47. From Something Homely, Beauty Comes!

The re-model keeps moving on.  It never seems to end.  The results are almost too much to believe.  The cottage was sweet before, well, we made it sweet.  When we first saw it, we told the landlady that we weren't sure that she could ever get the smell out.  It was homely, but it was the perfect location and had a porch big enough for our bent willow furniture, the rent was fair and all the rest we though we could overcome.  Pat, our landlady and now friend, scrubbed, painted and carpeted so that when we moved in you couldn't smell the two really large dogs that had been cooped up inside for days on end. It soon became our sweet little Gopher Hill Cottage, and it has gotten cozier by the day.  

Now when friends come through the new front door the first sound they make is one of sheer amazement.  An audible gasp.  The hardwood floor stretches from the front door through the spacious dining room and the kitchen.  No room remains untouched.  Most of the floor plan has changed.  The new back door in our bedroom opens onto what will be our new patio.  (I've still got it!  I watched the color drain from Bob's face when I showed him the plans.)  The breeze will be so welcome on early mornings and those hot afternoons.  

The laundry room is any woman's dream.  The cabinets we have gained make life so much easier.  There is even room for gift wrapping supplies with a tile counter to boot!  All of the towel and apron making supplies and apparatus  have their own space so there won't be any trips out to the outbuildings and no mouse leavings to deal with, (another country living experience.)  If you don't move it frequently, it has mouse droppings in every wrinkle, how they manage that escapes me.  Having Maggie means no more poisons.  We have already done the rat poison vet trip. Once is enough for that!

Our plants in the planters around the outside of the house have been given a test of endurance because replacing all the windows and siding have had to take precedence and Mike has rather large feet.  That's OK because only the strong survive under my tutelage any way.  A welcome surprise in the garden was the once sad looking orphan cactus that we rescued from the road side on one of our walks.  It had broken off the parent plant and beckoned to us.  We planted it feeling confident that we could offer more than the side of the rode.We were delighted to find that it was indeed happy in our yard, but this is the first cactus that we have planted that produced such a beautiful bloom.  The beaver tail always give lots of prickly pears but no flowers.  This homely thing started producing 3 brown cowlick looking whorls.  Each day when we inspected our surroundings  we became more and more fascinated  with the cactus and it's developments.  One morning to our surprise the 3 inch long rather unseemly growth from one of the whorls started to open.  By that afternoon a most amazing white flower opened completely and was dazzling.  It only lasted two days, another reason to pay attention.  

Think of all the homely things we have passed by that could have brought a special beauty to our lives.  I guess we will never know.  I'm old enough though to know that it doesn't cost a penny to pay attention to our surroundings, because more often than not, from something homely, beauty comes.

46. Friendship, Friendship, It's the Perfect Blendship!

Our recent trip battling the Los Angeles traffic to and from Pomona gave me ample time to consider our fabulous Pomona High School Red Devil Diva's reunion.  My only regret is that more gals couldn't be there.  Bob and I have such fond memories of our high school days.  We both LOVED school! Life, even though I'm sure there were times when it didn't seem simple and uncomplicated, were indeed, simple and uncomplicated.  I could recite a litany of reasons why it can be so difficult now, but everyone would concur, I'm sure, that "The time's they are a changin'."  (even though you couldn't understand most of the words in later years, Bob Dylan was right on so many counts)

But leaving all that jazz behind, one thing Bob and I have learned on our charge up "Fool's Hill,"  is that you can't buy back time.  I know that I tend to belabor that point, but if young folks could just pick up that one thought and carry it with them through their journey their lives would be so much richer.  Perhaps, I'm underestimating them, maybe more realize it than I give credit.  I know that our children still have very close friends from high school.  Trisha's friend (Sherry, they were a trouble making duo,)  still travel the globe together and Bud and his friends, Chris and  Jay, are perfectly happy to hang out in Arroyo Grande.  

Our old Houston friend, Sandy, from 1975, located us last year through Facebook, (thank you internet,) What grand fun we had the year we were neighbors.  We both had little kids and Bob was working and going to school and she was divorced.  What we didn't think of the kids did!  We had tried to find her for years.  Once in a while she would locate us and then she would move when the rent was due and we would lose her again.  When she called, Bob recognized her voice immediately!  I heard him say, "Sandy Bunn, where the hell have you been?"  We are so happy to have her in our lives again!  

Sandy and I had grand schemes to save each other if someone tried to break in our apartments.  We decided that we would pound on the wall to alert the other to our need.  One night she had decided to try our plan. I was awakened by a pounding on our patio door.  I jumped up and staggered to the door.  She said "What the hell is wrong with you?  I've been throwing furniture at the wall for 15 minutes!"  So much for the plan, but isn't it great to have friends and memories like that?  How sad it would be not to have those belly laughs.  You know the ones that make you shake all over?  I love to make our very old friend, Dorothy, laugh.  She laughs from head to toe and usually has to wipe her eyes.  Now, that has to be good for your insides.  I know it's good for our hearts!

When we got back home yesterday and we checked our emails we found a sweet email about girl friends from Sandy.  Bob actually opened it and said, "Honey, you have to see this."  OMG, it is a picture of what I think we all look like from behind, at least in my brain, it's what us Diva's look like!  Let me know what you think.  I would give a lot to be able to give the artist credit for this wonderful piece of art work!  It sums up what good girl friends are all about.  Bob says that it is almost life changing imagining what they are saying and where they might be going and knowing that not one of them cares about the destination...it's the going that matters! I tried to tell you, "He's such a girl!"

                                   Who ever you are dear artist, you have great girl friends, don't you!
                                                         It's a great prescription for a good life.

45. It is a Land Mark after all.

Seventy!  A huge land mark!  Bob has reached the  big 70!  He has outlived his dad, Cotton, by 40 years and his mom, Billie, by 20.  He has outlived all of his family except for one cousin, Kathy, who lives in Florida.  He shares that it is an odd and sad feeling to be the last man standing.  Don't misunderstand, he is happy to be up-right and breathing, that's usually always preferable to the alternative.  

Being an only child has had it's effects on him, as well.  There have been ups and downs, mostly downs for him.  He hated being called in from play when it seemed that everyone else had someone else to go home with.  He had to go alone.  He has always longed for a sibling.  It breaks his heart and makes him angry to hear of siblings who haven't spoken in years for some usually forgotten reason.  The one thing that Bob and I have learned from this old life is you can't buy back time.  Once you pass on a moment or opportunity, that particular one is gone forever.  That stops you in your tracks, doesn't it?  Gone forever.  Ponder that.  How have you approached those opportunities?  That is another note that needs to be stuck on the bathroom mirror.  We have to be reminded of that, too.

Birthday's, for us, are about your favorite things, mostly food stuffs.   Bob requested my mom's chocolate cake, his all time favorite cake. No frosting, please.  It always evokes sweet memories for us, that cake. There is a rather interesting story around that particular recipe.  

We all loved this cake.  After I had gotten married, Bob wanted me to make the cake.  I called my mom to ask for the recipe and to my horror she said, "Oh, Honey, I don't have the recipe written down.  It's just hand-fulls of this and pinches of that."  I couldn't believe it!  The recipe had been handed down to her from her mother who used the hand-full method.  Well, I jumped in the car and drove across town and had her make the cake.  I measured each ingredient one at a time when she placed it in a clean bowl.  To this day, I don't know how she made it taste the same each time.  She also said, "What ever you do don't use a mixer.  It won't be as dark as when you mix by hand."  "Oh, p-shaw,"  I thought.  But, call me crazy, it's true.  It is a very dark, rich chocolate when hand mixed and a much lighter color when you use the mixer.  It is also very dense in texture, not dry and light as with a box mix.  

Besides, there is a very self-satisfying feeling mixing it with out the noise of the mixer.  It gives you time to watch the ingredients blend together and smell the deep fragrance of cocoa powder and vanilla. It makes me remember when my children were little and cooking was such an important part of my day.  Nothing pleased me more than smelling fresh hand made bread baking or my little brood licking spoons of batter.  To hear the news now, that is considered child endangerment.  "Good Lord," they say now, "you could have killed them!"

Well, "P-shaw," I say.  We still lick the bowl and spoon in our house.  If it kills us, we'll go out together.  They will find us with bowl and spatula in hand and remnants of batter on our happy smiling faces.  I wouldn't miss the memories it brings of all 5 of us on any given Saturday, fighting over the spatula and the last smidgen of batter!

If you are adventurous, please do yourself a favor and try this cake.  Who knows, it may just start a new memory.  It certainly warms our hearts.

Maxine's (and Lily's) One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Pre-heat oven to 325
Grease two round cake pans or one 8 x 10 pan.
Instead of flouring the pan use granulated sugar.  Who wants to cover that beautiful chocolate with white flour?! The cake fairly glides out of the pan when it is done.

This recipe can be halved and fits into one round layer cake pan. (Bob says that's a crime, at the very least an injustice!)

2 cups of granulated sugar
1 cup shortening  (butter flavored Crisco, my mom liked it best)
8 T. cocoa
2 slightly beaten eggs
pinch of salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups of milk
1 tsp. of baking soda
2 1/2 cups of flour

In a large bowl combine the sugar and shortening and cream until smooth.
Add cocoa and stir until well combined.
Add beaten eggs, salt, vanilla and soda and combine.
Alternately add milk and flour stirring well between additions.
Beat until smooth.  Fill pan (s) and place in center of stove. 
Bake an hour or until toothpick in the center comes out clean. 

Stand right by the stove with a knife, a napkin (for me, Bob is aunaturel) and a tall glass of milk in hand and prepare to have your taste buds dazzled!  Nothing would make my grandmother and my mother happier. Don't let this be one of those moments you let pass by!

44. Fresh Laundry

Is there a more agreeable outside activity than hanging out clothes?  I'm thinking it that, for sure, it is high on my list.  It makes you bend and stretch and take big breaths of fresh air.  Nothing smells better than line dried clothes, especially towels.  They become like giant fragrant loofahs that can scratch that hard to reach spot in the middle of your back.  Breath deep...a smell like no other.  They even sell softeners named "Fresh Air."  When our sweet friend, Susie, lived in Nebraska we used to talk about the pleasures of scratchy towels and the fresh out-of-doors smelling laundry.

Another advantage is the fact that your whites are whiter without bleach when they are line dried.  My line is hidden from the road by a nice bank of rosemary and this morning it overlooks a lake.  Bob's follow the hose watering device, Nelson, (brand name) was left on over night and  one arm of it's whirligig sprayer got caught in the ivy surrounding the hot tub.  It sprayed in one place for part of the night giving us lake side property.  Maggie, who thinks she is part Labrador Retriever, had the most wonderful time splashing about, all the time searching for lizards.  Nelson looks like a John Deere tractor and is mesmerizing to watch. It's spray arms spin sending water in two large radiuses as it follows the layout of the hose.  The rhythmic sound of the water slapping against anything it passes is peaceful much like that of the surf.   It is like the feeling you get when you are in the company of a new baby.  You are not sure why, but you catch yourself staring and marveling at it's existence. 

As I reached to get a clothes pin, I found a beautiful yellow and black striped garden spider perched on the end of the bright red pin, happily sunning it self.  After Bob and I watched it for a minute, I removed the clip from the line and sat it on the grass.  It only took a second for the spider to head for cover with Maggie watching and ready to pounce.  I'm glad that she responds to "Leave it!"  She watched in her "curious" pose, her rump in the air and her front paws stretched out in front resembling a stink bug, but with her tail going a mile a minute.  The spider escaped by disappearing under the cover of the grass. 

You may wonder why I choose to hang out the clothes.  It was by choice a few years ago when we first moved out here until the children decided we should have a drier and bought us one for Christmas.  You fall into the habit of using it because it is convenient.  Years passed and then one day about 3 months ago we smelled something funny and discovered a fire in the drier.  Well, I can tell you with great authority that we were like Laural and Hardy.  I had a crash course on handling a fire extinguisher and Bob hasn't moved that fast in a very long time.  Flames tend to do that to a person.  The fire was tamed into submission and Bob and I and the bathroom were covered in whatever compound is in an extinguisher.  I will never ever leave home with the drier humming again.  

I have always been a little anal about cleaning out and around the drier lint trap and vent.  Cleaning underneath the refrigerator has been a priority, as well.  Admittedly, I don't have many like priorities, but our dear friend, Eileen, had a bad kitchen fire from the dust and dog hair that had built up under the refrigerator.  The motors in both appliances create a magnetic field that pulls the particles toward it.  All it takes is a spark from the motor and anything under there is fair game.  Sometimes you can prevent it, sometimes you can't.  Case in point, our drier in March.  At any rate, I find myself enjoying the fresh air and the pleasure of once again hanging out the laundry.  We'll buy another drier eventually, (probably when Trisha is here on vacation in July-she will find the clothes line archaic!)  But for right now, this pleases us, besides we wouldn't have seen the little spider sunning on the line would we?!

43. It's the bending.

June gloom is upon us.  Our neighbors, the Stowell's, house above our upper meadow is about half way to the ridge of the canyon and is outlined with clouds.  The canyon wall behind and above is invisible.  I suppose the warmth of the cozy home keeps the damp filled bank of cloud at bay.  Two days ago it was 98 degrees here.  We considered putting the air conditioner in the livingroom window, but unpacking boxes took precedence that day.  Yesterday turned cool at 75 degrees.  As I now recall, the same thing seems to happen each year.  We have a few really hot days and then the gloom.  The cool is welcome, I have to admit.  The taste of summer makes us remember how really hot it gets here.  We are like Maggie, who wants to be on whatever side of the door where she doesn't happen to be standing.  Human nature, I suppose.

It seems to remain the same, the desire for something else.  We are content, really, there just always seems to be something just out of reach that will make things perfect, or at least better.  Even though we really know it won't make that much difference we still hope, subconsciously, I suppose, things would be so much better if "that" would just happen.  The imaginary ship comes into the harbor loaded with all things wonderful and it has your name on it.  Wouldn't that be swell.  We wait on shore with our hand shading our eyes (I never remember my hat) watching the horizon.  We know it's a waste of time, that things really only come to those who work hard, but it could happen, right?  Well, put your work clothes on and get busy because my ship along with lots of others has met with some sort of problem en-route.  I've decided at this point in time to be happy with my darling, sweet husband, our cutie little Maggie (who just vomited on the bed in the office), the beautiful upheaval of the remodeling of Gopher Hill Cottage and the more than gorgeous view.  Now if I can just bend over to pull up my boot straps, all will be just fine.