It’s Not the Little People Who Take My Stuff?

For many years I have been plagued by things that go missing. Keys have always been a particular problem. I put them down and when I go to get them they are gone, truly a mystery. In my adolescent years and through my 20’s and 30’s it really drove me up a wall. Rings would disappear, money would vanish. I would rip the house apart looking for these things. It caused me great anxiety. I would eventually find the things but I swear to the almighty, they were not put there by me.

I decided that it was the “little people” playing a game with me. Hide her stuff and watch her panic! Being of Irish descent I was quite comfortable with the idea of “little people” pulling pranks. I learned to live with it. I began to chill out about the whole game. After a while it changed. I would start to look for something I couldn’t find where I swear I left it and then I would think OK just relax don’t panic it will be back there or around here somewhere in a minute or two just keep your cool. Then I would look side wise and there it would be, very peculiar.

I was relating this to the daughter of a friend of mine and she told be that the concept of the “little people” taking stuff was dated, I was out of touch with new scientific evidence. I was very interested in what she had to say. Here is what she told me.

My dear, it all comes down to “String Theory”. Do you know about “String Theory” and the concept of multiple dimensions? Well, I had heard of it but really never warmed up to quantum mechanics, quarks, or black holes.

She went on to tell me that there are multiple universes and the cosmos is made up of strings and our universe is on one of these strings. The strings intertwine and where they touch, which they invariable do, this is a path between the future and the present.When our things go missing that simply means that in the future someone in our family or known to us will be famous. A person from the future comes back to borrow our things for some personal reason or gain. Like having George Washington’s wooden teeth as an historical display in some retrospective on dental health.

Quantum theory is, simply put, the theory that everything exists in more than one place at once. So people in the future sneak across the strings and take our stuff then sneak back and return them.

Huh, updated “little people”. I can live with that. My son has just spent 10 minutes searching for his car keys, which he swears were in the kitchen. I know that the famous person will be him or maybe a future grandchild or perhaps a future grandchild has just borrowed the car for a bit.

Exercise is Good for You - the conclusion

The next morning was equally wonderful another perfect day! A variety of birds were beginning to awaken. I watched them take off from their nesting areas soaring gracefully into the morning sky, the start of another languid and sultry Florida day.

I carried the scull down to the water’s edge. The scull at 22 and a half feet long was a bit awkward to maneuver but not heavy, only about 35 pounds. I managed it, not with the ease of an athlete but fairly competently. I straddled the seat, adjusted the oars and off I glided on to the quiet lake heading again for the community center. I will do an additional lap of the lake this morning I thought to myself. After two laps of the lake I stopped to savior the start of the day. Sitting in the middle of the lake I scanned the horizon. What did I see? It was my fellow sculler!

I rowed closer to him. Hi” I said. “Hi”, he said back. “Ja see the other alligator?” he asked. “Other alligator?”, I replied. “Right there” he said again raising the same tanned arm and pointing to the waters edge. “Oh, is that an alligator?” I said. “”Yup, right there in the reeds” he said. “Oh. Wow”, I said “Well, I must be going”, beating a hasty retreat. I saw nothing but maybe a lumpy area near the bank of the lake. Huh, I thought, another alligator, well I’ll be damned.

I had to row by that exact spot of the alleged alligator. As I passed the spot I turned my head to look. A log like thing slid out vertically from the bank at a 90 degree angle. I stared. We made eye contact. It did not like me. It was observing me. The eyes were like golf balls but the snout considerably smaller than the one yesterday, only eight or nine feet. A little alligator, I thought. I turned again; it was still there. It was watching me. It wanted to know where I was going. I started processing the information somewhat faster than yesterday. Jesus Christ, that’s a female alligator protecting its nest and here I am on Pamela. It probably thinks Pamela wants to eat her babies. If I stop at my house it will know where I live. It will come and get me. It will wait for me. It can’t know where I live! I rowed by my house not even hesitating. I keep going until I couldn’t see it anymore. I then turned around, rowed back, stopped nervously at my house, got gingerly out of the scull and scrambled up the embankment. I tethered the scull to a tree leaving it in the water until I had a cup of coffee. Three days later it was still there. I finally got up the nerve to get the scull out of the water. It would be a frosty fourth before I ever ventured out on that lake. Once is a warning, twice is a gift, three times and your out.

I called a local agency to complain about the alligators in Lake Wellington. They were very, very patient with me. They tried to explain that where there was water in Florida alligators would come. Complaining about alligators in Florida is like complaining about bears in the woods in Maine. It's just plain dumb. They must have put me on some sort of alligator interest list because every year I get a letter thanking me for my interest in alligator conservation. They also send me refrigerator magnets.

Pamela was sold to a sculling center in St. Louis. She is very happy.

Exercise Is Good for You--part II

The first day I ventured out into the middle of the lake was a glorious morning. The sun was just starting to come up in a rosy glow. As the sun came up the few clouds were high and puffy, a lovely counter point to a brilliant cerulean sky. The earth was coming alive in the wonder of a perfect late summer morning with birds flying overhead. In the incredible silence of early morning it happened ...... I was one with nature.

I was noiselessly streaking over the lake towards the community center. I turned around and began to come back. What did I see ahead? Why it was a fellow sculler! What a treat! I will talk to him. “Hi”, I said, “Hi”, he said back. “Nice scull”, I said. “Made it myself”, he said. “Wow” said I. “ Ja see the alligator?” he queried. “Alligator?” said I , with that he lifted a well tanned, muscular arm and pointed to this large log like structure lying perfectly still about 20 feet away. I stared, I took it all in. “Oh”, said I, “Is that an alligator?” “Yup”, he said, “there are plenty of them in the lake” .

At that point the sun was starting to come up a bit and I decided to go for another row towards the community center. As I glided off I started processing the information I had received, hummmm, I would never have thought that was an alligator. Should there be alligators in a lake that is bordered by homes with small children playing on its banks? Have I ever seen small children playing on its banks? Gee, I guess that’s why no one swims in the lake. I wonder how big that alligator is. Let’s see those eyes were like tennis balls and that snout was pretty long. Holy Godfather, that alligator had to be at least 15 feet long. By the time I had turned around and gotten back to my house I realized the situation. Here I am sitting on this white, skinny boat that is 22 and a half feet long. I'm like a grape balanced precariously on a skewer. Could that alligator think that my scull was another alligator, maybe the Pamela Anderson of alligators? Did that Alligator fancy my scull? Would he attempt to mate? Would I be offered up as a precoital ritualistic meal to his Pamela? What have I done? Why am I sitting on a twig in the middle of reptile infested waters???

By the time I got out of the scull and into the house my mind had started to think about more practical things, like getting to work. I thought to myself, well Scarlet, worry about that tomorrow.

To be continued ................................

Exercise Is Good for You

A few years ago I decided that I needed exercise. I realized that I had done most of the usual things, jogging, hiking, joining a health club, aerobics, walking, and biking; oh, did I fail to mention power gardening? (any gardening in Florida other than small container gardening has the potential to create large “me Tarzan you Jane” kind of foliage that has to be hacked back periodically with a machete. I call it power gardening.)

All these forms of exercise worked, but they didn’t really call me. They just weren’t me. I wanted something more, some new form of exercise. I would gaze out over the lake having perhaps a glass of wine and ponder exercise. What to do, what to do, I would think. Then I saw it. A person in a boat rowing, not any boat, but a scull, how graceful they looked.. Just like a needle streaking across a sleek glass table with hardly any hint of the water being disturbed. This was not ordinary rowing. This is very cool to watch. I wondered; could I do that? Could I become a sculler? Could I become one with nature gliding noiselessly over Lake Wellington’s glassine surface?

I had to research this. On to Google I went. Lo and Behold, I found it, the Florida Rowing Center. And where was it, you ask? Right here in Wellington, it was right across the lake. I had to find out more, was it suitable for me? Every reference said it was good for children of all ages. I could do this. So I called the Florida Rowing Association, I spoke to the director. She assured me I could do it. She would help. She was my savior. I bought a scull. She showed me what to do. I found out about Craftsbury the sculling center in Vermont. Summer vacation was only a few weeks away. I signed up for a week of sculling camp, and off I went.

I returned to Lake Wellington with my “Head of the Hosmer” cap, two Craftsbury tee shirts, and the ability to get into and out of a scull without breaking my neck. (Did you know that the seat in a scull moves back and forth?) I was also able to move the scull forward and backward in the water without falling out. I was a sculler.

Stay tuned……to be continued

A Special Tea Mug, A Special Friend

As daughters we sometimes don’t have the relationship with our mother’s that we think we should. I certainly didn’t. I can’t think of any of my close friends who did. I have a friend who has expressed wistfully that the relationship I had with her mother is one she never had. As it turns out her relationship with my mother is one that I couldn’t have. Her point of view of my mother is certainly one I didn’t share. We both had relationships with each others' mother that we could never or did never have with our own mothers, each of us having been somewhat envious of each other.

Mrs. Hegener passed away a few years ago. She was very special to me. Every time I pick up a certain tea mug I think of her and the place where I spent my formative years, Middle Village.

The tea mug has a particular shape. It feels right in my hand. It’s the cup with which I drink my coffee in the morning . I rarely drink tea anymore. I think of her daily.


Middle Village was the neighborhood which formed my strongest and most vivid memories. It was a Queens neighborhood which evolved from farms. It is surrounded by cemeteries and had many monument companies with large slabs of thick, grey granite. The monument companies are gone now ; the cemeteries remain. We used to play in the street, in the cemeteries and on those marvelous slabs of granite on which you could really slide well. We were blessed with backyards where we could capture bugs and dig holes. Some people had vegetable patches, and fruit trees. There were wash lines. Wet wash froze solid in winter. In the summer the mothers would sit on stoops and watch the kids play. We would hop the stoops and catch fireflies. There was no air-conditioning.

In the summer of my ninth year my family moved to Long Island. It was culture shock. People stayed in their neat houses with their neat lawns. There was nothing going on in the streets. I stopped using the word "ain't".

I always came back To M.V., first by Long Island Railroad and bus, and then I would drive. The Hegener girls and I would take off for adventures in Manhattan, ice skating in Central Park and later hitting the nightlife in the Village and Upper East Side. We had a lot of fun.

Years later, when I was looking to get assigned as a teacher to a school in Queens rather than the South Bronx I moved with my husband back to Middle Village. The Board of Education would always assign you to a school in the borough where you lived. I don’t know if that is true today. I always got home from school at about 3:30 in the afternoon. My first stop was at Mrs. Hegener’s where we would talk and have tea and coffee cake. I always used a particular tea mug. It was always the same mug. It was always milk and sugar; it was never lemon. We didn’t discuss politics or religion. Our views were diametrically opposed. Mrs. Hegener and I would talk about school, cooking and sewing. Mrs. Hegener was a great cook and seamstress and she would share recipes and sewing tips. We did this almost daily for about 4 years. She helped me make decisions, like my divorce. Divorce was something she was completely opposed to, but she supported me in that decision. She was my friend. She didn’t blame me when two of her daughters divorced their husbands not long after I divorced. She could have but she didn’t.

After a while I moved to the Upper East Side but I still stopped by, although, with less and less frequency. I would call. I switched jobs. I would always call. I always wanted her input on recipes most of which were not written down. I think I didn’t write them down on purpose so I could call for a recipe tune up. I remarried and moved to Florida but I would always call. There was always a recipe that I couldn’t quite remember. After a while she couldn’t quite remember them either. She became ill and moved to her son’s home in Albany.

I traveled to Albany to see her. Her recent memories had been snatched from her. She remembered me not as I was but as I had been some years before. She didn’t believe I was me and gave me the third degree. She was trying to believe that I was her friend. She grilled me on my family history trying to catch me at every turn. She was bewildered that I knew the answers to all her questions. I think she thought I was an alien planted by the CIA to somehow trick her. She checked my driver's license. she looked at me skeptically and would not accept the fact that I was me. That’s OK, she knew I was her friend but I just wasn't that person. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I wonder who that strange woman staring back is. I can understand her dilemma .

After Mrs. Hegener passed away her oldest daughter and my good friend asked me if there anything I wanted to remember her by. I said a tea mug. I wanted the tea mug that I used when we had our afternoon tea. There were plenty of tea cups but none of them were right. They were new. They were wrong. The old ones had been replaced. When I returned to Florida from the funeral I realized that I had the right tea mug all along and I had been using it for many, many years. There was always something about that mug that I felt comfortable with.

Goulash a la Mrs. Hegener

2 lbs cubed chuck, 1 large onion, Marsala wine or water (4 oz.), 1 small can tomato sauce (8 0z), 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper, 5 or 6 ginger snaps in ½ C. water.

Put fat in pan, brown meat a few cubes at a time, then add onion, then tomato sauce, bay leaf, salt and pepper and 4 oz of Marsala or water. Cover tightly and let simmer for 1 ½ hours. After finished add ginger snaps.

Limpkins Redux

The Limpkins are still here fluttering about the lake, truly happy little Limpkins. It made me think. In these days of recession where everyone is concerned about the cost of things like food and gasoline, what do you suppose Limpkins taste like? Are there recipes using Limpkin as an ingredient? There are times I’ve stared at the meat counter in Publix thinking to myself I wish there was a new meat. And all along it has been screeching at me “take me; I am the new meat, Limpkin”. I laughed hysterically when a neighbor was eyeing the Muscovy Ducks, also in abundance around the lake, and suggested that duck gumbo would be an interesting alternative to the Christmas goose. I thought these duck couldn’t possibly taste good, look how lumpy they are. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Muscovy duck has been sighted on up market restaurant menus in New York. I chuckled to myself when I saw it this past summer, remembering my neighbor’s suggestion about duck gumbo. I did not order it.

So now I started a quest to find out about these Limpkins in cuisine. Yup, the recipes are out there. Some references referred to them as “succulent”. They are also called “great duck”

The oddest recipe I found for Limpkin was from Manaus in Brazil…recipes of the Amazon. A word of Caution on this recipe, it calls for Tucupi which is an extract from the root of the cassava tree, which is peeled, grated and squeezed. The liquid is then boiled for hours. If not sufficiently boiled it is poisonous due to the presence of hydrogen cyanide. On second thought It might be better to fly to Rio and take another flight to Manaus (about 4 hours) or a bus (36 hours) or perhaps it would be better to make an inquiry at “Whole Foods” or take a good look around “Fairway”. It might be lurking there.

Anyway, here is the recipe. It is not my recipe and it appears to be written by someone whose first language is not English. I found it an amusing read. It would probably take a lifetime to ferret out the ingredients. Jambu is not traditional watercress.

Duck in the Tucupi Sauce (Pato no Tucupi)

Ingredients
1 great duck
3 small onions, peeled, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
100 grams of bacon in slices
5 ripe tomatoes (optional)
1/3 of cup (tea) of vinegar
1 leaf of laurel tree
1/2 spoon (coffee) of cumin powder and black pepper
1 cup (tea) of oil
1 bunch of jambu (or watercress)
1 liter of Tucupi
12 spoons (soup) of toasted cassava flour
Salt

Preparetion steps:
Clean the duck cleans very well. Following, pierce it slightly with a fork and spice it with beaten garlic, salt, laurel tree, black pepper, cumin powder and vinegar. Leave it to take taste of one day for the other. After this time, cover the duck with sliced of bacon, place it in a roasting pan, arrange for top the slices of onion and tomato. It waters with oil and it has led to the moderate oven, leaving to bake until the duck is ruddy and soft. Remove it, cut it in pieces and leave it in the proper gravy. Clean jambu, wash and it has pricked (it conserves the stems to give more taste), boil tucupi with 2 cloves of garlic previously beaten, per more or less 15 minutes. When using watercress, do not boil it. Add pieces of the duck in the gravy and leaves to boil per 20 minutes. In the hour to serve, place in each plate 2 cassava flour soup spoons, arranges for top 1 or 2 pieces of duck and pours gravy sufficiently (well hot). The gravy mixed the flour, will form a species of will pirão.

* To make the gravy of the Tucupi:
Grape the cassava, press the broth and place it to cook with sufficient garlic. After cold, bottle it.

A good option to make with tucupi is the Tacacá celebrity:
Boil one liter of tucupi with a twig of jambu and three peppers malaguetas. It makes a well thick mass with half kilo of manioc powder and water. It mixes half kilo of dry shrimps and serves with gravy of tucupi for top, hot.

Hey Honey, I Think the Limpkins are Here!

One of the least endearing things about Florida is what it attracts, certain humans included. The summers bring torrential rain, hurricanes, mold, stinging caterpillars, possums, raccoons, feral cats and roaches to die for. But the thoughts of the summer indignities fade away as the weather cools to the perfect winter climate of 70 degrees with a small breeze wafting by.

This year the perfect winter climate arrived on time and it brought the Limpkins. Now the ibis, egrets, turtles and occasional alligator have been interesting and become somewhat of a normal thing. The Wood Storks, I think, are still interesting. They have only recently taken up residence here in the last year. They have a curious walk and seem totally focused on eating as they quietly patrol the banks of Lake Wellington, or is it Wellington Lake? The Limpkins are another matter entirely.

In my neighborhood, we have a congenial group that gets together from time to time. One evening, as we sat watching the sun’s last rosy glow, darkness flowing noiselessly over the lake we toasted our good fortune in friendship, fair weather and health. The Tiki torches were lit, and the hors d'oeuvres were passed. I smugly smiled to myself thinking of those poor folks up north suffering the first throes of winter. ..........I said, “What do you suppose the weather is doing now in New York?” There were amiable chuckles all around. Then someone said, “What about Buffalo? Heard of any snow yet, Dennis?” The chuckles got louder with self satisfied smiles all around. Then there was this loud screeching noise from the bushes. It sounded like someone's liver was being forcibly removed. Hideous, horrendous ….. A perfectly alarming sound which started my heart pounding. “What in God’s name is that? Is something being killed?” I asked. “Nope”, said Jerry, “that’s the Limpkins”. “The Limpkins, What are the Limpkins?” I asked. “A bird, they just do that, you know”, he added. “Yes”, said Barbara, “haven’t you heard them before? They really do make a racket. They even woke me up the other night. I can’t believe you haven’t heard them before.”

So now I needed to find out about these Limpkins. So I googled and found out. They feed on apple snails. That would explain those abundant empty shells around the lake. I found this web page called “The Silence of the Limpkins” (Wanna make a bet?) This knowledgeable article, written by Susan Cerulean, tells more than I ever wanted to know about these birds and laments their loss asking the poignant question “Where Have Wakulla Spring’s Limpkins Gone?” Well Susan, wonder no more! They are in my back yard. They are breeding, preening, stuffing themselves with snails and screeching at all hours of the night. They do not appear to be endangered. They seem happy and fat. They litter the lawn with snail leavings which become projectiles when hit with a lawn mower going at full blast. This in turn damages my screen enclosure which makes me grumpy. I am now woken up at odd hours of the night. I understand that lack of sleep causes obesity. I need no encouragement in this area. Please, Susan, if you are out there, please, come and get your Limpkins.