. It’s probably even true of the crickets and spiders — but I don’t want to carry this too far.

Toby was a sweetheart. He was patient and kind. He sang his heart out. He withstood an undue amount of abuse from his cage mate, Cleo. His one fault, which may have been a fatal one, was his fondness for seed. He was a portly fellow.

I never planned to write much about animals in this blog. I would describe the walks I took, the thoughts I had while taking them. No silly pet posts. Lofty notions only. But the animals we take into our homes become a part of us. I could do worse, much worse, than to write about them.

All in This Together

All in This Together

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My classes are winding down. The final projects await, looming like giant icebergs on the horizon, but I can count remaining class meetings on the fingers of one hand. Which gave last night’s words the ring of finality.

We were talking about the responsibility the Global North has for the Global South. We might think it’s not our problem if climate change drives residents of densely populated, low-lying Bangladesh to leave their homes and families. But these people must go somewhere.

None of us brought up the meeting taking place in Azerbaijan even as we spoke. But COP 29, the United Nations climate change meeting, is in its final days and there is still much work to do. How will developing countries help less developed ones?

Most of the world’s migrants are being driven from their homes by weather, hunger, violence and civil unrest. We can’t think these issues are someone else’s problem, the professor said. Meaning we’re all in this together. Meaning it’s a smaller world than we might think.

It’s a frightening thought … but also an exhilarating one.

Japanese Maple

Japanese Maple

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These days I wake to November grays. Most backyard trees are stripped of leaves, except for one: the volunteer Japanese maple. It waits until the other trees are done to strut its stuff.

This is how it’s done, kids, it seems to say. With these scarlets, these jewel tones. With this patience and this grace.

Am I reading too much into the timing of this turning? Of course I am. I always do.

Changes Afoot

Changes Afoot

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I grew up in a neighborhood that rang with the sounds of hammer and saw, with the building of small brick and stone bungalows. The houses weren’t large but they were well made, and when I drive through the area on visits to Lexington, I’m impressed with how well they have held up.

Construction methods have changed since then; house sizes have, too. One of my neighborhood’s best features has been the ratio of house to lot size. Split-levels and center-hall colonials are tucked away on treed lots, in some cases almost hidden among the greenery. Harmony and proportion reign. Or at least they used to.

The newest house on the block is a renovation that more than doubles the size of the previous dwelling. It dwarfs the houses around it. The owners are good neighbors who want a larger home, but this larger home is not the kind of house you normally see around here, and I fear it will open the floodgates.

McMansion subdivisions surround us. I was hoping we would never become one. Now I’m not so sure.

A Quorum

A Quorum

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It was a cold, rainy November evening; it begged for a good movie and a bowl of popcorn. But I’m glad we trudged out to the annual meeting of our neighborhood’s home owner’s association last night. Our street was by far the best represented, and there were people from other streets I hadn’t seen in years.

There was only one problem: we didn’t have a quorum. Which meant that the meeting was unofficial, for information only. We couldn’t approve last year’s minutes (oh no!) and we couldn’t vote in next year’s officers (slightly more troubling).

Apparently, though, if you miss the 40-percent quorum (in person or by proxy) the first time, you need only achieve a 30-percent quorum for the re-do. Since 30 percent of people sent in their proxy votes by mail, the slate of new officers will be approved at the board meeting next month.

And what of last night’s affair? It may not have met the minimum legal requirements, but it met the minimum social requirements. Most of us left with more fellow feeling for our neighbors, and what could be more important than that?

(A quorum of geese?)

Acoustic Season

Acoustic Season

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We come now to the acoustic season. On paths and trails, lawns and clearings, leaves pile and crisp. They gather in corners and culverts, land softly on hedges and hollies. And when I walk through them, they talk back.

They crinkle and crackle. They swish and snap. They carry in their once full-veined selves the memory of green days and insects singing.

You cannot move through them quietly. Even small squirrels make big noises when they play. Autumn leaves amplify our footfalls, reveal our passage. They keep us honest.