Preserving Strawberries and Memories

I know it isn't the usual time of year to be making strawberry preserves, but that's what I'm doing, nonetheless. There's a guy who runs a fruit market at the Seventh Street Flea Market in Louisville who calls Thomas when he has a good deal on strawberries. Thomas got a good deal a few years ago and made the BEST strawberry wine we've ever had. He usually has those deals in October, but not in 2011.

He called us with a great deal on pineapples a month ago, so Thomas has some pineapple wine in the works, along with his grape, pear, and crab apple. But two weeks ago he called with strawberries! He wasn't offering a price that we thought was good enough, so we declined. Then Sunday he called with a price of $5 a flat (about 8+ pounds of strawberries per flat). So we bought five flats. OH MY GOODNESS, those are the BEST strawberries. They are just at the right stage of ripeness, juicy, and sweet. We don't have the room to make any more wine right now, and besides, they are really too good for that, so I figured I'd make preserves -- enough to last us a few years. (Frozen a couple pounds and kept a couple pounds out just for eating as well.)

Anyway, my house smells like a strawberry patch today. And I'm not complaining.

When Mom made preserves she would usually make a pan of biscuits at the same time. Quite often you might have a few ounces of preserves left over; not quite enough for a jar. That's when a pan of home made biscuits and some willing participants came in handy. As I was cooking them today, when that pink foam started to form at the top of the pan, I was transported back to my Mom's kitchen, standing on a chair next to her at the stove, helping to stir or waiting to lick the wooden stir spoon, and then later, throughout the afternoon waiting to hear that first jar seal, telling you that you did it right.

Hope these turn out well!

Anxious Little Egg

This little fella was staring out at me when I checked my eggs at the grocery. Kinda cute, isn't he? Anxious? Sad? Sleepy? I'm not sure.

To Welcome in 2012

Lori in Wonderland -- or Through the Looking Glass or Some-Such Thing!

Last month I had a very strange dream, and, surprisingly, I actually remembered it in vivid detail when I woke up. I told it to Thomas and Eler Beth as soon as I got up, then I wrote it down and sent it to my sisters. Now I have decided to share it with Blogger. It may seem a bit slow and uninteresting in the beginning, but stick with it -- it gets good and Andy Garcia has a cameo!!

Enjoy ~~~



Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Okay, so Eler Beth and I walked through these glass doors onto a city sidewalk. I don’t know what kind of building we were in, but we were supposed to be leading the way to a restaurant where we were going to have lunch with Mom and all my sisters and maybe some other people. We went a little way down the street and then looked behind to see if everyone was following us. Mom was just coming through the doors, so I figured everything was okay. It was almost as if we were in a car and they were following in a car, but we weren’t and they weren’t. We were all on foot. I remember wondering in my dream why we didn’t just stop to wait for them, but we didn’t.

After a while I couldn’t see anyone behind us any more, but we kept on anyway. Finally we got to the restaurant, got a table and sat there and waited and waited. Eler Beth had her phone with her, so we tried calling several times. But we could never get anyone.

So while we were sitting there I kept getting up and going to look to see if my family had got there yet. Finally I walked back toward our table, and there they all were, sitting at a table near us, eating!!! Eler Beth and I hadn’t even ordered because we had wanted to wait for them, and they were eating! One of them said that they hadn’t been able to find us, but they'd saved us two seats, and then mom handed me $25.00 and said that Lois (one of my sisters) wanted me to pick her up some _____. (Later I was told what it was, but at that moment it was like it was garbled or something.) Lois was sitting right there, but it didn’t really seem strange to me that she hadn’t asked me herself.

I went back to our table and Eler Beth was gone. I went back to their table and all of them were gone. Somehow I knew that they had all gone on to the NEXT restaurant we were going to, and apparently Eler Beth was with them. So I left the restaurant and started trying to find them. I went into this other restaurant and was searching for everyone, but they weren’t there. A lady asked me if I’d mind holding the door open for her. She was carrying a six-foot tall floor lamp. “I’m smuggling this lamp out of here,” she whispered. I opened the door but must have looked surprised because then she said, “I’m not really." (But I think she really was!) Then another lady came up to her and they started talking.

I started crying. They asked what was wrong. I said I was supposed to meet my daughter and some family at a restaurant and I couldn’t find them and I didn’t have a phone to call them. So the first lady very kindly offered me the use of her cell phone. I thanked her and somehow the three of us were in the first lady’s car. She was driving, but the other lady and I were in the back seat. I tried dialing Eler Beth’s number but never could get it right. The numbers would jump around. I’d think I was hitting the right number, but then that number would be in the wrong place. (That’s a recurring dream for me – a sign of frustration of some kind? – and in my dream I thought, 'Oh great, it’s going to happen just like in my dreams.' )

Finally I started crying again, and the lady beside me asked if I’d like her to dial the number. I wondered why I had never before thought to ask someone else to dial for me in a dream. So she started dialing. I said, “502”, and she repeated and dialed “502”. I said “819”, and she repeated and dialed “891”. I said “No!” and thought, 'Oh great! It’s doing it to her too!!' I said, “819”, and she said “891”, and then I realized that the lady who was driving had opened the door and jumped out and the car was still moving.

So I jumped into the driver’s seat, which was a mile away from the steering wheel. So I moved the seat up, then put my left foot down to the clutch, only there was no clutch because it was an automatic. I finally got the car under control. I was still crying and wondering where we were going. I was just driving and driving.

The lady in the back seat handed me the phone and said, “Here, it’s your daughter.” I wondered how she’d known the last four digits to dial. I took the phone and Eler Beth was saying, “Hello! Hello!” I said, “Hello, Eler Beth! It’s Mom!” But she didn’t answer. I thought, great, she’s hung up because it took me too long to get the phone. Then this man’s voice said, “Hello?” And somehow I knew that it was the actor Andy Garcia. I said, “I need to speak to Eler Beth. This is her mother.” “Well, why didn’t you say anything when she answered her phone!” he asked, very accusingly. I said, “I did, she just didn’t hear me. I need to talk to her!" And I was crying again.

She came back on the line. I said, “Where are you?” She said, “We’re at the Ducky Goose.” I said, “What the hell is the Ducky Goose?” (Yes, I did say 'What the hell' in my dream!) She said, “It’s the restaurant we were supposed to go to.” “Well, where is it,” I said. “It’s on Hurstborne Lane,” she said. I said, “You’re supposed to be on “Shelbyville Road.” She said, “Well, it’s on Hurstborne Lane, and I really want you to get here.” “Ok,” I said, “but Mamaw wants me to pick up something for Lois and I don’t know what it is.” She said, “Just a minute.” Then she came back and said, “She wants a bag of self-rising flour and some Crisco.” I said, “Is she going fishing?!?” (Because in my experience if someone asks me to bring them flour and oil, of course it means they’re going to be cooking fish. Thomas has trained me well.) She said, “Yeah, she and Monica (a family friend) are night fishing, and they want to cook up what they catch.” (At some point here I remember thinking, 'Wow! I could be having lunch with Andy Garcia!')

So I kept driving down these country roads, hoping I’d see something or someone familiar. I finally did – the lady whose car I was driving! I stopped and she said, “Oh good. You got here.” She had apparently jumped out to help her husband pull one of their trucks out of the mud with another of their trucks. I apologized for having to drive her car, and I handed her back her phone.

Then I was in the back seat of the car again, and the car was FULL of women. I was in a third row of seats, and the woman directly in front of me turned to face me full-on and said, “My husband is a doctor, and he’s really sick. Doctors make the worst patients!” I said politely, “I’ve always heard that about doctors.” And then she got this stern look on her face, pushed her face up close to mine and demanded, “Do you know my husband?!” I said very meekly, “No, I don’t think so.” And she smiled and said, “Oh. Well he’s really sick.”

And that’s when I woke up.

I think I might have had a fever. Do you think?

Also, later I remembered that in my “pre” dream (the jumbled bits that came before the parts I remembered) I had closed my eyes and seen little squiggly auras and thought to myself, “Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever had a migraine in a dream before.” And don’t you know all that afternoon I felt like I was going to get a migraine? I wonder if this is what happens when you have a migraine in your sleep?

I still laugh when I read this, especially when the lady demands to know if I know her husband!

I hope I was able to give you a laugh as well!

Bye for now...And Sweet Dreams!!

P.S. I have waited for years to use these Alice in Wonderland graphics, having saved them in my Photobucket account. I just KNEW that someday I'd have occasion to use them.

My Cousin is Hosting Chef Hunter

I only found out about this a few days ago.

Carrie McCully is my first cousin, once removed, and she is hosting a show on The Food Network called Chef Hunter. It premieres tonight at 10 p.m. EST. I'll have to give it a look-see.

As far as I know I have never met Carrie, although I may have seen her when she was very young and her father came to visit our grandmother. Her father is my first cousin Eugene. Eugene's father, Coleman, was one of my father's eldest brothers. Uncle Coleman was married twice. He had one son and four (or was it five?) daughters by his first wife before she died of breast cancer. I never knew her because she died before I was born. He had three children by his second wife, and I knew all of them as they lived just down the road from us, and I went to school with them. The children from his first wife were all much older than I.

So, anyway, another cousin of mine posted the info about Carrie on Facebook. He is her own first cousin. His mother was one of Eugene's sisters, so he grew up with Carrie. I'm looking forward to checking out the show. Hope you'll join me!

The "Poetree" and Other Mysterious Sculptures

Since March of this year mysterious paper sculptures have been appearing in various public places in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning with this one, "The Poetree".

There is an interesting site HERE that shows pictures of all seven. No one has taken credit for the paper carvings so far, and most people involved Don't Want To Know. The sculptures just suddenly appear in libraries or other public buildings. The original blog posting has been updated many times over the past several months as more sculptures show up around the city. The blog I have linked to has very up-close and detailed photos of all of the intricate little sculptures. It will be well worth your time to look at all of them.

What a wonderful, beautiful gift someone is sharing with this city. Each sculpture has a tag that is addressed to the Twitter address of the location where the sculpture was left, with a short message to the recipient. The tag on the Poetree above says:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… ... We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)

Be sure to look at each of these and read the tags. They are unique and obviously crafted with much love by someone who loves books and words, and who is very supportive of libraries. One of the tags includes the line, "Libraries are Expansive", where the word was originally "Expensive", but the second "e" was struck out and an "a" written over it.

I think this is the most beautiful thing I've seen on the web!

My favorite? I think it would have to be the one left at The Scottish Storytelling Centre, the dragon in the nest below, mostly because I particularly love the tag:

For @scotstorycenter - A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas..... Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story.....

Which is your favorite?

That Time of Year Again