Tea and Cake and Sympathy

Been a quiet couple of days around here.  Mama back at work; kids back at school.  Chores to do but not much else.  So I sit and drink my favorite Taylor's of Harrogate Rose tea in my new-to-me "vintage" 1988 Japanese Shafford creamware teapot and my NYC Starbuck's mug, both of which I got this weekend.




And notice that my sweet couch buddy, who kept me company everyday after my surgery, is gone.

Thankfully, Mama Teacher came for a visit today and we had a wonderful, comforting chat . . . and cake!  This delicious Orange Marmalade Cake from the NYTimes (I'll grab the recipe another time.)  It was even better than the Orange Poundcake I like so much (that was definitely fine, dense poundcake; this was coarse, buttery yellow cake.)  It was great to try the cake and have such a good friend with whom to share it.  A recipe for healing, for sure.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Orange Marmalade Cake
adapted from the NYTimes (I changed the zests)

2/3 cup coarse-cut orange marmalade, divided (though plain ol’ Smuckers Sweet Orange Marmalade is what I had and it worked)

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 1/2 tablespoon for glaze

¾ cup granulated sugar 

2 ½ teaspoons orange zest

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour 

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder 

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt 

4 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

Beat together softened butter, sugar, and orange zest until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Beat in 1/3 cup marmalade and the orange juice.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Fold dry ingredients into wet until just combined. 

Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake until surface of cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center emerges clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer pan to a wire rack.

Cool 10 minutes; turn cake out of pan and place on rack right-side up. Place a rimmed baking sheet under rack to catch the glaze. 

GLAZE:

Heat remaining 1/3 cup marmalade in a small pot over low heat until melted; whisk in confectioners’ sugar and 1/2 tablespoon butter until smooth. Slather warm glaze over top of cake, allowing some to drizzle down the sides. Cool completely before slicing. 

Waves

I'm not sure I can write about yesterday and what I have poetically referred to as our cat Mr. P entering immortality.  Maybe someday, if and when I need to.  Suffice it to say, we were all there and we were all able to say goodbye in the ways we needed, including Mr. P's original owner.  And it happened quickly, painlessly, and peacefully.  We are very sad but also grateful not only to have known Mr. P but also to have been able to let him go when the time came.

Luckily, it's our school's winter break starting today so we can spend some days grieving and recuperating.  Our mantra is "be gentle" to ourselves and each other, because we know grief can cause all sorts of emotions and behaviors--anger, sadness, listlessness, forgetfulness, regret, nostalgia, and then just moments of being really quite normal.  Everyone seems to compare it to waves--one that sucks you down and you have to swim back to the surface (Pema Chodron) or a succession of waves which you have to float between until the next one (and the peaks get lower or the distances greater and you see them coming.)  And so we go up and down.  We're also trying to "stay with it" (also Pema Chodron), stay with the grief, instead of staving it off and avoiding it with shopping, food,  endless video games, or whatever.  Similarly, also from Pema (Mama is listening to some of the Buddhist nun's sermons in her car), we are trying not to "escalate our suffering" with anger, meanness, avoidance, etc.; it's bad enough without our making it worse.  And we know that soon, we'll be able to remember Mr. P with more happiness than pain.  For now, though, there are tears and quiet pauses.

So, today, we're home.  (The kids and Mama got haircuts.)  Tomorrow we have an outing we planned a couple of weeks ago (after canceling our big trip to DC and Williamsburg which was supposed to be now; we didn't want to board a sick and anxious Mr. P.)  Saturday, the kids have a ROLLER-skating birthday party which is novel; neither has rollerskated.  Sunday, we might have another outing planned (we'll keep it hush-hush until it goes through, but it promises to be pretty exciting.)  And Monday will be more R&R before work and school.

We are grateful to friends and family who have called, emailed, posted, and even dropped by with cards and a beautiful plant (though thankfully not the kitten that the girl thought would cheer us up!)  We're okay and we'll be better soon.

Four Necklaces

On Friday morning, I gave Mama and the kids each a necklace, with a circular medallion with "I love you" in English and the international ASL sign on each side.  A gift to let them know how much I love them, especially after my surgery last week, and also a gift to commemorate Aunt Sis's life, and death, which I told the kids about on Friday.

We had waited til Friday to give them a chance to recuperate after my own hospitalization and to put as much time between my return and their learning of her death.  We all hugged and cried together.  Sis, who is my aunt's namesake, has taken it hard, quietly.  Bud is also sad, but reaches out for hugs and cuddles, even telling me that he was sorry he hadn't gotten to know her better.  Sniff.  I don't know how much they will recall in years to come, but I will do my best to keep her memory alive.

And so we all wear the necklaces, a little bit of love giving us a hug around the neck.  We need that reassurance of connection these days.

Today

Mama stayed home with a nasty cold.

I pondered Veterans' Day, always a challenge, as I deplore the military-industrial complex and blood-for-oil and Western imperialism/colonialism/revenge, as well as the creation of an underclass of very young, often minority, soldiers serving the needs of the upperclass 1%.  I don't buy that the majority of battles fought today are to protect our freedom (or not the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but the freedom, for instance, of unlimited oil and its petroleum by-products so fundamental to our capitalist first-world society or freedom to make money for the war contractors or even freedom to exact some kind of large-scale revenge for September 11.)  I believe the jingoistic patriotism that is the dominant cultural comment on the wars and soldiers, especially today, belies (and might even be primarily made to distract us from) the ugly truths.  And so I am cynical.  Though, I do realize our freedoms have been protected by veterans now and in the past.  My grandfather fought in the European theater of WWII; my current hospice patient is a female veteran (possibly like the WWII code-breaker women on the BBC's "Bletchley Circle.")  I just don't think all wars are the same and I worry that all of our "I support the troops" blinds us to these problems.   Though, I can't blame our current soldiers and veterans for where their leaders send them, or why; even in such situations, so many soldiers show bravery, strength, and compassion  and offer up (along with their families) great and sometimes ultimate sacrifices that aren't tainted by the causes of the war or motivations of politicians.  For this we should raise them up as heroes and thank them.  See, conflicted.  Maybe friend Karen was right and I should look into Veterans for Peace.

Mama Teacher, my friend, was home recovering from yesterday's migraine but could come over for coffee and a chat.

We saw emergency vehicles up the street in the morning.  Tonight, I learned that the 22ish year-old young woman in that house had died overnight, probably of the heart condition she's had since birth.  It is devastatingly sad.  I cried tonight and hugged the kids tighter, especially when I thought of Christmas and her new baby niece.  She always waved at us from the steps of her house and talked to me when I shopped where she worked; she was friendly and lively.  I know she will be missed.  I hurt, almost physically, for her parents and older sister.

I ran errands to the craft store, finding yarn for teacher gifts and fleece for my hospice patient's project.  Lots of shoppers today.  Got yummy Chipotle lunch.  Couldn't find a bread machine I liked.

I received email that the Filippino pen pal of the youth in our church was not on the island with the most devastation but still hasn't been heard from.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her, her family, and her nation.

I learned that my in-laws like my sweet potato casserole and green bean casseroles.  I'm not sure we'll be changing any of our traditional Thanksgiving dishes!  Though, I've been looking for vegan appetizers to please us all.  Not easy.

I finished my binge of the new "Battlestar Galactica," with Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell.  I loved all four seasons and the ending--the original BG, science fiction, war, torture, the military, alliances, politics, spies, zealots, religion, fanactism, angels, spirituality, cults, death, afterlife, cancer, technology, AI, love, sex, romance, parenting, truth, memory, hope, peace.  Wow.  I could watch it all again.  The character Kara Thrace was a space-aged Xena.  And the love story of Adama and Roslin was one of the best.

I crocheted 5+ more rows on my new prayer shawl, in LB Thick and Chunky "Colonial" blue.

Mama and I have started to watch "Orange is the New Black."  And we like it.

Sis came home exhausted and missed gymnastics; I watched her all night for fever.  None yet and she got a second wind.

The kids made pandas on their Rainbow Looms; we listened to "Zoom Gully Gully" on the computer.

I skipped my Girl Scout meeting.

Bud just solved a completely random Rubik's Cube in 3 minutes and 34 seconds.

Now they are both reading books in the Percy Jackson series before bedtime.

Snow is in the forecast tomorrow morning, no accumulation.

First Grieving

My friend forgot we were having lunch today.  She also forgot she had a doctor's appointment.  And she had forgotten what time the appointment was.  She didn't know if it overlapped with lunch.

But most difficultly, she had forgotten how to check what time the appointment was and didn't know what to do.  

Confused and disappointed silence.

And I didn't know how to help.  

So we canceled.

And I know she will forget me someday, perhaps someday this year.  Because when she picked up the phone, there was a longer that usual silence after I said my name.

Today just made the eventual loss more real.  And I'm sad.

But I'll make another lunch date for next week and call to check repeatedly like I did this time and hope for the best.  And just keep trying . . . because I won't forget her even if she forgets me.