Marcie and Hiking

Marcie and I shared one passion which I like to think I won her over to. Hiking was a natural, as Marcie loved to walk for her exercise, but the territory we wanted to hike in was always a point of contention. I could hike anything, and the sweatier the walk, the better.

Marcie, on the other hand, was not so adaptable. To Marcie, everything east of us was part of a vast, dry wasteland of sand and skin-drying Santa Ana winds. Dry skin was a mortal sin in Marcie's world. It finally took the promise (true) of a nice waterfall and a tree-lined walk to it to get her to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, where she enjoyed Green Valley Falls.

Winning her over on Federal parkland was a different story. Cleveland National Forest and it wonderful Laguna Mountain Recreation Area veered way too close to the desert for Marcie. But she had expressed a desire to visit when the snow was on the hills.

We never did get to, but I decided that I would go up and hike the places I had known as a kid, including Kitchen Creek and the Sunrise Highway. I felt her presence with me as I walked, and I managed to take a few shots of the stark contrast of desert and snow, the amazing eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and some views I thought she would ahve "ooh'd and aah'd" at.

Certainly, these forests are nothing like the redwoods and moist conifer forests she loved in Northern California, but they have a beauty all their own. I hope you enjoy these snapshots, and please click on the slide show to visit the web album.

Soulwarmer soup

I have been eating soup lately. Not some salty, canned nastiness, but real soup. I used to make it for Marcie and me, and now I make it to feed me for days at a time. It's healthy, relatively light and wonderfully nutritious. I thought I would share the recipe.

The newest incarnation of the soup is heavy on the chiles, but they are not very hot chiles, so don't shy away yet... Also, remember that soup recipes can be modified to remove what you don't want. But don't change the base, if you can avoid it. It's delicious.

-The base-
1 cup water
1 cup tomatillo, sliced and steamed until done (about 5-7 minutes)
1/2 cup pan-wilted white onion slivers (chunks okay, too)
1 Anaheim chile (very mild), charred and peeled, then sliced into pieces
6 Roma tomatoes, chopped or processed to small chunks
optional:
2 tablespoons ground, dried chipotle
1 tablespoon cayenne
or (milder):
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1/2 package of "Soyrizo" vegetarian chorizo replacement
Salt and pepper to taste (I use no salt)
1 tsp sage
1 pinch of mesquite salt if available (or flavor to taste)

Mix these ingredients to start your base, then let the whole thing simmer in a big pot of water while you add your ingredients.

The recommended ingredients

1/2 pound mushrooms
3-4 sliced potatoes in large chunks
1/2 bunch kale
1-2 cups beans (pinto, black or kidney, perhaps all of them)
1/4 pound green beans
6 stalks celery, cut into 1" pieces
1 red onion, chopped into large chunks
1 poblano pepper, roasted or charred then peeled and sliced into strips
1 serrano pepper, roasted or charred then peeled and chopped (substitute green bell for milder palates)
1 red bell pepper, sliced

Once the base is simmering, add the vegetables a bit at a time, stirring everything as it cooks and adding water to keep the ingredients covered. after all the ingredients are in, let it simmer, bubbling lightly, for about two hours.

If you are lucky and patient, you will end up with something like this, including the heavily spattered stovetop:


Enjoy. Tomorrow, perhaps I will share some pictures of places we lived.

Night, folks. F.

The Pizza Pie of Hearts

I decided not to sit in DiMille's, lest I burst into tears like some kind of freak. I didn't when I ate, and pizza tasted very, very good after so many months without it. Back on the wagon I go, though. I need to be in top form for the trip and whatever comes after, if anything.

Here is a fine example of what we enjoyed as our Valentine's ritual (yes, from DiMille's). I did set two places at the table and I had to shoo Seamus away (and lock him in the room, as Marcie would have demanded):

Our pizza pie, and the last Valentine's heart-shaped pizza I will ever eat of.

Good night, folks. Happy Valentine's Day.

The Valentine Tradition

As is the case with many women, Marcie loved Valentine's day. And though I did a number of things for her over the years surrounding the lovers' holiday, one little thing we saved for special Valentine's occasions.

It was not grand, or expensive, or even overly romantic. In fact, it was inexpensive, inauspicious and simple.

I remember well her excitement that morning as I prepared for school. It was the Thursday before Valentine's, 1994. The holiday fell on a Monday that year, and she was holding an ad up festooned with roses and hearts... and a pizza.

DiMille's was offering a special. Now, neither of us knew about this little restaurant in Normal Heights, being downtown-oriented and bus riders.

"Let's see," I said. "A pizza, heart-shaped, a salad, and a heart-shaped brownie for dessert. Hmmm. That's not sounding all that promising."

She dropped her hands and her lips pursed. She looked up and stepped in close and whispered, "You don't want to have a little evening out on the town and then maybe a big night back here?"

"Well, that's different, then," I said, my ears red as she played her hands up and down my chest with the ad still in one of them.

She laughed shortly and triumphantly, then the excited enthusiasm returned to her voice and she stepped away, manipulation utterly successful. "We can catch the 11 after you get out of school, and then after we eat, we can take a taxi if we're too tired to wait for the bus."

She slapped the ad on the refrigerator with a magnet and grabbed her coat, kissing me on the lips as she headed out for work. I simply shook my head and watched her walk, a favorite thign for me back then.

I thought once would be the limit, a simple experiment that would go somewhat awry or that would taste bad. Either way, I would bring her a gift or two, and she would have flowers, if not See's to go with it. Monday came and we set off.

I was quite wrong. Even the bus ride went well. We played all the way up, kissing and whispering into each others' ears about the people around us. Marcie played at moving around the bus, "avoiding me," calling me a "masher" and putting on a show.

For my part, I would slide into a seat behind her after she moved, ,or next to her and wait a moment or two, playing along behind my dark shades. Then, as soon as she was distracted, tickle her or nibble her neck.

I loved to hear her squeal and playfully say "Noooo, stoooop," in her cute falsetto. It rings in my ears even now.

When we got up to debark across Adam's Avenue from DiMille's, she took my hand. A senior who had observed our shenanigans all the way from Downtown stopped us by the disabled seats at the front of the bus.

"You two are just too cute," she said. "I hope you kids have a good Valentine's tonight. You are such a perfect little couple, it warms a heart."

Her words sank in with Marcie, and she would cite them to me in times troubled and serene. They were innocuous enough, but heartfelt and sweet, and though they are fond in my memory, they were always so soothing to hear Marcie recall in her impression of the anonymous elder.

The bus driver was less interested in it all. "Y'all are rascals," he said in a southern drawl. "Are you getting off here or do you want to have to walk a little?"

Marcie pulled me by the hand to the exit, but I managed to whip my head back and wish the old lady a happy Valentine's Day. We went in and had a seat.

The decor was simple and yet warm, with lots of family restaurant touches and pictures on the walls. We ordered the house Chianti , which was actually very good. Marcie was at first put off but she sipped it and decided she agreed.

"To our first Valentine's Day," she toasted.

"To my redheaded Valentine bombshell," I said, clinking my glass against hers.

The staff were friendly and pretty attentive. The waitress was apparently charmed by us, and commented on how I stood when Marcie left, pushed her chair in and was "such a gentleman."

I witnessed the jealous Marcie for the first time when she returned from the bathroom. "What was that girl saying to you?" she asked.

"She said it was nice that I help you sit and stand up when you leave," I said. "She told me I was a gentleman, nothing much else."

"Uh huh," she said. "She'd better watch it. Do you think she's cute?"

I shook my head "No" as I sipped my wine. "Not my type," I said. "She's way too blonde, way too young and seems pretty naive."

"Yeah, well, she can keep her fluttering eyes and her blond hair to her naive self," Marcie said. "And you better not be looking at her."

I slid out of my seat and into Marcie's bench, moving her over. I kissed her and leaned into her a little and whispered, "I'm all yours, so just either enjoy the wine or you're cut off."

"Oh, ho ho, I am going to be cut off now, huh? You think so? Really?" she said, rather indignantly.

I had already met Argument Marcie, so I just kissed her and whispered, "Of course not, but I am with you, and I have something for you."

I changed the subject by reaching into my jacket and pulling out a little set of earrings I had bought her, made from moonstones. She looked at the vintage jewelry and smiled, and then shooed me to my side of the table before handing me a card. I still own that card, and cherish it.

The salad arrived and was delicious and fresh-tossed, the house dressing simple and light, but flavorful. The pizza won a very enthusiastic approval from Marcie, who found it to have plenty of tasty sauce and, "not too much cheese."

The only miss was the brownie, which my unrefined baking palate adjudged acceptable but Marcie's more exacting tastes panned wholly.

"Honey, it is totally dry like they just cut up industrial brownies and iced 'I love you' on it," she said.

I conceded, but had them pack it, as well, to avoid hurting their feelings. I eventually tossed it when she kept referring to it as "that nasty thing." She made brownies that weekend to "show me" what a "real brownie" was like.

As we waited for a taxi, which the DiMille's hostess called for us, she kissed me on the cheek and said, "Let's come back next year. It will be our little getaway."

I agreed to, and we came back every year except for the two we lived in Humboldt County. Last year, we ordered it in, just the pizza. It was our tradition, and we did what we could to honor it, though neither of us ate much that night.

Tonight, I will go enjoy one last heart-shaped pizza at DiMille's, half cheese and half pepperoni, with a table for two and a couple of glasses of Chianti. Perhaps I will dream of her tonight, and perhaps I won't. But I will never have that heart-shaped pizza again.

Chasing Marcie

*Warning* TASTEFUL adult stuff in this post.

So, when we left off, I was walking away from Marcie's house after our first (if platonic) sleepover with my jacket tied around my waist. Classes went by in a blur. I decided to call Marcie after a quick workout at the gym. When I got no answer, I headed back to my little hotel room.

"Hey, Frank-o!" the front desk clerk called to me as I entered.

His name was Gus and he was a retired Navy man with a drinking habit that had outgrown his pension but not his spirit. He always had a salty comment to make, usually to a greatly mirthful reception. I stopped.

"Somebody left you a message," he said. "Marcie called and said she'll see you in class tomorrow, she's working late at CVS."

"Thanks, Gus," I said, taking the message from him and pocketing it. "She's really cute, man."

Gus looked at me funny. Then he shrugged a little and spit his New York accent at me with a little barb. "Huh. No shit? You like girls, then? Hell, I thought you were a queer."

"Sorry to disappoint, Gus, but I like the ladies," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Until one of them finally drives you into bad habits, too, huh? We're not so different, you and I."

Gus went back to reading the Reader's Digest, one of the little lodger hotels' subscriptions, pressing the button to buzz me in as if to dismiss me. He was a quirky old guy.

The night passed slowly, and the morning classes seemed to go on forever. Then, when speech class began, she was not there. Stood up! I knew angst for the first half hour of the hour-and-a-half class, wondering where she was.

She floated in while Ken discussed rhetoric and persuasive speaking. I turned and watched her walk in, shooting her a win. She rolled her eyes and slid into her chair, giving me a critical look.

The class dragged but we were let out early because we had had no break.

"Stop it," she said as I tried to hold her hand. "Hold on."

We were out of sight of the classroom when she finally let me take her hand. But she set her book bag down and slipped into a deep, wet kiss under the City College bridge that doubled as a plaza above B street.

"Come on," she said. "Let's catch the 7 and go to Balboa Park."

I picked up her bag and she held my free hand. We both had passes and within 15 minutes were at the Balboa Park Fountain. We strolled through the park and stopped in various places to kiss. we ended up making out for a long while on the western end's soft, unkempt grass.

"I have to eat," she said.

"What would you like?" I asked. "Some French food?"

"No, no," she said. "Just something simple. Are you hungry?"

I was less interested in nutrition than she was, but I nodded. "Sure."

We covered the ground between her house and the park in no time. She sat me down on her bed and turned on her television to the news.

Within 15 minutes, we were eating Macaroni and Cheese, the Kraft kind. It was a lifelong favorite of hers, thought not mine by any means. Some red wine helped wash it down, and we enjoyed a cigarette afterward. She told me we were being "very French."

She handed me the toothbrush I had used before

"Go brush your teeth," she said. "Close the door, too."

I did, and brushed giddily. There would be more kissing, at least.

I was on the right track. When she opened the door as I still brushed, she was in her robe. She slide it against me and I got the feel of her nipples against my back. She hugged me from behind and whispered, "Go finish out there," before she kissed my nape.

I was completely turned on and just threw the toothbrush into the sink and rinsed my mouth. I half expected her to shower or something, but she came out of the bathroom and turned off all but the nightstand light.

She stood silhouetted in her clingy bright green baby doll, massing her hair on her head with her hands, then clipping it in place.

"Well, do you need a written invitation?" she asked me.

"No," I remember I said. "But I do enjoy the view."

"Oh, that's cute," she said. "But you're sure talking a lot, aren't you. Are you nervous?"

I most certainly was not, but decided to show her, not tell her. My clothes practically flew off me and in seconds, I had slid my hands around her little waist and kissed her.

She giggled in our kiss but broke it and handed me a condom from a fresh pack in her purse. "Now," she said. "Or no way."

"Now" sounded really good.

Marcie was an amazing lover, even the first time. Before we slept, I remember holding her in my lap as I sat "Indian-style" on the bed in a gently rocking straddle as we talked and kissed playfully, somewhere between an afterglow and another go around.

"So now we have to slow down and get to know more about each other," she said. "I don't completely trust you, I just want you to know that."

I nodded and kissed her lips, smiled at her. "Okay, we'll do that."

She bit her lip and shuddered a little, then smiled at me, "But that doesn't mean we stop or anything. That just means there are strings attached, mister."

I nodded, looking up at her with what had to be a pretty sated, stupid, dopey smile. "Uh huh."

She laughed a little and kissed my neck, then set her elbows on my shoulders and nuzzled me. "Oh, my god, this is so fast."

I whispered in her ear, "No, it's ten o'clock. I think we're taking out time."

She laughed and kissed me, and sometime later that night we went to sleep in a tight, comforting spoon. I remember waking up to the smell of her skin, and sex, and golden, dust-stained rays of sun over the building's eastern side.

I kissed her neck and she slid against me. I remember feeling, secretly, that I was in love already, and I remember feeling great comfort in her little studio, tucked away together.


I am grateful that it was not the last time, but the first of many mornings like that, and I am pained that I wake and look for her still, until my mind remembers and my heart, and eyes, burn yet again.

The witch tree

Marcie and I used to often discuss the strange plants and animals that adorn our home and its vicinity in Normal Heights. One element of our landscaping which is a constant source of change and seems permanently out of tune with nature is a tree in our back yard which I take for a flowering dogwood.

Today, as I tried to get outside for some air (bad idea... the air tastes like a cloud of exhaust and made me choke), I noticed Seamus staring into the tree. Mind you, this tree has hosted hawks with fresh pigeons in their claws as they ate them, an owl, hummingbird colonies and even a woodpecker.

Even without those odd visitors, an early lesson in the environs here usually means I take note of Seamus taking interest.

I saw nothing, but then I realized he was watching the petals of the little white flowers on the tree as they drifted down onto the ground. I took a "Seamus' eye view" picture for you:

The cat's eye view of a dogwood

Marcie and I dubbed this tree the "witch tree" because of the creepy things that have fallen out of it over the years we lived here together. The tree, firstly, has a knack for dropping very well-aimed leaves down your shirt, usually the back of the shirt, in fact. It constantly sheds.

The leaves would not be bad, unless you knew what lived in the tree. The tree hosts a multispecies community of spiders. No, the tree is infested with spiders. I am not saying they are social spiders, but they seem to have plenty to eat as they multiply and winter over in the thing.

I can likely be fogiven for thinking, at first, that this lovely 12" construct was a webbed-up bat:

A grim cocoon

That thought, of a small mammal webbed up in that mass of tightly-woven but chaotic webbing, may be macabre, but it is wholly fictional, obviously. However, what is not fictional is that, in the many, many webbed clusters like this in the tree, one runs a good chance of finding black widows.

How do I know? Why, I am glad you asked.

The tree, when we moved in, was one giant nasty collection of leaves in webbing. When one day I decided to water our hanging plant, Marcie asked me to knock some of the webs down and clean the tree up a bit. Bad idea.

As I gleefully sprayed down the nasty chunks of dead leaves and branches, adding them to the growing pile under the tree, something caught my eye. A jet black, fat, lurching body clambered over the leaves from a soggy cluster of gummy detritus. I spray it and the round, clumsy thing flipped over for a moment. A big red hourglass stared back.

Squish. Buh-bye. Black widows are not fun. I don't like small animals which can kill, spider or not, useful or not. I kept working but then saw another. Squish. Then two more, smaller ones, and an immature juvenile whose more colorful pattern I recognized from an article on the latrodectus morphology. Squish-squishity-splorp.

There were other spiders, not all of them black widows, the bigger of which I sprayed away from me, the smaller of which I ignored. I could not believe how many of the widows there were, however, especially in a tree. I believed them to be more interested in being more hidden and near moisture and darkness.

I was rolling up the hose when I noted a black, shiny body nestled between my shoelaces, legs drawn in tight. I sprayed it off carefully and swear it tried to bite me as I did. Squish.

As if this entire experience was not getting unnerving, Marcie chose that time to retrieve some laundry. As she walked out and the occasional branch of deadness and spider fell from the weight of the water, a bag of black plastic fell and plopped onto the ground, scaring her and me both.

It was shaped like a little human.

Now, our neighbors at the time had children who loved to throw each others' toys onto our roof. In retrospect, I had no reason to think it was a baby, except for the meaty, wet splat the bagged form made. In other words, it had me thinking.

"Honey, go inside," I said.

She looked at it and then at me. "Just throw it away, honey." she said. "It's junk."

I checked it anyways. It was a cheap doll with a soft middle, covered in mud and obviously having gathered a lot of leaves. I dropped it back in the bag and went to toss it in the trash, when my grip set off a little wheezing cry.

"Maaaaaamaaa," it said.

I paused and got a shudder down my spine, then dumped it. As if did, I shook off a spider whose thick web was making it hard to shake, stomping it as it finally landed on the ground. Squish.

It was a fat, brown, "golden garden spider." But I was done with the creepy mess. I have never sprayed that tree out since, and likely never will. But Marcie decided that the tree would be called the "Witch tree."

"It looks like a tree a witch would fly out of on her broom," she said. "It's totally creepy, honey."

Or perhaps a bunch of spiders and a soggy, infested baby doll could fall out and cry for mama.

But that tree is just one of many little wild features and woodland creatures our abode sports. I will sprinkle in our experiences in that realm as we go along.

In fact, the white flowers mean that it is almost time for the skunks and possums to make their appearance and move in under the house. That's a lot more fun than spiders, by far. And a lot more story, too.

Home sick

So, I am home sick AGAIN. I started coughing late last night and the hacking just did not stop. I slept three hours and woke with my voice going out, almost late for work, with a massive headache, the pain of which went from my sinuses to the back of my neck. I hate the polluted, Santa Ana-blasted Southern California deathscape we call the environment, I really do.

I seem to have dried out, but I wake up every morning clogged, drain by noon, then just cough and try to stay hydrated. That is hard to do at a school district office where the heat is on even if the building is warm enough for reasonable people. It just dries me out.

I hope I wake up in passable form tomorrow. We are supposed teach a grant writing class at a school. I love that part of my job, actually. We'll see.

This is not today's post, but yesterday's needs a makeup, so I will post later (maybe twice). I'm a tired, sleepy guy right now. I wish Marcie was here to take care of me. She was always good at making the sympathetic noises I needed to hear when I was ill, whether asked to or not.

*Sigh* *COUGH!*

Chicken Fettucine Alfredo Marcelina

I prepared Marcie her meal with some consideration which you may not find common in a recipe of this type. She told me she liked shrimp, so I cooked her some and added it in. She liked pine nuts, so I integrated those in a couple of ways, too. Finally, I did not use light cream but half and half (with a little added marscapone).

Chicken Fettucine Alfredo (plus shrimp)

1/4 lb shrimp, cooked as detailed below
1/2 lb fettucine, cooked al dente
2 tbsp marscapone (optional)
2 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
half & half (light cream is okay, too)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, OR Parmesan mixed with Pecorino Romano
1 egg yolk (you don't need all of it)
1/4 stick of butter


Alfredo Sauce: Take a handful of pine nuts and roast them lightly in a dry pan, then set them into a steel bowl. Mash them into a paste with a spoon while still warm. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Put half & half in, add the yolk. Beat until well-mixed. Add Parmesan cheese, reserving some for later, and heat gently, adding a tablespoon or two of marscapone, stirring it all until it melts into a thickish liquid.

Do not boil or bubble the sauce, if you can avoid it. Heat it until it steams a bit.

To cook the shrimp, clean them (if necessary) and toss them into a pan with a good olive oil (say, McEvoy Ranch?) and cook them until they are opaque and firm, adding a squeeze of lemon juice and some pepper to taste.

Toss chicken, noodles and shrimp. You can serve it sprinkled with the extra Parmesan or Parmesan/Romano mix, or step it up a little by broiling it for a few minutes in a casserole dish. Sprinkle the rest of the pine nuts (lightly roasted while you broil the dish) around the plate as a tasty garnish, with a leaf or two of basil to boot.

The recipe above, with all of the richest and most delicious additions, are what I fed Marcie. I recommend adding a wonderful greens salad with tomato and crumbled Gorgonzola and a balsamic vinaigrette.

Wine... Must. Have. Wine. Red is okay, as Marcie demanded that with hers, but a good Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc is good, too.

Chasing Marcie

When Marcie and I first met, at a San Diego City College speech class, there were a lot of obstacles to overcome for us to be a couple. I was certainly smitten by her red hair and saucy, flirty way of engaging me, but I was also eying a few other girls. She had other suitors, too.

Internally, I was not interested in pairing off right away as college just began. I had determined that, with a love life built of long relationships and no really short affairs to speak of, college should be a long string of trysts. Yeah, right.

Our first date was to Café Chabalaba, a 1990s "San Diego is the next Seattle" mini-venue of some fame. Owner Cristina let me and my pal Mark Veno run (read: hold) the door for a parade of quality shows.

Marcie and I had some coffee and a long conversation. Effectively, this conversation ended my dream of a parade of little hussies weaving a thread of lusty debauch through my college education.

"I like going out to eat once in a while, but I really like to cook for myself," she said after shooting down an invitation to Mr. A's.

"Oh?" I asked. "I like to cook, too. Maybe I could cook for you sometime and you can tell me how I did."

She rolled her eyes and looked up into the corner of the café, then rolled them back down at me. "You cook, huh? Yeaaah, right."

"What do you mean, 'yeah right'?" I asked. "I cook. I have cooked for myself for years, occasionally for other people, and I am pretty good at it, too."

Marcie looked at me intently and played with the coffee cup in front of her. She did not believe me, and she did not seem too impressed.

"I'll prove it to you," I said. "Let me cook for you, and you'll see."

"What would you cook?" she asked, as if she would catch me in a lie, or unprepared.

No such luck.

"Chicken fettuccine Alfredo, from scratch," I said. "No mix, no sauce, I make it from scratch."

She smiled and looked at the cup again. "But you live in a hotel downtown. Where are you going to cook this meal for me?"

The C Street Inn had no kitchen, but I decided to fib a little and see where she went with this. I could always use another kitchen.

"We have a kitchen at the hotel," I said. "Do you think I eat at La Gran Tapa every night?"

"Well, I don't want to eat at your hotel room," she said. "We are going to have to do this some other way."

"Oh, so you want me to cook for you?" I asked.

She smiled and then narrowed her eyes and watched me closely. That gotcha look again... again mislaid.

"Are you chickening out? Are you lying to me?" she asked, noting I shook my head. "Because if you are, we are not going out again. You can cook for me next week, Tuesday, my day off. You can use my kitchen and you have to clean it up afterward."

"Cool. You got a deal and a meal," I said. "Wine?"

"You're the cook, or so you say, so you choose," she said. "And don't be thinking that you can fake it. My friend's mom taught me to cook and she was from an Italian family. It had better be for real, mister."

I met her later that week outside the Museum of Man for crackers and cheese with Madame Harms, a friend of mine at City and her professor of French.

Marcie and another girl, a German who I learned later Marcie simply called "Eurotrash," had been charged with bringing wine. Marcie had brought three bottles, two reds and a white, and ET brought one, with a screw cap. Port, actually. Bad Port.

We drank and snacked as the sun slid low and Madame Harms came and sat with us. She was cute, in a middle-aged-but-sassy way, and she teased us, a bit drunk.

"You two lovers should go make a mess somewhere pleasant," she said, poking me on the nose.

Marcie let out her unbridled joy. It was the first time I had heard it. It was abrupt and sharp, then wound down melodiously as she laughed and tried to speak through it. I only speak a little French, but I deciphered what she asked.

"Madame Harms êtes vous en état d'ébriété?" she asked.

"Oui, Marcie, oui," Madame Harms slurred cheerfully. "Je vous remercie beaucoup pour le vin."

Marcie squinted and I said, "She said wine and thanks in there."

Madame Harms looked at me oddly. "I did not," she indignantly proclaimed. "I said 'I thank you for the wine,' and... yes, I guess I did. But not like that, silly boy. Not in little pieces like that."

With that she touched Marcie's nose, gave her a hug, then me, and rose unsteadily, our bottle rising with her.

"No more for you," she said. "You should go make your mess now."

I smiled at Marcie, but she rolled her eyes.

"I don't know what you're thinking, mister, but I am going home and studying," she said. "I work early tomorrow"

"May I walk you home?" I asked.

"I only live a few blocks away," she said. "I'll be fine."

"I have to see where you live if I am going to cook for you Tuesday," I said, smiling. "Besides, it doesn't take even one block to get robbed, right? And you have to go through the west side of the park."

West Balboa Park was a nightmare of crackheads and homeless people, gay prostitutes and ornery drunks at night. From dusk until dawn, the crime rate rose dramatically. A few years earlier, a man had been stabbed to death on the bridge, an Old Globe Actor.

"Oh, fine, pushy boy," she said, packing her things. "You can walk me to my building, but you cannot come up."

I got her home and we saw not one threat, which she was careful to point out as we walked. "I live here, she said. "I know where I am, so don't be thinking you're the man or something just because I let you walk me home."

"Oh, I won't," I said. "But I will think I must be because you let me even though you don't need me to."

She turned and looked at me as if to say "Oh really?" she did not comment, but handed me her bags. "You can be the mule, at least, since I don't need a bodyguard."

I carried her bags and she slipped her arm around mine and kissed me on the cheek. It was our first lip contact. I was suddenly high. She stopped me on Kalmia.

"I live here," she said. "Thank you for walking me home, and thank you for coming to the park tonight."

I waited as she took her bags and when she went to walk away, I touched her elbow gently. "Thank you for the kiss," I said quietly, my ears turning red.

She tilted her head down and looked up at me askance as if to say "Oh, come ON."

So I did, and I slipped my arms around her waist and pulled her into me for a kiss. At first, she put her hands against my chest as if to push me away. But they slid up over my shoulder and around my neck. We kissed until one of her neighbors chimed in.

"Yow! You go, Marcie!" a woman I would later learn was Marcie's amphetamine-driven lesbian property manager, and who actually was not much for men touching Marcie. It broke the kiss well enough.

"I'll see you Tuesday in class," she said. "Don't call me Saturday, I have to study for my English final and i have to go to my parents on Sunday."

Tuesday took forever to come and she did not answer the phone Monday. I remember the number, 338-8063. I must have dialed it fifty times, hanging up at the third ring.

I would find out later that Joey, her other suitor, had struck himself out sometime Saturday with a reference to her joining his gym while they ate at Golden Dragon. I did not learn that until months later, though.

When Tuesday did come, I tossed her notes in class the whole time, which I had prepared the night before. Every time our teacher turned away, another landed on her desk. She was mortified, and the whole class saw it.

She could not have known that Ken, our instructor, was in on the whole thing. He and I had a good rapport. I learned he started a theater company in Seattle after that semester. It was a loss for City. Mr. Norton was good to the shy speakers.

"You gonna eeeeeat," I remember one note said. The rest were variations on the theme. "You gonna get yo' grub on," "I feel like chicken tonight," was perhaps the cheesiest.

"Stop it!" she mouthed quietly, biting her lower lip and covering her eyes... but she read each one and smiled, then tucked them in her purse, shaking her head, red-faced.

The last one simply said. "Class is over. I have to go pick up the groceries. See you at 4:00 sharp."

I was gone before she was done reading it.

The meal went perfectly, but she admitted that it was too much for her. Far too rich for the time of day, she said, but delicious.

She did not like the expensive white wine I brought, but I had also picked up some Kendall Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon, which she drank two glasses of. We ended up making out for a couple of hours.

"You can stay tonight, but I have to get to sleep," she said. "And you have to shower. You can sleep on the couch."

I did, wearing her far too small robe and no covers in the September heat. When I woke up the next morning I brushed my teeth with a brush she gave me and slipped on my grubby clothes. She stopped me as I gathered my things and gave me a long kiss.

"I'll see you tomorrow at school," she whispered. "I had a lovely time and I believe you can cook very well. I will cook for you next time."

I enjoyed the feel of her body against me a little more than I could hide, so I held onto her a bit when she went to let me go. She giggled knowingly in my ear.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

I simply answered her with a kiss and slapped her ass, which she giggled at, her teeth against mine, our mouths open. I made my exit with my jacket around my waist, as a practical consideration.

But Marcie had apparently not had to wait until the morning to get her measure of me.




Tomorrow, I will post the recipe for the Alfredo sauce I used. I will continue this story of our early romance as well, but the next post will be somewhat adult in nature. You are warned.

To my wonderfully supportive coworker

To my generous and kind coworker,

You have not told me your name, and I understand that. Whatever it is and whoever you are, I wanted to thank you with a special post.

You have sent me cards and posted comments, and now you have sent flowers. I am deeply touched. I received it today, and I thank you for your prayers and thoughts as well as the wonderful tulips. Marcie would have loved them.

So that you know, since I cannot tell you in person, it has been difficult, but the burden has been lightened by the people who surround me at work and in my personal life, all of whom have been very good to me and extremely supportive. That means you, too, of course. I am floored by your patronage and thoughtfulness.

I will have the tulips on my desk at work, as they seem ill-suited to my porch, but I had to bring them home and put them among my little arrangement of plants. Here they are, comfy and surrounded but highlighted, not obscured, by their duller peers:



And here they are in a closeup for the rest of you:



Thank you to all of my coworkers, friends, family and readers. You have all been wonderful and I hope that I can return that in some small way through this and other endeavors I intend to share with you all.

Good night,

F.

The secret signal

Marcie and I were, to the day that she suddenly was knocked down and unable to walk, hopeful of her recovery. Certainly, her condition was not good, her setbacks disheartening and her episodes frightening.

But her brain metastases had been shrinking, the cancer had disappeared from other parts of her body, and there was a glimmer of hope. There was also more than a touch of desperate, stubborn and fierce determination from us both. We were alike that way.

But it did not mean we avoided preparing. We did what we could in case she did die, and we let other things that were too hard simply go.

But one night, up in Julian, when Marcie's tired legs had given out in a restaurant and she had been tucked in at the little bed and breakfast we had taken a break at, we talked of what would come after.

It was so difficult a weekend that I journaled it in my reporter's notebook, especially her touching words.

"I don't know what comes after you die," she said. "Maybe nothing, maybe Hell or Heaven, or maybe something more pagan. Maybe we're reincarnated."

She squeezed my hand and I listened, the dark making my tears invisible but my gulps and breathing telling on me.

"I hope there is something after," she said.

I did not know what to say. I have no answers. Faith and belief are not knowledge and I hold more in doubt than I do either of those. But I did think of something to say.

"So if I die first," I said. "I'll send a sign so that you know there is something and I am there."

She squeezed my hand and this time her own breathing gave her away. It was ridiculous, but she understood I wanted her to live, outlive me, or simply not to die without me. I had said it before, long before she was sick

We clung together and let the sadness pass through us. She finally spoke after she cleared her nose, and she tweaked the conversation.

"How should we signal each other?" she asked, squeezing my hand again and sliding herself back into me in a close spoon.

I gulped but maintained and I said, trying to break the tension, "Maybe email?"

She laughed her tired, chemo-strained laugh and rasped "No, honey, seriously. What will our signal be?"

I considered it for a long time. I am a romantic, and she was to a degree as romantic as I was. But both of us were skeptics of most things supernatural and intangible.

Except for ghosts.

Both of us firmly believed in hauntings after a strange sequence of events at our apartment in downtown San Diego. At first, the shower curtain whipped open in front of Marcie while I was showering, both my hands in my hair, covered in shampoo.

I had thought to admonish her, but she was in the hallway looking bewildered. I put on my dirty clothes and we stayed outside for a few minutes until we decided we were being impractical. I must have brushed it open with an elbow.

The next day, during an argument in the kitchen, the stove fell open and we both watched the cookie tray rattle out. We reasoned that away as well. And we reasoned away a remote sliding across the table and onto the floor, and the closet doors opening and cabinets closing.

We admitted once we moved to Humboldt that the place had been haunted.

"No whipping open the curtain to the shower, okay?" I said.

She "hmm'd" and sighed. "I will move something and you will know it is me moving it."

"Really?" I asked. "How about trying to talk to each other? Can we do that?"

"Yes, honey," she said. "I talk to my friend from New York who committed suicide once in a while in my dreams, but that's not easy to tell if it's real or not."

I pondered this, and my dream about my old cat Garfield Siamese, who had popped in to say hi a few times in my own dreams, my dead relatives and their appearances. They all seemed so real. But it was hard to tell.

"Well," I said, tugging on her hip a little. "I won't care if I know it's real or not, you'll be required to resume wifely duties if you visit my twisted dreams."

She laughed at first, but I had miscalculated and the unintended reminder of her state and inability to engage me in our heretofore most bonding act made her cry. I soothed her.

"I will send you my poems in email," I said. "And you won't be able to tell, because if I know I am dying, I will set them up to come on certain days."

"You'll never have to do that for me, honey," she said. "I wish I knew how to do that for you."

We went quiet and I stroked her. She slept the sleep of the exhausted long before I could close my eyes in the dark of our mountain retreat. When we woke, she brought the subject up once more.

"When I die, I will haunt you until you know there is something to look forward to," she said. "If I don't, then I will see you in your dreams and I know that will never be the same, but it's something."

I hugged her and I loaded her into the car. We took the long way home. As we wound our way through the hills, I considered a sharp turn or two gloomily. I pulled over after I took one of several far too quickly.

She had not commented as I had sped through them, but when I pulled over, she did.

"Honey," she said, taking my hand and sobbing. "I know you want to be with me. But you have to live how you are supposed to or it might not happen."

I held her hand and closed my eyes, squeezing the tears from them for a second. "I wasn't trying to kill us, I was just thinking 'what if,' and I guess I wasn't paying much attention."

She shook her head and she mouthed, "I love you" silently. "Be careful," she croaked.

When we got home and I helped her into the house, she laid down and watched me from the couch as I carried in our things. She patted the seat next to her when I closed the door. I sat.

"You are my brave man, and I already know you love me and will be just devastated without me," she said. "But you have to live even if I don't, because you are closer to me than anyone and I want you to be happy again someday."

I could not hold back my tears. I did not want to consider life without her, even if I had accepted she could die, the aftermath was such an enormity that I wondered (and still do) whether I could carry it at all.

"You are a rare man with a pure soul," she said, breaking my heart with each word. "You can't hide anything, you just say what you have to and share what you have in your heart. It's a precious thing, really."

"You took so long to open up, and I can't have you just shut down again over this, because I would feel terrible," she said. "You can't just clam up and hide yourself, because I want someone else to experience you, just how you are now, because I think I helped you get this way again."

We spent the afternoon on the couch, snoozing under a blanket and waking for little snacks, until I helped her into the shower and then to the bed.

And so, last night, as I dreamed, I went to a computer and logged into my email account. I watched the messages load and clicked on one that read "I love you, honey."

I sobbed in my sleep as I read a beautiful poem I cannot recreate, not typed but written on my screen in her hand, and I pondered how she had figured out sending timed emails, or who she had scan and email them, because I forgot I was asleep.

And when I awoke in the middle of the early morning and walked into the bathroom, my foot caught a mesh bag that I had put off to the side, far out of my path, but somehow in it now.

I stopped and put it back, and wondered how it had stood up in its own, but reasoned Seamus was to blame. But I did stop as I returned and felt a chill down my spine, and I asked, gently "Baby?"

And though I received no answer, I am still haunted beyond my skepticism, and this is signal enough.

The hiatus is over

So much for a break.

I am still sick. I apparently ate some rye that had developed penicillium mold of a type that caused an allergic reaction. I have been fevered but not infectious, and my workload has been heavy. I am down sick, but not out, and I am yet productive.

Yes, that's right. I went to work sick (mostly to make sure a couple of projects did not founder), though I took Tuesday to rest.

The hiatus is over because I am being bombarded by Marcie moment dreams. One of those I have shared with a friend who had a cameo in it and should share with another who was also in the dream. If they are okay with it, I will post that one, though it was a fever dream, and a very odd one at that. I remember it vividly.

The other dream concerns our secret signal, though I admit that dreaming the secret signal to indicate life after death is not exactly the strongest of proofs. Nonetheless, I had a dream in which Marcie sent our prearranged secret signal, and I will share it tonight.

Caveats in place, of course.

Until then, my break at work ends and I must go. Check in later...

F.

Possible hiatus

I am pretty ill at the moment and may need to take a break from blogging and life in general to deal with it. Then again, maybe being sick will inspire more nostalgia and the time to think will override the fevered state of my mind. We'll see.

A new blogger calls

Everyone say hello to Lana Banana, a blogger who popped in to say hello and show a little support. She's a teacher, journalism adviser (I'd love to use the "o" but the AP says, "no") and blogger from LaLa (LA) land.

The perfect life game

Marcie was a big fan of board games. Long before I met her, she was a big fan of Life, Payday, Monopoly and Scrabble. But her favorite game was one I called, "Perfect Life," and it was played on the template of our hopes.

There was no board, just the afterglow of some meal or thrill in the bedroom or in the car. Something to set the mood. Just as a nice rainy day in her youth might bring on a long session of spinning and moving plastic with her brother, a quiet, happy moment could sometimes tease out Marcie's playful, speculative side with me.

Usually such little sessions were preceded by her plopping into a seat on the couch as I read. Either under the pretense of reading our New Yorker, or after some time silently spent flipping through her movie book or the listings for her favorite theaters, she would push her feet into my lap.

Sometimes she put them under the book or magazine I read, sometimes pushing the item against my chest so that I made space. It didn't matter. I always surrendered, if sometimes with a touch of exasperation.

"Yes, my love?" I would ask, my stock indication that I was resigned to sating her desire for attention, or a favor, a massage, or any number of wants. One never could tell when Marcie's feet were involved. It could go anywhere from the feet.

"If you could have any house you wanted, what would it look like?" she usually asked.

Our first time having this conversation, two days before her birthday, elicited the grandiose response of a young man who thought law school and an MBA with an International Business focus might be a ticket to riches.

"It will look like a castle," I said. "It will have at least one drum tower, and it will be built with an open courtyard in the middle. The inside will be all wood, dark or slightly burned, with textured wallpaper in the narrow halls. Every corner will have a room, a dining room, a library, a music and dance room and a guest quarters, with an extra one in the tower. At the back will be a kind of keep, added onto the middle of the curtain wall, which will house the master bedroom, with French doors to the courtyard and a spiral stair to the second floor."

I remember she rolled her eyes, so I asked her, abit miffed, "If you could have a house built to your tastes, what would it look like?" I asked.

She looked around at her humble studio at Casa Arleda and smiled, "It would look like this," she said. "But it would be bigger and it would have a yard big enough for whatever animals I decided I wanted, and it would be screened from the street, but it would be near downtown or Hillcrest."

The next day, we toured the area and looked at the houses. She found one or two she liked, but thefact that she could see them detracted from their appeal in her eyes.

She asked every year, but rarely, in retrospect, more often than that.

The descriptions changed as we grew, and grew up, together. My homes became more modest, overgrown cocoons with vines and moving water around them, shelters from a place not kind to either of us, elaborate domestic shields against a callous and callow California outside our sanctum.

"What kind of house do you want us to have?" she asked me the year I married her. The message was clear. We no longer built for ourselves. This was for us now.

They were built in the city to make sure Marcie would be there, as she purported to hate the country. Now they incorporated more Victorian elements like window settees and complex inside woodwork. Now they had yards for animals we both wanted. Now we could speak for each other, because we had reached accommodation on accommodations.

Then, a bit over a year ago, as she suffered through her chemotherapy, she put her tired little feet in my hands and asked me a new question.

"What would the perfect house be like for you?" she asked, her eyes a little glazed from pain and exhaustion. I began rubbing her feet and gulped. I carefully avoided her cracked heels and little abrasions where skin had torn from being worn too thin.

I smiled and sighed, and she slapped her hand on the couch impatiently, "Honey, tell me before I fall asleep. I am tired and I don't feel good."

"It would always be warm and never too dry," I whispered hoarsely. "Every wall there would have ramps and resting spots for kitties, and every room would have a climber. There would be library with a chaise lounge for you and a big easy chair for me."

As she squinted and covered her eyes, I rubbed her feet and gulped. "I would let you decorate it, because you always do that so well. It would have a basement for my junk and a courtyard for your plants and a pool, and ivy would grow over it and give us a canopy so we could be outside without the sun."

I remember pushing her foot aside and sliding in next to her, burying her head in my shoulder and under my neck as I cuddled her and she shook.

"I can't think of a perfect home, or even one I could stand to live in for very long, without you and your love there to keep me happy," I said. "But any home we have together is perfect enough."

I covered her with blankets and held her for a long time, long past the point at which she fell asleep, wide awake, petting Seamus as he integrated himself into our snuggle. When she woke and I carried her into bed and tucked her in, I went too, despite the early afternoon hour.

She never asked me again. But because she was so ill around her birthday, and the memories of birthday seasons past played in my mind at her bedside in a Poway hospital, I thought of what I would say.

I believe that she would have asked had she not been knocked down so hard by the medical misstep by hospice. So I will answer her here and now, and hope she understands the lateness of it all.

My dear wife, my perfect home would be whatever place you have prepared for us. Festoon it with your trifles and decorate it with your tastes and interests, shape it however it will please you most. Construct a paradise to lure me, no matter my travels and my future here, no matter who or what consoles me in time.

Make for me, if you can, your perfect place, and I am sure that I will recognize it as the place I need to be when I come to it.

But if such a place is not to be, or cannot be, or cannot be shared when I pass, then there is no perfect place to worry about, and the mercy of oblivion is shelter enough.

Either way, I despair that no place seems balm enough to soothe me in your absence. I miss very badly our favorite, playful, loving game and the feel of your skin as I told you my dreams.

F.

The importance of creating

Creativity was the essence of Marcie' uniqueness. Marcie surrounded herself with creativity and engaged in it.

Marcie not only created things of beauty but also appreciated the creations of others. Books, meals, movies and architecture, singers, composers, and artists of all stripes gained her appreciation and patronage.

As Marcie worked towards her English degree, she leaned most of her class selections towards the study of not just literature, but the arts as a whole. She reveled in visits to the various museums, libraries, movie houses, bookstores and music venues San Diego has to offer.

One notes that dwindling numbers of people appreciate, much less engage in, the process of artistic creation. One also notes the tendency people have to push children and teens away from the arts and humanities and into professional degrees. If they are not pushing degrees, it is tradesmanship in place of craft.

The demand that we specialize, homogenize and even self-marginalize eats at the capacity we have to appreciate or even tolerate those who do not. Often, this pressure to pursue practical functionality ends the artistry or the common person. The world wants everyone to fit in a certain niche and function there.

We are called, as we go through life, to focus like a laser on one field of endeavor at a time. That is wrong. People are multifaceted.

The brutal nature of our society's outlook on our fellow human being is an outgrowth of this conformity-thirsty, aesthetics-rejecting mandate. The greed in our economy for orderly and predictable inputs from pliant and contributive laborers demands that all who avail themselves of less hard-nosed pursuits than wealth or advantage, and those that presume to pursue happiness in a manner another can profit from, be somehow "corrected."

At the same time, those who deem themselves and those they will hire worthy of art's rigors tend to preclude the mass. Snobbishness, competitive, money-focused nastiness, an exploitive studio culture and collaboratives that serve more as cliques than schools do not merely drive off the common creators. They also have fallen into the mindset that the paucity of colleagues is due to some special elite status, as opposed to what it is, the slow alienation of creation from appreciation. The same can be said for literature, film and music. This all must end.

Just as we do not always know when an idea will become a usable technology, we do not know when a piece of art will become relevant in a way the mass can appreciate. But if the mass is engaged in the creative process, perhaps that lag time between a permutation of art as a novelty and as an institution will shrink. Perhaps the idea that art is "before its time" should be examined more closely, to assure that saying, "before its time," does not actually mean, "we are not ready for the world to go there."

Sometimes the brutality is that of the cold-hearted allocation of few resources to the creative, the different or the conventionally unemployable. Consider the beauty of someone whose every word is written in a deeply poetic inner voice, silenced for years by society's brutal dismissal of her. How many Peyton Goddards wrestle with their own "ires-epic" today, undetected? Every one is a great loss.

The drive to create must be inspired and supported in every person who ever wished to express themselves, as much for their pleasure as for their profit. Every person who paints needs not be a master. Photographers should display their shots. Actors and performers should find a stage. Those who sang should continue to. But this does not happen. Instead, criticism, pseudo-sympathetic entreaties to "more productive" pursuits and the difficulty of paying the price of creativity winnow the ranks of the artist, the singer, the bard and the chef.

Once a person has been pushed away from the creative well by the pressures of post-industrial and the snotty gauntlet of their discipline's "scenedustry," I have noted that it sours them on the field itself. The artist cannot reject their own participation without rejecting some part of the form they were ousted from. This means that art loses twice when creators cease to pursue their craft.

Marcie constantly prodded and cajoled her creative friends to pursue their gifts and their urges. I will try to as well. I am officially starting a little movement I will promote personally.

I call on all of you who created in the past to stay in touch with that, to revive it if if has faded, to follow it closely if you have let it go and to start creating in the manner you choose. Return to museums and dancing and movie houses. Sing, strum a guitar, draw something, take photos, cook a meal with your own special ideas in it or just tie grass into little woven bracelets.

Even if such a movement were only to increase the number of grass bracelets in the world, to invite any one person back to any creative process successfully is something to be celebrated. All should push for the common creative to be reborn and the neglected talent to be recognized and renewed.

F.

Some Reminders...

Sunday, February 3 will be the last day to cut and paste the sauce and dinner recipes, including the nutty rice. Please save them now.

You should send me an email when you want to speak privately. Sometimes, I do not have your email address and you don't necessarily share it with me when you post. Keep it in mind, folks.

I will get around to listing Marcie and my stuff on Ebay, Amazon, etc. I will replace the Amazon store to the left with her and my items when I do.

If there is something personal you want of Marcie's and have not told me, please do. This also goes for long-lost friends, old coworkers and relatives who have been recalcitrant. No, you won't haul away bags of loot, but I would like for our loved ones to have keepsakes of some personal value, and I am trying to also lighten my load before I start my work.

One last reminder: you all have stories and dreams to share. Especially for you who woke early in the morning Oct. 29th, I extend the invitation to share with everyone here. Everything we celebrate about Marcie's life extends her reach not only in our own lives and hearts but in those of the people you sharing will touch.

This weekend I plan to take some pictures of our old house, intersperse them with pictures of Seamus in it, and maybe take some shots of the old Suncrest Place and Casa Arleda. We'll see.

Much love,
F.

Marcie and baking

Many of Marcie's friend knew her as a skilled and creative baker. Certainly her family did. Her brother, mother, father and various friends all received cakes for their birthdays, as did I. It's another element of her that I miss.

Marcie had her own way of baking, but was taught her skills by her friend Terri Dambrose's mother. Mrs. Dambrose watched Marcie and her brother Bobby after school for years while Barbara and Bob worked at a bank and General Atomic, respectively.

Marcie was an apt student for Mrs. Dambrose and Terri once complained to me that she was jealous that Marcie was more interested in cooking and baking with her mother than playing with her.

Marcie never received a recipe book from Mrs. Dambrose, but chose to take a few recipes here and there, add her own touches to them, and make them her own. Things ended up richer, more chocolate, fluffier, denser, or any variety of states of improvement or modification Marcie thought to try out.

None of it ever failed to please.

If one thing was certain in Marcie's cakes, it was that there would be buttercream frosting. Butter, sugar, and any of a wide variety of flavors and spices, from vanilla to cinnamon and cocoa to coconut, all eventually turned into a dense, sweet spread that could only be applied after the cake had cooled.

Her chocolate cake was the most sought-after. Deep, almost black cake with a dark brown chocolate icing that was not only a thick coating but also a filler for crevices. There was never a piece with too little frosting on Marcie's cakes.

I had my first cake from Marcie long before my first birthday with her. She made a cake for herself for her own, as much to share with her parents as it was to please her. She made and extra one, a little minicake for me to have while she stayed the night with them.

It was a revelation. I had had good cake before, when my relatives baked. But this was decadence in miniature. She truly could have sold her cake to coffee shops and fine dining establishments, but she never would consider it. Baking was for love, not money.

Baking was also a social connector for Marcie, and luckily I had just the person for her to connect to.

Grandma Pruett made me cakes for my birthday after my mother left. Grandmommie Girvin, my great grandmother on the maternal-maternal line, who Marcie never met, also did. Both were bakers of cakes in the "from scratch" tradition, just as Marcie was. But Marcie never met Grandmommie Girvin, who died when I was still young.

She did meet Grandma Pruett. Grandma had to cook for 17 kids, but that did not mean she watered down the quality. She wove flavors of Hawaiian and Portuguese cooking into her meals, something I recognize now in the flavors of my youth.

Marcie loved her for a lot of reasons, and they conspired and shared at our family functions for hours. She was crushed when Grandma died. She could not attend the funeral as she had just found out about her own cancer. It was a tough time.

But in their heyday, Grandma and Marcie regularly traded baking secrets and cooking tips after they finally met, not to mention plenty of stuff about me, I soon learned.

Marcie learned to substitute some of the pineapple juice from a can of it for some of the liquid in an pineapple upside-down cake, and to use it with brown sugar to make a good topping, too. She also learned that I was a sleepwalking Houdini-child who liked to escape from dead bolted homes and curl up with the neighbors' dogs.

Grandma loved to share, and we have a lot in common that way.

The one realm in which I never stepped with Marcie was baking. I could never quite get into it, true, but she would chase me out of the kitchen if I tried. However, I did make her candies, using a recipe I will share when more time has passed.

I do not miss all of the extra pounds her baking put on me, but I do miss that joy she had in making her cookies, her cakes and even her pies, which she hated but indulged me on from time to time. And of course, I miss sharing sweets with her.

I miss, most of all, her giving me surprise plates of cookies or little treats she had baked up. Sometimes, it was just because she had been harsh in a fight, or just because I had done something I did not know she had observed which pleased her. Often, it was just because

But it was always a treat, and a loving gesture. I miss those most.

Her recipes are safe for now. I plan to share them with friends and one friend has the big collection for a project. But for now, with all this talk of cooking and Marcie and my time in the kitchen, I just wanted to share the part that was simply hers.

I was no assistant beyond an errand boy when Marcie baked, and no expert beyond a taster for her batters and creams and frostings. But I was her biggest fan, and i could watch her for hours, that is, until she chased me off.

Or until she gave me a blender beater full of dough and chocolate chips.

G'night folks,
F.

The Wok

It is often the case that I say too much. This can be to the embarrassment of others or myself, and I am one who needs to work on such habits. But it is also the case that at times I say too little and deprive the people I love of what they deserve to know.

Such a thing came up when Christina and Jane visited. To be forward, I was hiding nothing, I just thought better of sharing what first came to mind. But I realized afterward that I should have been more forthcoming.

It started with an innocuous enough comment.

Christina wandered in as I prepared the rice and started the stir-fry. She saw the wok before I loaded it with food and began to cook,

"Look at that wok," she said. "That is a well-seasoned wok."

Instead of responding directly, I took a second and asked, "Hmm?"

"That's a well-seasoned wok," she reiterated.

I nodded to buy myself more time, and then chose a simple, "We've had it a long time." I looked into her eyes and smiled, then began to cook.

There was a reason I had to pause. It's how I buy myself time to not blurt out whatever is on my mind and sometimes save myself embarrassment or pain. I have a tendency to do that, In this case, I should have just shared.

Food was central to Marcie and my life. The taste of food was important, but the ritual of it, preparing, serving and pleasing each other from creation to ingestion was ritual akin to the high mass of our own little uniquely culinary religion.

Our tools and spice rack and utensils and pots and pans all have innumerable meals under their belts. But the wok is the oldest of them that is also unique to us. No other cooks used it, just the two of us. And until recently, only we had eaten from it.

I should have sit Christina down on the kitchen step with me and told her that I bought the wok with her and cooked her a stir-fry meal in it as the second thing I had ever made, the first being chicken fettuccine Alfredo. She loved it, and we fell in love a little deeper.

I should have told her that, for 14 years, Marcie and I cooked for each other, sometimes together, with the wok the central focus more often than not. Countless dim sum, sauces, vegetables, meats, spices and oils have burned in it and burnished it. All of them have left a mark.

It is a deeply layered wok. Every mistake, every experiment and every success in our relationship is preserved between layers of flavors and heat and colors that themselves are changed by those that came later.

Here is our Szechuan fascination from our early dating days. Here is our first dim sum night, where the blackening is as much from an oil fire as the cooking, because we forgot to turn off the stove as we pigged out while watching the X-files. Here is the big brown ring that never came out after I left her sweet and sour, pineapple and pork stir-fry in it overnight. Other interests left dishes for the morning.

So many others, and some I can still discern in the ringed metal of our wok.

The food we cooked each other was intended to nourish our bodies, hearts and love, and it did. The wok is the record of all that, and a reward for our love, our gentle creativity, and our very joyous collaboration. Every tryst is marked by a taste in its darkened metal.



I could have shared it at the table. I could have told Christina and Jane that they were eating a meal fourteen years in the making, then explained the wok, and the bamboo spatula and the day I bought them, and all of what I have written.

I didn't, even though I was thinking about it as I arranged the Thai tomato ladybug sculptures I had first carved for Marcie and served them both.

But that pang of guilt and moment of hesitation when Christina mentioned the wok, which passed and left me with regret, was replaced by the warm glow of their company, and the explanation slipped my mind again as we lay later, languishing on the couch.

I was too content.

I should have made it a conversation then. However, I have no regrets. I am opening that conversation now, for everyone to share.

To my two San Francisco angels specifically, though, I must say that I was honored to have you eat with me, to taste a little of what fourteen years of my wife and lover forged in iron.

It was wonderful to share that with you two, Jane and Christina, and to add a little layer to the wok with a flavor all our own. I look forward to many layers with your flavor in them. And I hope our wok fed your soul as well as your company fed my heart.

As for the rest of you, let me know when you would like a taste, too.

Good night, folks.

F.

Marcie's Wisdom

I never fully woke from Marcie's passion. But I remember a distinct transition from the lingering touch of her lips on mine to a warmth all around me as I came close to waking but fought to sleep.

I woke suddenly to her voice.

"So, honey, what are you going to do?" she asked, taking my hand. her own was warm and her fingers were strong, supple my hand.

"I don't know," I said, and felt hot tears with it. "I guess I'll go see you in Europe and Africa when I can, and you can come see me."

She whispered hoarsely, "Okay, Frank, you do what you think is right."

It was a stock answer, or so I had thought over all those years. Her hand squeezed a little, and I looked at her.

She was of an age I had never known her in. She looked to be 19 or so, and she was dressed in a familiar outfit I knew I had never seen her wear, a long black lace gown that went down to her ankles.

She stood and I did as well, and looked down and saw the suit I had never worn before her memorial. She smiled and we danced.

"If you do what you think is right, you'll be fine, honey," she said.

I nodded and she went on. "I hope you do everything you want to, honey," she said. "You need to get out there and do your thing. I really meant what i said."

And I gulped. It was all old words, words she had said before. The idea that I was in a dream, asleep began to intrude on our little, fantastic reality, and then it fled.

Marcie was glaring at me.

"You need to listen to me," she said. "You need to do all these things you say you want to do. Because from now on, I am not there to blame for what you don't do with your life."

I nodded and took a deep breath. The heat of tears again on my face, and this time I imagined my vision blurred with them. She stopped dancing a moment and wiped my face, kissing me lightly.

"I love you," she said. "I told you what I wanted from you."

I nodded and she recounted her wishes for my life. She gave me oddly specific instructions about myriad events I don't clearly recall but apparently should expect.

I do recall that she told me to avoid the home in Big Sur, it was going to slide into the Pacific after an earthquake. But then she reminded me of our situation with a single sentence.

"I want you back for myself," she said.

I felt a great pain in my heart as she said it, and felt as if I could not breathe from the pain. But it soon passed and I closed my eyes in the dream, though her voice continued.

"I said I will love you forever, and you said you would love me forever, too," she said. "I'll come get you when it's time."

She looked up so sadly at me. "When you have to go, remember I am here waiting and that this all only does us part in body, sweetie."

I nodded. "I'll see you soon?"

"You come find me," she said.

And I woke to the alarm, which I let run for a while in the bedroom. After I turned it off, I slipped under the covers and slept dreamlessly. More importantly, I slept in our bed for the first time in almost two months.

Backed out of the selling...

So, I thought that it would be easy to get rid of some of Marcie's old clothes. I'd make a few bucks, bank them, and have a friend come over and spend time with Marcie's things as we sorted through them... but I couldn't.

Yesterday, as I sorted through Marcie's clothes and shoes and personal things, I could not find one piece that was without meaning or a memory. The first fifteen minutes or so of sorting were wistful, the next nostalgic, the quarter hour following that was progressively heavier and sadder until, finally, I could not continue.

I'll try again eventually. Someday before I leave, I hope. I am glad that the Frock You folks, when called, had remembered other plans themselves and were very understanding. Thanks, Kirsten.

Just in case

I know you don't need all these clothes.
They protected you from a cold
which no more will chill you.
You shopped for them all with such care
they cannot fulfill you.
You've no need for dresses like those.

I know you don't need these old shoes.
Your feet won't walk, on rue or avenue,
or in a green spring field.
They cannot lift your lips to mine
no matter how high-heeled.
The memory of steps now a muse.

Your luggage isn't needed now.
You took no suitcase or roller,
no handbag to depart.
Your carry-on was our life here,
inside, you packed my heart.
No baggage our well heeded vow.

Lingerie still lies in the dresser.
Your wore it all for a lover,
who now cannot thrill you.
The lace, satin, silk, skimpy cover,
the shape in them still you.
Couture for ardor's confessor.

I should not hold on to all this.
Your clothes might well warm someone cold,
you luggage bear them home.
The shoes may replace soles grown old,
to help travelers roam.
Dispersed to the world, none remiss.

You don't need these things but I do.
A shoe is a walk or a dance,
I see you in each dress.
Every bag and suitcase a chance,
bits of you to possess,
A boudoir of your soul, built by you.

You don't need the clothes to appear.
For now, though, I keep them in place.
You may not expect them to be here,
but for now they are here, just in case.



Good night, folks
F.

Marcie and singing: unexpected attentions

Jane and I were discussing Marcie and singing in an email, and I realized that a number of people would be surprised to know that Marcie was not much for singing in public, but she did like to sing at home.

Specifically, following Jane's email in which she shared her Marcie dream, I wrote to her:

She did used to sing, though usually just for herself. I would walk in and listen, and she would sometimes be so embarrassed that she would pretend I scared her and chase me out. It was quite cute to hear her sing songs by The Cranberries.

Marcie sometimes walked around in a bubble, and she didn't always recognize that other people were there, too. Jane, as it turns out, was pretty familiar with this aspect of her personality, and wrote back:

I can totally imagine her getting "mad" at you for that, and I love that memory. Maybe you can add that to the post about my dream.


I think the dream belongs in a post all its own, as it is. Marcie's inner joy and extremely private ways mixed oddly at times, to be sure. There's more about the singing...

Marcie was a redhead and therefore also loved Tori Amos. There is likely more to it than that, but she wads redhead-centric. She was also partial to Sarah McLachlan, and these two never failed to elicit a sing-along from her whenever they were played on the radio.

Marcie would also dance when she sang, which, if she knew she was observed, would have usually been okay, as the voice volume went down but the dancing became more to invite than to enjoy. Dancing in the kitchen with her in her "cleaning clothes," and old and me in my sweats was always fun.

Marcie's most common defense tactic was to take umbrage with even the most innocuous intrusion when her defenses were down. But I had my own ways of being silly. I never stopped blushing when she confronted me about watching or staring at her.

I often found myself watching her in a quiet moment, admiring her and generally being happy and smug that I had her. When she would notice, it would always trigger a little routine she liked to play out with me.

It always felt like I was beign caught watching the pretty girl across the room, and she never let it slide, which I am glad for, really.

"What are you looking at?" she would ask, her mischievous half-smile and half-closed eyes belying her delight.

"You," I'd say. I would invariably be blushing like a teenager. On the spot.

"What are you looking at on me?" she would ask.

"Your eyes," I would say.

"Are they pretty, honey? Do you like my eyes?" she would ask, and sometimes tease me about blushing.

They were always pretty, but they weren't always her eyes. Sometimes it was her soft lips or her hair or her pretty face in general. Sometimes it was her legs, her hips, her breasts, her butt. Regardless, the pattern remained the same.

"And my lips? What about those?" She would ask, smiling a little more, never quite disengaging from the task I was observing her in.

And what would follow was a long, playful interrogation in the same vein. Sometimes a few questions long, a little smile and eventual silence. But sometimes it would meander, which I greatly enjoyed.

When she either ran out of body parts and attributes in general, or became bored with the game and being the most beautiful, intelligent, gracious, talented, loving and the sexiest wife on the planet, she would move us on.

"That's right," she would say. "And you'd better keep that in mind."

Generally, if she caved in to me like that, she was blushing, too, though I took care never to mention it. But sometimes she would give me an extra treat.

"So, honey," she would smile, closing her book or setting aside her cooking utensils. Sometimes she would lean over to me, biting her lower lip. "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?"

I always had a little list of things she had not asked in my head, which I would tick off to her as I kissed, touched, squeezed and held her. And sometimes she would ask me, but kiss me to quietude. Tell her some other way, that meant.

We always ended up in the same place and on the same agenda. It was just nice to get there with a little appreciative lust first, and to get it, all I had to do was "happen upon" her as she did her thing.

It was a habit I miss indulging. That I can certainly share.

A Moment of Marcie: Jane's Dream

Jane, who everyone here knows from many entries in the blog and many of our other from Marcie's loving tales of her, wrote me an email and told me I could share the following dream she had. I hope you enjoy her gift as much as I did.

From Jane:

Hellllo Francis,
I had a Marcie dream finally. I'm sure I have them all the time, but I haven't had easy access to my dreams for quite some time now. The details are a bit sketchy, so I'll just tell you that it was in a big beautiful church that was full of light, and it was a memorial for Marcie.

The pews were full of family and friends, and people were sharing stories. There were some heartbreaking moments, but the overall feeling was one of love and community.

The crazy part is that in the midst of all this in comes Marcie. All beautiful and radiant, she walked into the church and she started singing.

In my head I was thinking that I'd never heard Marcie sing, and that it's so unlike her to sing in front of a large group of people. But sing she did.

And it was beautiful. That's all I remember, but I was grateful to have that dream, no matter how vague.

A little hiatus due to fire... and selling stuff

Well, I did it. I almost burned down the house last night, hence no post. I was making some beans that take hours to cook (Lima -dried- beans). A neighbor who needed some help with their computer came over and I walked away...

I forgot the beans. Seamus was fine, but the pot of beans became a smoke generator. The fire department aired the house out for me after ascertaining that the pot of food was all that burned. Thanks, gents. Seamus is okay and was under the bed, but he coughed a lot today when I came home from work.

I need to get my head together, but I have a million things to do still and a bunch of crap to handle. I'll get there.

Tomorrow, I have friends coming over who work in the vintage clothing business to root through Marcie's things. Curt and Kirsten from Frock You will take a look. Everything will go that they want except for things I personally want to keep, like the wedding dress and some other little items special to me.

It's going to be painful to see them rummage around, but at least they will be familiar faces doing it, not utter strangers. It will all, of course, go into the kitty for the big mission.

At any rate, I will catch up over the weekend. I need to get out and stretch my legs after being a gang task force conference all afternoon for the district.

Once again: the house is not damaged, the cat is unharmed (sporting a cuddlier attitude after the fright), I'm okayish. More posts tomorrow or later tonight if I feel poetic.

F.

The Last Recipe - Marcie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, everyone has always asked about Marcie's chocolate chip cookies. Well, as she always said, they are very simple to make and don't deviate much from the stock tollhouse cookie. But they do deviate a bit...

These cookies were made dozens of times. Sometimes, we made them for friends, sometimes for coworkers, sometimes just for us and even for family. They had a number of iterations, from those with nuts to those with toffee, chips or chunks, peanut butter chips, M&M versions, Reese's Pieces and almost anything you can imagine.

Just substitute some of the chips with your favorite confection. It's all delicious.

Marcie's Monster Cookies of Delicious Delight

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
vanilla extract*
2 extra large eggs*
2 cups of chocolate chips, toffee bits, whatever you like
1 cup chopped nuts (very optional)
A friend or two to lick beaters with (not optional)


*These items vary from the original recipe. Go with extra large eggs and just use the vanilla extract as I describe later. This is where the difference came in with Marcie's cookies.

PREHEAT oven to 375° F, but only if you are not making dough to eat instead of cookies (we did that a few times).

Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat the butter, sugars, a teaspoon of vanilla extract in a bowl until it's smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, using a mixer to really work them in. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. If the mix gets stiff, add another teaspoon of vanilla. You will probably use it 2-3 more times... Stir in the chips and any other goodies you love.

You can eat it if you wish, but even if you do not, you must lick the beaters clean. It is ok to make a "mistake" and have to reuse the beaters after "cleaning them" once, but don't overdo it :)

If you must cook this, and not simply devour a bowl of instant diabetes, then give it 9-11 minutes in the oven at 375, or until golden brown. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for a bit, then remove them to a plate or other cooling spot. Act too soon and they break.

I highly recommend raiding the pan when the baker is not looking, then running away cackling with chocolate-covered fingers, leaving only a smudgy cookie outline where you struck. There really is no such thing as a cookie too soft to be snitched.

Night, folks. Salsa time. Recipes come down this weekend, so save away. The last dream from Christmas will be posted soon.

F.

I guess she (I) is (am) not done with me (her) yet

So I have had an unusual weekend and have been wrestling with it. I have tried to wake up a little and open my eyes, to slip out of my little cocoon of the familiar and be out and about. I needed to see what was out there.

I have been avoiding just being home because it's sucking me in and I am afraid I will just shut down, but...

I tend to go to extremes in my life. This weekend was no different. I went to a coffee shop/wine spot on the way home and saw a pretty woman smiling at me from across the place. I ordered my glass and went and sat near her, wondering why she seemed familiar.

I could know her from my time at another publication, before The Star-News. Or not, as I try to remember more clearly. She had attended a massage school that I handled ads in CityBeat for. It didn't matter, really.

She was nice, we chatted a bit and I eventually got uncomfortable, then told on myself. "I lost Marcie in October," I blurted out. She had asked when I became a widower, I had been direct. The conversation changed, to my rather mixed relief.

I guess that I was intimidated, or chickening out a little. More honestly, I am just not ready, knew it, and I wanted to not go there yet, as she gave me signals that we might. Whatever it was, I went home and left half a glass of wine at the restaurant after she made her exit. Leaving me her card, that is.

But that was not the end of my strange weekend. I went to the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce installation dinner with my former editor and we were seated with a nice group of bankers from Mission Federal. I took a card from one, a woman named Michelle, and was told to give her a call.

I was surprised when she handed it to me. We were just passing time as I worked on ambushing the politicos and saying hello to old pals. I did, since she gave me a card, ask her to dance, but she was off to pick up her son's girlfriend at the airport. I am definitely not ready to call anyone, though.

I may have given a sigh of relief, or perhaps not. It didn't matter. I did dance, though, with a group of women from Sweetwater Union High School District, to a few really good Latin dance hall favorites. It was fun, it was relaxing, and I was pretty amazed that only two other guys danced in a crowd of a couple dozen women (some very cute) on the little dance floor.

I ducked out on drinks afterward when I was asked by a couple of ad representatives from the Union-Tribune. They seemed nice, but I was almost immediately uncomfortable and had that same feeling I had gotten in the coffee shop. This time, I didn't blurt anything but said I had to feed Seamus (I did have to), and went home.

I ran into the woman from the coffee/wine bar on Saturday while I updated the blog over a nice drink of strong coffee. I gave her my cards. One has the blog on it, the other is from the school district. There's nothing like full disclosure and time to chew on things to scare people off.

The uncomfortable feelings weren't done with me.

I went to Hot Monkey Love Sunday for salsa classes, which I am taking with a specific friend in mind. They're free and the venue is an alcohol-free club. It was fun, I learned a few new steps and some basic but salsa-specific spins. I enjoyed the whole thing.

We kept rotating partners as a group until the dance lesson ended and the floor was turned over to the DJ. I was about to go when one of my partners, a pretty brunette, pulled me back out. We danced, some of it probably legitimate salsa, the rest just rhythm. I took my leave after some time. She could not have been more than 25.

I was complemented when she said she hoped I would be back. I said, smiling, "Maybe." But I may go get lessons somewhere else. I could not shake the feeling that I was definitely doing something bad behind Marcie's back as we talked.

I dreamed Sunday of Marcie scolding me. It was very French, and I only caught bits of it, but the word "salope" was uttered often. That I understood. Whatever else was said, I know I was behaving badly. I needed to be home and grieving a bit more, not running from it and certainly not flirting.

I ran into the woman at the coffee/wine shop again on Monday and pretended not to notice her. I couldn't figure out if that was because I had seen her three times in one short weekend and did not want to freak her out, or if I was just hoping not to talk to her again yet.

It worked out. She left the coffee shop. I felt a good mix of regret and relief. I had a rough night last night, and it included a dream with Marcie. I broke down in it and she stroked my back as I held her, comforting me.

"Oh, honey," she said. "Oh, baby. It's okay, honey. It's okay."

She is not through with me yet, even if there had been so long without dreams of her. Waking up this morning, that was comforting enough to make it hard to stay awake and not seek more sleep, to get up and go to work.

It sure was nice to know that I am not limited to dancing with my baby's also-mourning girlfriends, though there is the added bonus of not feeling any guilt (so far) in that case...

But I wish Marcie would/could/will dance with me again.

G'Night.

Nutty Rice and Mixed Stir-Fry... plus...

This is the most important recipe of all of them. I invented it for our first anniversary. Marcie instructed me to come up with something a little different and tasty that would not remind her of teriyaki or sweet and sour. The following is what I came up with as a base starch.

Originally intended to be a reddish sauce that would color the food the same way, the dish evolved when the rice came out brownish instead. I had called it "redhead rice" but Marcie changed it to "nutty rice," reflecting its flavor and smell, as well as her opinion of the ingredients as I worked on the whole thing.

*Nutty Rice*

1 cup cashews, unsalted:
1/2 cup broken
1/4 cup whole
1/4 cup crushed

1 tbsp crushed sesame seeds
1/4 to 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp crushed ginger
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
2 tsp La Yu Fire Oil
1 tbsp red bell pepper olive oil
1-2 tsp sesame oil
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 ton of heartfelt devotion
4-6 cups of steamed rice (2 cups uncooked)

Mix all the ingredients, save for the rice. Dump them into a heated pan or wok and immediately fold into the steamed rice which should be added just as the oils and soy sauce begin to boil. Can be eaten alone or used as a base for stir fried food.

*Sticky Mixed Stir-Fry*

1 steak, cut into shirt strips
1-2 chicken breasts, cut into short strips
The night before you are to serve, mix 1 tbsp Hunan red chile paste with 2 tbsp honey and 4 tbsp of black bean garlic sauce. Marinade the meats and make a small additional amount for cooking with.

1 diamond-cut red bell pepper
1 onion very thinly sliced
8 oz mushrooms, to suit tastes
2 cups Chinese/snow peas
1 cup Bean sprouts
1 cup cashews
2 tsbp peanut oil
A little bit of deviltry (2 pinches and a kiss)

Heat the peanut oil and add the meat first, with the cashews. After the meat has been stir-fried a bit, add the onions, the bell peppers, the mushrooms and any other vegetables, the heaviest first and the fastest-cooking last. Add any additional sauce reserved before the marinade. Cook until the onions become dark and caramelized, then remove. Serve over rice (as above) or noodles.

The caramelized onions will help make the rice and other items stick for novice chopstick users because they are sticky and circular to boot.

Tomorrow, I will post Marcie's modified cookie recipe. Everyone wants to know what is different about it, since it is a basic tollhouse recipe... There are some differences, which I will share. I may not post the last dream right away. Eventually, though. I have a lot more to post after they are done. More moments, more memories...

F.

The Last Recipes

The final recipe, Nutty Rice with mixed stir-fry, will be posted tomorrow. By Wednesday, the recipes will not be available online. Please save copies now if you would like to keep them.