Snickerdoodles, delivered

My mother's cookbook, the one I grew up using, was called Settlement House Cookbook, a depression era cookbook. I learned the likes of oatmeal and raisin, peanut butter, and ginger snap cookies. 

My mother-in-law's go to cookbook was Betty Crocker, a post war wedding gift to young brides cookbook. She quickly gifted me a copy, so I could make snickerdoodles for her son. I don't know which daughter has it now.

Laura and I used a recipe from the internet, Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodles. It looked every bit the recipe I remembered. To be sure, I compared it to Betty Crocker on the internet, and find the venerable old lady has divided the flour between white and whole wheat, in her later incarnation. Hrumph!

Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodles

1/2 c butter
1/2 c margarine
1 1/2 c white sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract

2 3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt

2 T white sugar
2 t ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C)
Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 c sugar, the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape the dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
Mix the 2 tablespoons of sugar and the cinnamon. Roll the balls of dough in the mixture. Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

We had to bake 11 minutes to get brown bottoms on the cookies. I see Laura has changed the recipe to 3 cups of flour. I think hers needed more time because we beat so much air into creaming the butter and sugar. I doubt you can make these wrong.

We had lunch with Emily, at Hiram.

She said she would be the most popular person on her floor, with cookies.

I said there were only a dozen.

She will be popular with her roommate.

I let the girls climb four flights and visit.

I hung around outside and admired the season.

Snickerdoodles

A dozen to take to Emily, tomorrow.

A dozen for Mr. and Mrs. Across the Street, who have been so nice to us.

A dozen for Laura and me.

Update: the dozen in the red cookie jar are gone.

Completely unexpected

All three of the grandchildren who’ve been here came with interesting reading habits. They read fantasy. I picked up a couple or three to read, and was not impressed by thin plots and limited vocabularies.  Emily joined book club, realized thought provoking literature was available, at the library, no less, and moved on. 

A year ago this past summer I mentioned to Laura that some book she was reading seemed based on Grimms. I unearthed Grimms from the basement library, and she read the little green volume from my childhood. Then I handed over Andersen, and suggested she read at least up to the nightingale story, or the little mermaid.

For their first Christmas here I flooded the children with classics, hoping to influence their reading habits for the better. The Andersen volume went to Emily, with some others, and languished on the bottom shelf of her bookcase. Laura was the reader of it, though, and I see it now lives on the bottom shelf of her bookcase.

And so on to this year. Over the summer I took her to see the professional production of a play. This year she’s joined drama club. She spent all of junior high being too timid to join. Over the summer we went to a production of You Can’t Take It With You, and the ending was surprisingly well done. I was impressed by the set and the costumes, and pointed out to Laura all the work that goes into a production by the folks who put it on. She’s joined drama club “to work on sets or costumes.” One doesn’t ask.

Those are pleasant parts of the world through young eyes. My unpleasant part is band, band shows and football games. Joe, my car pooler, has a license and a car, so I have Laura’s round trip. Retrieval from band practice at nine o’clock plus Wednesday nights is not too far outside the pale. But, Friday night football and the occasional Saturday band show are!

The young, tailgating parents are, frankly, insane. But, at least they are already at the event, and can retrieve Susie and Johnny and get on home. For me, when pigs fly. I have found a school website that posts the big plays each quarter, and the score. I look at it occasionally, and about mid fourth quarter head off to the school. We’re talking late for grandmas, but I flip on the local public radio station for Los Angeles Theater productions.

Laura generally has an unfavorable remark or two, before she falls asleep on the way home. Last weekend she suddenly listened to the production of Pride and Prejudice, and asked me to fill her in on characters and what she missed. At home, we sat in the drive, at midnight, listening to the end.

“Emily has this,” Laura announced. “She left it here! I’m going to read that.”

I looked. Complete Works of Jane Austen lives in another bedroom now.

We hope this is the last food story

Except for the ten years I was married, I never learned how to cook. When there was no one to cook for me, I winged it with a bag of noodles, a stick of butter and a can each of lima beans, corn, and tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes, in season.

Fortunately, people around me could cook. My daughters, my sister, eventually my granddaughters. No one went hungry, especially me.

Emily and Laura were defacto cooks last July, when we moved. Emily cooked like Aunt Janice, and pretty much elbowed Laura away from the stove during the several weeks before she went off to college. Big sister syndrome. Though Emily had little hope for Laura, the little sister was merely biding her time.

Laura was born to make lists, which is the last name of shopping list or menu list. She was very expansive in the beginning, and I had to rein in the amount of produce she wanted to load into our refrigerator. I learned in a day or less not to interfere. I don’t buy ingredients she isn’t interested in using, for instance.

In the beginning we ate a lot of wraps. I’ve become an excellent wrap wrapper. Kale goes into the pan first, some green pepper, some broccoli—whatever is in the fridge. Some spices. Some protein. This goes on a wrap, on a little plate, which is bigger than the wrap, when the wrap is wrapped. Always good, sometimes excellent.

After the breaking in period, I made a couple of attempts to steer nutrition. A vegetable with the mac and cheese, for instance. She does not bake mac and cheese (“the macaroni sucks up all the cheese! Yuck.”)  Most dishes seem to be served in a bowl. Even spaghetti. Convenience, I suppose. I generally find vegetables incorporated in the dish being served in a bowl. Kale in the mac and cheese, for example.

Laura is a solitary cooker. I don’t mince fine enough or chop well enough to be welcome, so I stay out, rather than be sent out. Consequently, I can read the list and know what’s for dinner, but don’t see it happening. The other night, before she called me, I heard something new. “I should plate this.” Someone apparently watches cooking shows, too.

Saturday night, waiting for the band show to end

This year every child in the school system, from fifth grade up, was issued a Chrome Book. This is a little tablet sized computer that runs on Chrome. All communication, school work, assignments, announcements, occurs via Chrome Book. Emily worked for the school all summer, “enrolling” the several hundreds of Chrome Books required.

Of course, I discovered early on, the Chrome Books have no parental controls. I asked for them, as a condition of Chrome Book being used in this house. The request has caused a great deal of trouble between the system and me; it remains under “discussion and review”. I wonder if I’ve ever mentioned how I dislike doing business with the generations succeeding me.

Just as a check, I asked a parent in a different school system that also went to Chrome Book this year, if she realized there were no parental controls on the little darlings. After consideration she admitted she did not, but added her children were trustworthy.

My aunt’s fanny.

In this house I put up with its abuse for a week or so, and then installed my own parental control of removing it to the kitchen, its new home when it’s not going to school. And on the Monday I had a phone call from school—the previous Friday night, Chrome had attempted an unauthorized site. A red flag on Friday and I was notified on Monday!

The counselor got my ballistic best. As I later explained to Laura, I yelled at her counselor. “You yelled at Miss O?” Damn right I did. I understand my concern has moved up the agenda, but I have little expectation beyond my parental control of looking at the damn thing in the kitchen.

And, this started out to be a post about Laura’s dislike of electronic record keeping. We went shopping for a month at a glance calendar the second week of school. She likes to see her assignments, obligations, appointments in pencil, flat on her desk.

When we moved here last July, the grocery list moved from inside the pantry door to the kitchen table almost at once, and Laura keeps it constantly updated. This little notebook has so many pages gone to the grocery store I think a new little notebook will soon be on the list.

Even more than the grocery lists, I like the menu list. It lives on the kitchen table, too, and I’m never in doubt about my next meal.

Up, up, and away...

Emily, packed for college.

The access road between Emily's dorm and the dorm next door.

Not Emily's dorm.

Some poor (grand)parents beginning the long slog to the dorm that is not Emily's.

And a freshman, who also brought a television and a refrigerator.

Our team, who had to climb four flights.

Last load.

I had to drive to the bottom of another hill to park, and wait for a shuttle.

I stopped to take a picture of a field of solar panels by the athletic field.

I was dropped off to climb the hill to Emily's dorm.

I must find out about this. A residence unit, and a dog in charge.

The team at work.

The view from Emily's room. Her room is at the end of the hall, not off the corridor, and a tad larger than the hall rooms.

I walked from that intersection to the dorm, then up four flights of sixteen stairs each. Fortunately, I could rest often when I stood aside for loads of belongings coming up the steps.

Close to done.

The room mate arrives.

And it just kept coming.

While we still could shuffle out,

Hugs, and we left.

Summer officially is done. Tomorrow I will call Ruth and we will go to lunch!

The first day of the next nine months of my life!

For Laura, school started today. She has not been in school since April. For many weeks she was up and about early, the old routine. But, for six or eight weeks, sometimes she’s up; sometimes I get her up when I do, eight in the morning. Plenty soon for an old lady.

I asked last night about her alarm, and am assured it works and she would set it. I woke up this morning at something after five, at full alert. No light down at her end, so I went on down, knocked and Laura flew straight up. First the glasses, then squint down at the alarm. “It will go off in one minute, Grandma,” she sighed. I left her getting up any way, and went back to bed, knowing she would make the bus at 6:20.

Then, at 7:20 the front door slammed shut. Emily, off to work. I have no idea why one slams the door and one doesn’t. No matter. I looked at my alarm. I never set it. I flipped the alarm button to on, rolled over and slept until it rang. It was the principle.

Went to work, came home, had lunch. No responsibility except getting Emily at 3 from work. Think I’ll go clean the kitchen counters and the sinks. They’re teenage clean, but not grandma clean.

On my way to work.

Cat on the other side of the blind.

Children

I’m probably not too old for this job, but, damn, I am old. What haven’t I figured out, children?

We have Emily, tapping her toe and counting down three weeks to escaping to Hiram. Living on “the wrong side of the tracks,” far from Hudson, has benefits. These girls met the bus at 6:15 every morning and got off at four every afternoon. Their lives were homework, supper, bed. Emily’s social life was band, and her eventual boyfriend was a band member.

There were school dances, and the occasional movie, but even more, complaints they never did ‘boyfriend, girlfriend things.’ This, as we all know, got little sympathy from me.  Emily’s boyfriend worked, as did Emily. I found it ideal, and saw no reason to facilitate more “dates” than I did.

This final summer of freedom, however, is exactly that: more freedom than they knew. Emily has been allowed in Scott’s car since last September. Dates are fine; there is no personal running around. They both work at the same place, but I will not let him bring her home, except from a Friday night date, which must end by ten.

Last week Emily and I were coordinating calendars. “You do know Scott is taking me to a concert Tuesday night?” No, I didn’t, but no matter.

“Where is it?”

“Blossom.”

Blossom Music Center is a huge outdoor music stage, less than ten miles away. Two roads south of here. Nice facility. I’ve seen Peter, Paul and Mary there, and Paul Simon, and the Cleveland Orchestra. She and Scott and his sister and her boyfriend, and probably a bunch more are seeing Blink 182.   (?)

“And we were thinking, since it will be so late, and so far, we’ll just go to Scott’s sister’s apartment and spend the night.”

“Thought I’d miss that, did you?”

“It was worth a try.”

“No, Scott can drop you on his way home, say midnight, latest.”

There is nothing new under the sun.

Sales tax holiday

This is me, sitting on the relatively comfy seats in the shoe department,

waiting for the shoppers to return.

No, we're not buying shoes. It's just the only comfortable place to wait.

They have what they need to start school.

Noticing the obvious lack of socks and underpants, I did ask.

No, they have plenty.

Kinda funny, no? A good foundation and then some flashy colors, to face the world.

Off to pay the piper.

Two hundred dollars fit into one bag.

A good start

A couple of weeks ago, while Emily was away a few days,

Laura and I got a decent start on the front yard.

But, Emily really wanted a tree out there, too.

Our favorite nursery has a "Charlie Brown" section, where we found a little Japanese red maple.

We picked up their last two pots of my plant that solves all, wooly thyme.

And last weekend put them in the ground.

Emily dug an almighty hole for the tree,

and Laura put in the wooly thyme.

I think we are done until spring, when we see how all our transplants from the old garden fared.

Well, I have ordered a hundred anemones, a hundred paper narcissus bulbs, and

a dozen or so allium (now, those are expensive buggers!) to plant in the fall.

Our new little tree is behind the bench, which I think probably will rust to nothing before we must move it out of the tree's way.

What goes to band camp must come home

Last Sunday

Yesterday, marching in from the buses in the parking lot.

Our trumpeter:

middle row, third from the field.

We can still see her!

Third row, sixth from left!

There are some old friends here, too.

Joe, first row, fourth from left.

Liam, first row, 13th from left.

And today, two ibuprofen and a heating pad for a sore back.

Emily took all the pictures on her phone. These kids move too fast for me.

Another four years begin...

Laura is in 9th grade this year, and off to band camp.

A little look at memory lane:

Emily, in 9th grade.

She goes to college in the fall.

Hamilton in 12th grade, the next year.

He's at Cuyahoga Community College.

Another four years begin...

Laura is in 9th grade this year, and off to band camp.

A little look at memory lane:

Emily, in 9th grade.

She goes to college in the fall.

Hamilton in 12th grade, the next year.

He's at Cuyahoga Community College.