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Brown Butter to the Rescue

Brown Butter to the Rescue

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I’ve been late to jump on the baking bandwagon. Despite an accidental oversupply of flour — bought long before the pandemic emptied grocery store shelves of it — I’ve had neither the time nor the inclination to bake my way out out of this crisis.

Instead I’ve picked up my pen and my journal. I’ve taken two walks a day instead of one, or bounced on the trampoline in the backyard. Moving through space and time have been my remedies.

Until recently, that is. Yesterday, I finally used the stick of butter that had been softening on the counter for days to bake brown butter chocolate chip cookies, a delectable treat first shared by my daughter Claire from the Pioneer Woman Cookbook. These are made with tiny M&Ms, and the ingredient that sets them apart is the brown butter, which gives them a crispness and a richness that must be tasted to be believed.

So, for the second time in a week, I share a food picture.

We must be quarantined or something.

Quarantine Chalk Art

Quarantine Chalk Art

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Rain has pummeled the Kwanzan cherry, sending a shower of petals to the ground. Rain has also washed away the chalk messages that have been decorating driveways recently. I’ve been counting on these cheerful words on my daily walks around the neighborhood.

“Happy Easter! Happy Spring!” says one driveway.

“Don’t worry! Be happy!,” says another.

And my favorite —”Flatten the curve” — is undoubtedly by a Dr. Anthony Fauci wannabe.

Chalk art is one of the unexpected blessings of the quarantine.  Though the rain has washed away one batch, I know that another will sprout as soon as the pavement dries.

(Photo: Courtesy La Mesa Courier)

Things Not Seen

Things Not Seen

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“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 

This quotation popped into my head this morning. I had to google it to learn that it’s from the Old Testament, not the New (Hebrews 11:1). But surely what it expresses is perfect for a day when Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are still in the tomb. Four weeks into quarantine, with a death toll that’s just put the U.S. into first place in a tally we didn’t want to win, it’s easy to feel hopeless.

But — I remind myself on an early walk, looking at the purposeful new leaves of the dogwood — it’s when we’re in the tomb that we need hope the most.

 

Wind Storm?

Wind Storm?

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Just as light and weather have assumed new importance in life — since I see so much more of them working at home — so have the sounds I hear outside. Lately this has included sirens, chain saws and howling winds.

You can’t blame the virus for the last two. They come with the season, which is unsettled, changing, one day balmy, the next day frigid. Two nights ago a terrible storm blew up in the wee hours. It sounded like the derecho I remember from years past, with its scream of a freight train barreling down on us, saying “take cover, take cover.” The next day I awoke to the sound of chain saws whirring. Luckily, we were spared this time, but I counted more than a half dozen homes in the neighborhood with downed trees.

This morning I couldn’t tell if what I heard was the lumbering of the garbage truck or another storm howling in from the west. Then I realized that it’s Friday, the new (lone, weekly) trash pickup day. Ah, the relief at this realization. Knowing that it was not another wind storm, knowing that the foe we fight today is “only” the invisible one, the microbe — that it’s not the weather, too.

That Other Life

That Other Life

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In my closet are two pairs of black boots, one knee-high and the other ankle-height. Above them hang trousers, skirts, dresses and sweaters — seldom worn now.

On my dressing table four long pendant necklaces gather dust. A clutch of earrings do the same. A watch sits by them, still ticking but looking forlorn. And then there’s the perfume bottle, which has scarcely been touched these past few weeks.

These are the accoutrements of my public persona, the things I don’t bother with when I’m at home. Now it’s yoga pants and sweatshirts, hair pulled back in clips.

It’s comfortable, it’s fun (for a while). But that other life had value, too. And now it seems … far away.

Respite in the Garden

Respite in the Garden

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Weeds don’t care about viruses. They grow just as robustly during a pandemic as they do any other time. So yesterday I waded into the garden to pull out wild strawberries, dandelions and other invasive plants.

It felt good to have my hands in the earth and the sun warm on my back. It felt normal and pre-pandemic.

The mulch, when I spread it, had that same aroma it always does, and the back yard had the same discouraging bald patches it always does this time of year.  I’m hoping that our hard work now will pay off later — but, as always, I’m not counting on it.

(Violets are one weed I’ll leave alone.)

Virtual Palm Sunday

Virtual Palm Sunday

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I’ve been getting by this Lent with recorded services, special sermons and spiritual readings. But beginning today and for the next week, it will be, to say the least, quite strange.

A virtual Palm Sunday? Good Friday on the telly? And Easter with no live Mass, no big feast with ham and deviled eggs? And what of my decades-old yellow suit with the shoulder pads. I guess it will be staying in the closet this year (which, to tell the truth, is probably where it should remain).

Human beings are nothing if not adaptable, though. We’ve already begun planning Zoom family gatherings to touch base and check in. We will each make our own deviled eggs this year, our own hams and asparagus. We’ll show off our feasts and toast each other in cyberspace.

But for today, it’s the start of Holy Week and I sit in my living room scrolling through services. Do I want to live-stream from St. Patrick’s or the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception? How do I want to celebrate Palm Sunday … other than with no palms?

Viva La Cite!

Viva La Cite!

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Into my inbox this morning comes news from Jeff Speck, whose occasional newsletter I signed up for after reading one of his books on urban planning. Speck’s headline “No, Cites Aren’t Over,” was a welcome counterbalance to my own recent post “Solace of the Suburbs.”

When the question of urban density was raised at a public hearing about transit-oriented development, Speck says he reminded people that some of the countries that have best controlled for the virus are exceptionally urban ones — Japan, Korea, Hong Kong.

Also, he says, denser cities have the most patents. “Cities exist because they solve problems,” he writes. The Black Death didn’t do much to slow urbanization and was followed in short order by the Renaissance.  “So even though much of the ruling class has slipped off to their country houses a la Boccaccio, the future still lies in walkable urban places.”

I want to believe that, too.

(From the Boston Globe via Jeff Speck’s newsletter.) 

Day 21 and No Novel?

Day 21 and No Novel?

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The headline caught my eye yesterday. “We have a lot more time now. Why can’t we get anything done.” What’s happening with that novel? Where are those sonnets?

They’re no further along than they were before, perhaps because we’ve lost the usual markers that make us more efficient, says the time management expert who wrote the article. Or perhaps — and this explanation is infuriatingly accurate — we just don’t have the will.

The author, Laura Vanderkam, quotes the caption of a recent New Yorker cartoon: “Day 6. Couldn’t decide between starting to write my novel or my screenplay. So instead I ate three boxes of mac and cheese and then lay on the office floor panicking.”

Not exactly my life — but the windfall of time I thought would appear without commute, appointments or social engagements has not exactly materialized. I’ve tried to figure out where the time has gone. I’ve slept a little more and cooked a little more and worked a little more. Could that be where the days and weeks have gone?

Maybe living through a pandemic is not when you should expect to get caught up on all your creative pursuits — as well as staying in touch with friends and family and strategizing grocery store runs like battle campaigns. Maybe I should be content with whatever words I can eke out of the day, and with this as with so much else … simply soldier on.

(This is an old photo of stickies pulled off page proofs I read with my old job. But they remind me of — sigh! — completed tasks.)

The Lounge

The Lounge

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From my seat on the new living room couch (I still think of it as new even though it will be a year old next month), I can see the monitor I drug home from the office. It’s sitting right where I put it on March 13, when I brought home file folders, plants and an extra pair of shoes. It’s sitting on a table which was itself placed “temporarily” in front of the mantel.

With shelter-in-place edicts in force until June 10 in Virginia, it seems like a wise time to create something more akin to an office. But I’m so comfortable on the couch. And when I want a break, I stand up and work from the counter or take a quick stroll to stretch my legs. When I return, I plop into oversized chair that is, if anything, even more comfortable than the couch.


I think about the ergonometric chair I inherited back at the office, how tall and straight it made me sit. I examine my posture as I type these words, stocking feet propped up on the coffee table, laptop in lap. 

The question is not, can I lounge while working … the question is, can I ever not lounge while working again?