grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Love Shack baby!

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Nana was born on Valentine’s Day. How perfect! The day of love and happiness. Growing up, the Valentine’s Day parties in elementary school with the cute little cards and yummy cupcakes were all secondary to Nana’s Valentine’s Day Birthday. We eagerly showered her with homemade cards, candy, a cake and presents – along with an off key rendition of Happy Birthday.


When Nana and Papa Creecy moved to Keiser from the home place, they bought the brick house next door to the Grahams. I thought it was the prettiest house in Keiser. It had a very cool finished-out attic which became our hideout. Staci and I played with our barbies there and listened to music during bunkin’ parties. There was no furniture in the attic, other than an oversized bright yellow wooden rocker. The house must have been built around that rocker – it was there when they bought it. And it was part of the deal when my mother sold it, after they died. The attic stairs were super steep and small – a secret little stairwell – that chair wasn’t going anywhere. The Mystery of the Attic Chair… I’m sure had Nancy Drew known, she would have solved the puzzle. I bet it’s still there.

In junior high, the attic became the site of many, many games of 7 Minutes in Heaven…Keiser,Arkansas-Style. Our version was really more a combination of Spin the Bottle and Thirty Seconds in the Closet. We all sat in a big circle surrounding a coke bottle in the center. We turned the overhead light off – probably because we were too embarrassed to see ourselves. Understandably, this drove Nana crazy. She would flip the switch at the bottom of the stairs and yell up to the attic space, “Taaaaaaaalya!!!” We would all giggle, “Oh sorry!” like we had no idea how that light turned itself off, wait a couple of minutes, and flip the switch again from upstairs. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) climb those steep stairs, and we knew it.  We took turns spinning the bottle, and the person the bottle landed on was the lucky recipient of a few seconds in the attic closet, in the shadows.


We spent lots of weekend nights up there – our little group of friends – Becky, Anita, Trina, Craig, Graham, Judy, Charles M, Timmy and others I’m sure. It was far from heavenly, but it was the closest we had been. It was fun and different and exciting at a time when we were innocent and full of teenage curiosity.  No one spoke of what went on after a turn in that closet, but I doubt there are any big secrets. Timmy was always cute and nervous in that dark closet. He was funny, but shy. A turn with Craig was like 7 minutes of Botox. He nearly ate our lips off. Ruth was likely starving him – he was always in trouble with his mom… He definitely would have been punished had she known about Nana’s attic. We each kissed everyone eventually – we didn’t care which boy it landed on. They were all like our brothers… That game of thirty seconds in the closet was our important entre into dating and eventually true love. 


I’m sure young teens today have outgrown Spin the Bottle. They are too busy texting and living in an online world.

Norfork Lake

Nana was much like Lucy Ricardo – funny, always laughing and typically into some type of mischief. I think Annabelle the Schnauzer must take after her…She was strong and faithful – at church every time the doors were open. She was loved by all – including all the kids up in the attic. Even though she was sick for much of her life – brain surgery in her 20s, leukemia in her 60s and a terrible headache nearly every day in between, Nana always had a beautiful smile on her face.  And something funny to say. She never tried to be funny. She just was. Everyone who came into contact with her was better for it, and I miss her every day. Of course my mother has turned into her, so she isn’t really ever very far away. 


I love this quote from Oscar Wilde…”All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That is his.”



Happy Valentine’s Day & Happy Birthday Nana!


xoxo


talya




Musical Pairings:


The B52s, “Love Shack”

Rick Springfield, “Jessie’s Girl”
Jamey Johnson, “In Color”


Welcome to Jurassic Park.

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This morning I found a tampon on the stairs. UNUSED, thank God! But still, a tampon on the stairs! It was open and lying midway up like a dead albino mouse, with the ‘tail’ dangling off the step. I have lost all control. The schnauzers are running the zoo.  

Thirteen weeks and six days ago, I had a cleaning lady. I was gainfully employed at the bank dressed everyday in my favorite peep toe heels, pencil skirt and non-sports-team-related blouses. This allowed me a part-time house elf. Her name was Debbie. During these peep toe years, Debbie came twice a month and cleaned the house from top to bottom, whether needed or not.

It was needed.

She cleaned toilets and made the house sparkle. Debbie Day made the entire work day better. No matter how many irate customers I encountered or how much second hand smoke I inhaled during the day, being greeted by fabulous CLEAN in the evening made everything worthwhile. Clean, buffed floors and lemony furniture. A fresh, peaceful house that smelled of comet mixed with bleach. Never mind that it was an environmental chemical site. Even our old stained sink looked brand spanking new after Debbie Day.

Now I am trying to perform these household duties with two schnauzers under my laceless worn-out converse sneakers. And evidently not very well.

Annabelle. The Schnauzers are running the zoo…
I never much liked this plant
anyway.

Annabelle is still a puppy with recessive billy goat genes. Last Christmas (her first), she destroyed two vintage Shiny Brite ornaments while I frosted cupcakes. The ornaments, displayed in a bowl on the coffee table to keep them safe, were oh too shiny and sparkly with flecks of silver glitter. Near Annabelle’s eye level—they were a schnauzer siren song.  She left behind tiny shards of glass scattered in front of the fireplace, along with the little rusty metal cap and hook that, up until that point, had survived sixty-plus years…. Annabelle does her best work in front of that warm fireplace. 

A few weeks later, as I stored away my Christmas decorations, I noticed there was not a single trace of the decorative moss that had lain all around my manger scene, cradling baby Jesus. Did the camels and donkeys eat it? Or, the Christmas Schnauzer? My nativity was displayed on the small chest beside the loveseat, waaaaay on the far side of the room next to the window. A few days later, I discovered one of the wisemen under the buffet. (By process of elimination, I decided he was the myrrh-carrying wiseman.) 
So now with the tampon incident, Annabelle can open cabinets?

She has further evolved from goat to velociraptor?

Does she have a sickle-shaped claw hidden somewhere in that curly matted coat, allowing her to open the bathroom cabinet and snag a Tampax?

Of course with no squeaker inside, she tired of it quickly, and abandoned it on the stairs. It was too plain for her…  It laid there, beneath my wall of tastefully displayed black and white family photographs. Right below Nana’s portrait. WhatWouldNanaDo?

Nana would laugh, but in that moment I was horrified. A new high low. Was there nothing sacred? 

Annabelle
Yes? You called for me?
In addition to munching family heirlooms, someone occasionally has accidents in the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs. I never catch anyone in the act, but when I discover the puddle, grumble and grab the cleaning supplies, both dogs stare at John like he is responsible. They look completely shocked. They are conniving. I drag out my new best friend – the self wringing twisty mop – to disinfect and eliminate the awful pee smell.  Because our house is ancient and the floors are unlevel, the pee flows freely from one end of the room to the other, pooling underneath the bed, completely out of reach. This is not your regular, standing on your feet, normal-people mopping. This is on-your-knees, stuck-under-the-bed, pulling-a-hamstring, crazy-people mopping. With Annabelle licking my face. 
If I’m not mistaken, by now shouldn’t we be living high above the city in a uber-cool sky pad apartment with push-button, space age conveniences? Hanna-Barbera promised as much on Saturday mornings forty years ago. My housekeeping should be seen to by Rosey. And, I’m pretty sure Astro never ate a tampon. Where is my futuristic utopia? The closest thing I have to a robot maid is Siri who lives in my smartphone and sometimes randomly speaks to me from deep inside my purse at the grocery store.

Siri is no Rosey.

While John is in Atlanta this week creating sprockets, I have four whole days to get this house in shape. But, I don’t want to start too soon as it will be a completely wasted effort and back to zoo-like conditions by Wednesday. Of course I could summon Siri to dial up Debbie. Maybe she could secretively squeeze us in. I’m sure she misses us. How could she not?
talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Baha Men, Who Let The Dogs Out?




Musical Pairings:
Katy Perry, “I Kissed a Girl”
Baha Men, “Who Let the Dogs Out”

Sinful Pies & Magical Jello

By

Nana’s Recipe Box!
While scrambling eggs this morning, my mother started cleaning a cabinet in her kitchen. It contained expired cough syrup and gummy vitamins, along with a shelf of old cookbooks. Basically, my mother hung up her apron in 1994 after my dad died, so I doubted these cookbooks had seen the light of the kitchen in years.

As we ate breakfast and drank coffee, she handed me Nana’s recipe box to peruse. I had no idea she had this bit of heritage hidden behind the spice rack like a secret diary. It was a small wooden box exploding with bits and scraps of papers, jammed inside at all angles so that the lid would not close. I loved to cook and try out new recipes so this was a treasure trove! Plus I remembered some of Nana’s delicious pies.

I carefully unfolded the bits and pieces of fragile paper which were yellowed and coated in an oily film- probably Crisco. I loved that I was touching papers that she had touched. Each was written in pencil, in her easily recognizable cursive handwriting. She wrote the way we were all originally taught in elementary school – slanted to the right with loops and curves and each letter gracefully flowing into the next.  Most recipes had no title, and they all began with a simple listing of basic ingredients.  As I read the ingredients aloud, my mother identified most,  “Oh that was her fruitcake recipe”. And, “That was her chocolate pie”. Oddly enough, almost every single recipe included jello. Who knew jello was such a magic ingredient?
 
Studying the castoff papers on which these recipes were written was as much fun as reading the actual recipes. She was the quintessential recycler! Chocolate Pecan Delight was written on the back of the Keiser Baptist Church program from 1976. Nana was a faithful member of that church until she died.  I still remember the preacher there (I’m Facebook friends with his daughter), and I knew the organist and Sunday school director, who were also identified in the program. The sermon on that particular Sunday morning was “Sin is Sin”.  I think baking and eating pie every day was probably the only sinful thing she ever did.

Chocolate pie was written on a Bank of Wilson deposit slip, along with her grocery list for tuna, milk and sugar. An unnamed recipe was written on Keiser Supply Company note paper. We always bought our Christmas tree at Keiser Supply, and they sent us a giant smoked ham every year – the best ham ever.

I plan to try out these recipes.  It will likely take years, but as this is part of our family history passed down in Nana’s handwriting, it seems like an important use of time. Maybe somewhere in this treasure box is the perfect pie crust recipe I’m determined to master.


talya

Musical Pairings:
Hymn, “Blessed Assurance”

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!