Forty Years Later

The Cheer Is All In The Details!

 

Winter Pizza...my little gift to you!

I have to say one thing.  I'm cruising into the holiday season feeling much better than I ever thought possible.  I mean, wouldn't you think that the first Thanksgiving and Christmas after the divorce would be awful?  Weepy, sad, full of anger, lethargy, depression:  all those emotions and feelings encompass my expectations for the holidays. But, as things have turned out (thank you very much Universe) I believe it's going to be a stellar year. 

This isn't all mental, however. Physically I'm having a bit of an up tick.  In fact, I am feeling rather in top form.  I can't point my finger at just one thing; I think it's a combination of a few things.  I am five or six weeks into working out at the club, and three weeks ago I added in the mountain hikes.  I am now into the third week of taking some new vitamins that I'm beginning to think are just dynamite.  Then right after Halloween I gave up Jiffy Creamy Peanut Butter and Dove Promises (this one is a temporary hardship) and I've lost six or seven pounds.  Whew!  This is a good run. I imagine it is a normal sort of chain of events for a recovering divorcee (such a gay sounding little word).  It's like I'm feeling well on the road of recovery from the mental part of getting a divorce; now I'm getting some physical strength and self confidence under my belt to face the next phase.

Tomorrow Katy and I will pick up Max at the airport in Denver and head up to Northern Colorado to spend four nights with my sister and brother-in-law. We are going to Fort Collins, the town I expect to eventually move to when I ever sell my house (please Universe, just this one more little thing). We are leaving very early so I can go to a mall and buy some makeup I've run out of.  We don't have to get Max until five.  I want some extra time at the mall, because guess what is right next door to the store where I buy the makeup?  Anthropologie. Ahhhh. Shrine to whimsical decor and dress.  I must remember my mantra in this lousy economy:  hoard your liquidity, Anya!  I mean it!

I need to get packing, but I'll leave you with a little Thanksgiving gift.  Linda and her dog Chief and his friend Scout came over Saturday night and didn't leave till after midnight.  Among many fun things we did, fueled by a bottle of Plungerhead zinfandel, was to make a pizza for our dinner,  the recipe being one she had just received from her cousin. You must try it.  The juxtaposition of the hot tangy gorgonzola and the cold baby arugula and sweet caramelized acorn squash can only be described as sensational.  The squash of course, could stand alone as a side dish served hot or at room temp. The recipe is written rather loosely as there are no measurements and actually, no written recipe.  This is so easy yet so impressive; you could build a reputation on this pizza.

Winter Pizza

Pizza dough from a pizza restaurant (Linda got hers at Whole Foods)

Large amount of crumbled gorgonzola

1 acorn squash

1 package baby arugula

maple syrup

red pepper flakes, salt, pepper

white truffle oil

olive oil

some flour for dusting the pizza board

A pizza stone  and even a paddle make a lot of difference in ease and in the case of the stone, the quality of the crust.  But of course you can use a pan.  As for the truffle oil. Don't stress not having it. You could eliminate it, but if you live near a Whole Foods or other gourmet food store, you don't have to.

Slice the squash in inch wide slices. Put into a bowl and toss with olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper; then drizzle with maple syrup.  Spread on a baking sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven till soft. Carefully use the sharp point of a knife and remove the skin from the meat; cut into 1" chunks. Scrape up the caramelized maple syrup crunchies from the pan.  Let cool.  This step can be done a day in advance at least.  Just refrigerate and let the squash come to room temp before using. 

That's all the prep there is.

Heat oven to 500 degrees, and put pizza stone into oven. A hot stone makes a better crust. Get it good and hot. Then, lightly flour a working surface and work the dough into a rustic, round shape the size (or less) of the stone.  I like to do this part on a floured pizza paddle.  This just makes it easier to put the pizza onto the very hot stone in the oven.  Lacking one, two people can gently lift the pizza and lay it upon the stone. 

Brush the pie dough with olive oil, then drizzle white truffle oil over all to taste. Sprinkle on the gorgonzola and be very generous.  Cover the pizza thoroughly.  Turn the oven down to 400 or 450 and put the pizza onto the stone.  Watch this beautiful concoction like a hawk, lifting up the edge occasionally to make sure the bottom isn't getting dark. The crust shouldn't get very dark: very light brown with little areas of a darker brown will be just right.  You have to watch it because the time will vary in every oven. I think we cooked ours 10 or 13 minutes or so.  Yours might take more or less time; close observation is your best tool here.

Remove pie from the oven.  Completely smother the hot pizza with the baby arugula.  Use lots of it.  Then cover with the chunks of squash.  Finally, sprinkle the maple syrup crunchies over all.  Admire greatly, then eat while hot so you can groan at the hot/cold, sweet/tart magnificence of it.  (It's still delicious when it cools off.)

One tip from Linda's cousin Vinnie (honest to god, that's his name), an Italian and a cook extraordinaire:  when you shape pizza dough, the trick is to use just enough flour to keep the dough moving around easily on the board or your prep surface.  Too little and it sticks there and perhaps on the stone too.  Too much and...well, you know. It would taste all dry and floury. 

So, my dear friends...I may find time this week for another post, but if not.....

Bon Appetit and Happy Thanksgiving !

Soiree?

I can already tell that I'm going to love being single.  I already love being single actually. Long before my divorce I daydreamed about being single.  Over the past five or six years...maybe more...I have dreamed off and on of what it would be like to be alone.  Never having been alone, even in my twenties it was a titillating daydream, though I felt a smidge guilty about those fantasies. Not so much though, because I figured it was a natural progression of thought for plenty of women in their 50's.  Especially if they had been married the majority of that time. And especially if they'd never been alone in their whole damned lives!

I occasionally fantasized about it in great detail, almost planning it:  where I would live (maybe the Oregon coast), what my house would look like (a cottage with a small garden and a porch dripping with clematis), what my decorating style would be (color, more color, whimsy and a little bit of funk), how my art studio would open to the garden, what clothes I would wear (that was the Frye boots/gypsy skirt vision). I imagined I would hold little soirees in the cottage with a small rotating group of friends who would vary in age and sex, and certainly I'd want a nice homosexual friend (style adviser).  It wouldn't be a high brow soiree 'cause I'm not a high brow kind of girl.  Rock and roll and wine is more my style.  But we'd talk about all kinds of things, and sometimes we'd roll back the rug and dance, and sometimes we'd have little dinners. I'm still holding on to the bulk of this day dream.  Ok, forget Oregon except for summer visits.  And I don't know, are gypsy skirts and boots out of style? 

I'm just putting this vision on hold until I move and get a new house and make still another new life for myself. I'm in my first "new life" right now.  The single woman in the wilderness life. Luckily there's no limit on the number of new lives a person can have.

 In all those years of indulging, however, I never saw myself as divorced.  I always imagined I was a widow (and I had all the money).That seemed reasonable since FH was five years older than me and in general women outlive men.  Don't misunderstand that...I didn't want him dead. Heavens no!  It's just that for most of those years I wouldn't have dreamed that anything less than death would split us apart. I just figured I'd eventually join that big pool of old widows like so many women do only I'd make sure to have some fun.  Fun is highly under rated among people my age.  Well that makes me sound ancient and I'm not. But I see so many people who are just a few years older than me and I can tell by the look on their faces and the slope of their shoulders that they aren't having enough fun. No light in the eyes.

Hmmm.  I do love sweet dreams.  But until the dream can materialize I'll just hang out up here in the mountains, wearing jeans and boots, three friends to my name, admiring the deer rather than a garden.  But you know, right now that's enough.  Gotta change what we call our girls night in, though.  I'm thinking of the Thursday Soiree.  Not quite what I had in mind, but it works for now.

My Daily Gratitudes

I'm thankful for good neighbors.

When I was married, for some reason when my eyes opened in the morning, I would jump out of bed like I'd been shocked by the pillow, and believe me, for the past four or five years that wasn't because I was eager to seize the day. It was a habit I suppose, and perhaps then my shared bed wasn't a sheltering nest and peaceful haven as much as it was an uneasy resting place, prickly with the vibrations of anxiety and sadness. There is nothing sadder than a marriage bed empty of love and affection. Ah! But no more that bed of unrest.  No, as a single woman sharing my bed with no one (except for my stuffed dog, Sandy, who I really must tell you about sometime), even when the alarm rudely rouses me on a school morning, I linger luxuriously in my soft cotton sheets, head nestled in my down pillow, and pull the feather comforter tightly under my chin. I gaze out my windows at my amazing surroundings and I do a little gratitude litany.  I say it aloud, of course, since I'm a great one for talking out loud to empty rooms.  I try to do this every day even if I wake up feeling less than cheerful.  Honestly it does help.  But on a day when I awaken perky and hopeful it increases the richness of the day a hundred fold.

Ghostly winter clothed aspen out my bedroom window.

I always say thank you for the obvious: my people, Katy, my son, my sister and my best girl friends; and my very good health.  And I'm quite grateful for my safe surroundings: my home and my car to take me safely where I want to go.  Now days, I never fail to mention my blog and the friends, support, comfort and fun I am finding through it.  Then I list personal behaviors and accomplishments for which I'm extremely thankful.  Lately I am thanking the Universe for my  feeling strong and capable, and for letting me get over him (former husband) much easier than I would have dreamed I could considering the time and love invested. Thanks are in order for helping me get off my butt and drive downtown to workout. And hey, I think I'm getting much more open and outgoing with strangers and acquaintances, and seeing benefits from it.  I'm grateful for that! Then I throw in a few frivolities I'm especially happy about on that particular morning, discovering chai tea this week, finding Artful Blogging when I was in town rather than having to pay postage on it.  The little things.

Beloved Katy...self portrait in car

I'm talking to the Universe. I imagine it sitting in the chair across from me, legs crossed, nodding while offering encouraging little murmurs as I talk. Sometimes, on the weekend when I have more time, there are many asides, polite requests for more help and time spent actually working out a needling problem before my feet touch the floor.  Oh, some people might say Sounds like she's talking to god to me, but since my spirituality doesn't run along those lines, I believe I'm talking to the Universe and really, I don't think it matters who you're talking to, as long as you are offering your gratitude to it and deeply appreciating what you have, what you've done, what you can do.  I got this idea from "The Secret" and "Romancing the Everyday" and everyone else in the world who is talking about gratitude these days.  Once I actually put the idea into action however, I realized the pure power of the idea and it is enriching my life daily.  Even on a bad day, the gratitudes (I don't believe that is a word, but I'm coining it now if not) spoken aloud in the morning softly come to me later and bolster me.  Help dry tears.  Remind my heart that this bad thing is just one thing. Not everything.  Nothing is everything.  Everything is just one thing.

Sigh....As Martha might say, This gratitude business is a good thing!

A new cup of tea....thanks!

Country Girls

OK.  So maybe winter isn't going to go so well.  I haven't had the slightest bit of trepidation about it, I don't think.  I've got a great new car that can go anywhere in any kind of terrain, loads of wood, automatic fill on the propane, a generator that automatically comes on if the electricity goes out (which it often does), and snow shoes.  Yeah, I'm set.

But it snowed today, and it was the first decent snow, five or six inches by the time I had to pick Katy up at the bus stop, and it was very cold.  That meant of course that lurking under the snow just waiting to make my life a pain for the day was a half inch of ice.

My driveway is quite long very, very steep and much narrower than I wish it was because on one side of it is a big drop off, a little medium sized cliff actually, and on the other side a deep, rugged, rocky ditch. Neither the kind of place you'd want to drive your new car over or into, or yourself for that matter. Going down I crept and it went ok.  After I picked up Katy we headed home and back up the hill.  At the steepest point, the car wouldn't go forward anymore. It just balked.  If I pressed the gas a little it slid.  I tried to go forward until I realized it was too dangerous what with all that sliding around and the cliff. When I realized I'd have to back down the entire driveway, anxiety hit.  Fear might be a better word. We buckled up and  I began but the sliding was worse going backwards with me twisted around in my seat trying to see where I was going.  Oh man.  It slid from the cliff edge to the ditch edge with every foot. I am an awful backer even on flat, dry ground. I was just totally freaked by that time, though I was trying not to show it, but Katy wasn't buying that facade.  She had her head down and she was scared and wailing a little. I quietly told her to shape up and not be a wienie.  We're country girls. But inside I was feeling like the biggest wienie of all.

Finally, I put the car in drive and pressed the brake firmly while I deftly reached over to the glovebox and pulled out the manual.  I must not be in the right gear or something, I was thinking. While we were suspended there at a steep angle, me looking for answers in the manual, Katy asked if she could get out of the car. A great idea I should have thought of because by that time, going off that cliff was a distinct possibility. I could just imagine us hanging there upside down in our seat belts.  So she got out and walked down to the barn to worriedly watch and wait.  The manual didn't provide answers, so I just began to go down in tiny, tiny increments sliding from one side to another with each increment.  I finally did get down and just parked the car in the barn.  Katy and I hiked up the hill, came in and collapsed by the fire, happy to be in one piece.  In the morning at 6:45, we'll have to hike back down the hill to the barn and the car so she can get to school. It's a long hill.

I'm worried.  If I were here alone I'd just hole up till the ice melted, but I can't do that with Katy having to get to school each day. After I got home I had a tearful breakdown.  I felt so angry. At everything. At FH, at being forced to be here this winter, at having no immediate options.  I can't, or won't rent my house to someone for the winter. It's too much of my nest egg.  I couldn't risk that. But I called Max and he suggested I buy new tires. More "aggressive" ones. I'll do that and I'll have my road guy put some straight gravel over my expensive road bed for more traction.  Money, money, money!!! If it helps at all, it'll be worth it, I suppose.

 When FH was here and it snowed he ran all the errands.  As a kid he and his buddies went to frozen lakes and spun their cars in circles for fun, and learned to drive on and be comfortable on ice.  When it is icy, I've always just not driven, but how much school can a kid miss?  We can hike that hill, of course, until the snow gets too deep.

Guess we'll have to drag out the snowshoes then, though neither of us knows how to walk on them! Suddenly, winter isn't looking quite so friendly.

The Strangest Thing

I had a blog dream last night.  It was a dream born of the blog, and included women and dogs from other blogs.  It vividly pointed out to me how important my blog and my blog friends have become to me. This little odyssey began two days ago when I posted "The Perfect Man" about how I (on a big whim with little thought and no idea what I intended by it) joined an on line dating site.  I tried to add a little humor to it, liked it and posted it not thinking much about any responses I might get. 

The next morning I had some fun comments.  Later in the day I checked again and two comments stood out from the rest because they were from my longest running blog friends, including my very longest running blog friend, Susan. If I ever had any doubts that I have an overly sensitive streak in me, my feelings upon reading their comments were telling.  Anxiety immediately filled my belly with butterflies because I thought they were chiding me a little bit, and I feared they had read more into my intentions in joining the dating thing than I actually intended when I joined.  I especially didn't want Susan to misunderstand because her singleness and my singleness are a bond.

I flew to the computer and banged out an extremely long post entitled "Why You Needn't Worry".  It was one of those writing episodes where you don't come up for air till it's done.  I was in the writing zone.  I proofed it and posted it and immediately felt those butterflies whipping it up in there.  Maybe I over reacted a little.  A simpler shorter post would have made my point.  They may think I'm protesting too much. Blah, blah, blah. You see why I complain about my inner voice? I don't know what it was but something about the post was making me uneasy.  Throughout the rest of the evening, I visited my own blog several times to read it again and I'd think, No, no. It sounds fine.  It's just right. (Are you starting to think I don't have enough to do?) Eventually, I went to bed because I couldn't see any reason why it was troubling me.

At three in the morning, my eyes popped open.  I lay there in the dark trying to figure out why I was awake. Do I have to pee? No, I didn't.  Then my memory flooded my mind with the dream.  And who was in there but two women, Susan and Vee , whom I've never met in person. Just from photos, though, my unconscious produced walking, talking realistic versions of them, including cagily surrounding Susan by dogs just so my sleeping brain would really believe it was happening. And they were a little disapproving, worried that I'd hook up with weirdos and sacrifice my treasured solitariness for some creep.  And I realized, in the dream and upon awakening that it really matters how they feel. Then my post popped into my head, and I grudgingly gave in to my uneasiness. I crept down the stairs (Katy's got ears like a dog.) and sat down at the computer, trying to keep my eyes slit and my mind empty so I wouldn't really wake up and zapped the post.  Erased it.

Honest to goodness, I still don't know what it was in the post that bothered me.  On my email this morning I saw that Vee had actually read the post after I quit looking at it and before I erased it!  I could tell by the comment that the "Why You Needn't Worry" post was just fine, though long (like most of mine).

That post is one I printed and will keep, however.  I realized today that is kind of a personal affirmation stating my position on several topics: singleness, men, dating, Katy.  That is why I was in the writing zone; it was coming from deep within. 

The unconcious is so awesome. And so is the power of the blogosphere. 

Enough said! 

The Perfect Man

Hello dear readers and friends.  At least I hope I can find my readers and friends after having been so negligent this past....what? ten days!  Totally rude of me. You know my son was here and that was part of it; I was preoccupied, and my writing brain seemed to be napping. I don't know if that was a result of preoccupation or just a momentary brain pause. 

I wasn't completely fallow however.  When I tell you this goofy thing I've done, you are going to laugh and then be shocked. So. Thursday before last only Lavonne and Linda were here for "Knitting".  We were sitting around my round table after downing an enormous pizza and got to talking about men.  Specifically about me and men and relationships.  Future ones.  I said at some point,

"Well! I am certainly going to have another relationship in my life!"

I told them I had even begun writing a list: My Perfect Man.  I got the idea for this list from one of the law of attraction books.  Maybe "The Secret"; I don't recall, but in the book several women said they had made a list, a very detailed written description of their perfect mate,  and eventually that exact person, down to the last detail, appeared in their lives. Well. How easy is that?  Do I believe that could happen?  I don't know, but I figure, what have I got to lose?  Naturally, they both wanted me to read the list to them, and I immediately dashed up the stairs and snatched it out of my underwear drawer where I keep it hidden (like people are roaming my house looking for this list).  I was kind of excited at putting the list out there even more, vocalizing the list. Needless to say, we had a lot of laughs over it. It covers a lot of ground.  Perhaps it is a little anal, and possibly my bar is set a little high, but if I'm going to do it at all, I'm just going to go for broke. (Am I beginning to sound like I'm in high school yet?)

Then one of the girls asked where I expected to meet this man, or any man for that matter. Considering my current lifestyle, the only answer I could come up with was in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket. I said I was sure this has happened to someone,  and Linda promptly told a horror story about a friend of hers who had met a man in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket.  Then, to make a long story short, they convinced me I should try the on line dating thing, e-harmony and match.com to be specific.

Honest to god, my doing that had never, ever entered my mind, and I put up a lot of resistance to the idea. No way!!!  I want to meet someone organically. But once they planted that little seed, it sprouted like an over fertilized pumpkin plant filling my head with the idea.  When they left at eleven...I slinked over to the computer feeling a little silly, a little embarrassed and very daring, and I joined them both! For three days, every time Max and Katy left the house I hit the computer.  You have to write a profile and your personal headline plus add photos that will reel in those guys.  Apparently I have not hit upon the magic formula yet as I am not inundated with possible suitors, though two very nice men have written, one an author which is kind of cool because I am sort of an author groupie, or I could be.

I can not imagine into what adventures this activity will lead me. And to be honest, I haven't really decided that I would ever actually meet someone in person. After being with one man for 40 years, the idea seems frighteningly radical at this moment.  (I'd have to buy new clothes and everything!) I may not even be ready to think about men yet, though I don't think I'm suffering much heart ache for FH personally....still some for the loss of my marriage of course, but not so much that I can't go to the movie or out to dinner with a man. 

Whatever happens, it's kind of fun. Another pleasant time wasting activity on the computer when I should be slaving in my garage!  I'll keep you posted about this new past time and if anything interesting happens, you'll be the first to know.

I can't wait to go to the mailbox tomorrow.  The author has sent me an autographed copy of his book.