Scout Moves

Last Saturday, the orchestra rehearsed all afternoon and then dismissed only to return again for the concert a few short hours later. Because most of the horn section traveled to get there and would be left wandering Small Town(s) looking for grub during the hours in between, our principle who lives here invited us all to his house for dinner. That used to be the custom, apparently, years before I ever joined. It was nice to sit around the table with these people who were mostly strangers to each other and share a meal and conversation. One of the players is a graduate student from U. of Akron who talked about her horn teacher and the odd insights he provided during lessons. He would say things like, "Horn playing is like going to Las Vegas. There's no guarantee of any payoff—it's a crap shoot." That's something my own teacher said for years. And he told her, "Horn playing is like the weather. Sometimes it's sunny, and sometimes it rains, and there i...

I have given myself a new mantra—a buck-yourself-up phrase to recite to myself that pretty much covers every challenge. “Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.” For someone who often feels cowardly, weak and stupid, these are good points to remember. I don’t know who coined them.  I have recently given myself something else to recite when I feel like buckling, a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt—“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Notice it isn't "you should" or "you might want to think about." You must do it. How else will you know what you’re capable of if you don’t do the things you have convinced yourself you are incapable of doing? How will you know for sure that you are not a failure or inadequate for the task or even just something more than mediocre? Even typing the word “mediocre” makes my skin crawl. I put both of these inspiring quotes to good use this past weekend when the orche...

Baxter the Dog has had access to our back patio from day one. He rings a bell on the back door, and we let him out to go potty. Sometimes he also wades on top of the pool cover while he's out there, or barks at the neighbor dogs or climbs up onto the hillside for some mischief. He seemed to need more space than what that area provides, space with grass and views, so we installed an invisible fence for him, and he's practically trained already. My home office is in the basement, and he hangs out there with me while I work. He also rings the basement door bell to be let out where he can roam with limits. Just yesterday I allowed him to roam in the yard by himself for the first time. I can see most of the yard from my office window, and I kept tabs on him. When I would lose sight of him, I'd run out to check, and he was never more than a few yards just around the corner, and if I said, "Baxter, come!" he'd come trotting within view. There is a horse in the ya...

Eustacia was home for the weekend and spent much of her time working on a photography project for a class. I'm not sure of the exact assignment, but she was busy gathering things that represented certain people, arranging them in a sort of still life and then photographing them with a light-projected image. For example, she created this image at school, cutting dancers from paper and projecting the shapes onto a brick wall. She worked on a setting to represent my grandmother who died abour 20 years before Eustacia was born. She used a photo of Memaw alone and one with her and my grandfather, her leather purse that dates back to the early 1900s and a postcard my grandfather sent to Memaw before they were married in 1920. She assembled the elements and projected antique lace over it all. Very nice. Then she set out to create an image of me. It's interesting to watch someone walk around your house and gather things they think represent you. She chose these things—Judy the...

Eustacia is in front on the far right: I went to Pantasia this past Sunday, and I didn't shed a tear. Pantasia is what my dear friend, Joan, calls the steel band concert her students perform every year. It's actually a three-day clinic that culminates in a concert, but to the audience, Pantasia is the show. Why would someone face the possibility of shedding a tear at such a festive event, you may wonder. Both of my girls were members of this band when they were in high school, and I went to every Pantasia during those years. This event marked the 20th anniversary of the band's invention—Joan started it in 1992—and Eustacia came back to town to participate in an alumni performance. No. 1 would have loved to have joined them, but she lives too far away for a weekend visit. There were 49 alumni students performing, many who are now self-sustaining adults with children and jobs and beards and a few gray hairs. They traveled back home, those that have left the area at le...

I wouldn't say I'm in a rut when it comes to wine, but I prefer white no matter the meal. In the dead of winter, I like a nice, buttery Chardonnay. In the summer, a crisp Riesling goes with anything. And in general, a light Pinot Grigio goes down just fine. But lately I've been thinking about combining certain wines with certain foods. I guess it's all the tasting menus I've been indulging in the last few months. And just when the subject was firmly on the brain, we got a shipment from the wine club we belong to, and each bottle came with a card suggesting a corresponding meal. One of the bottles, Charles Smith Syrah , suggested lamb. I happened to have a lamb roast in the fridge, so here's what I did: I chopped a bunch of vegetables—potatoes, onions, celery, carrots and leeks—and dumped them into an iron roasting pot. I threw in some minced garlic and then a batch of the dried herb mixture I like to use—a combination of paprika, oregano, basil, thyme, Ko...

I watch CNN for news—although now five days running of Whitney Houston coverage is not news!—and I feel generally informed. And what I don't get from CNN, I get from scouring the Internet, or at least popping in and out of a few regular sites I like. But still, I miss things. Events happen that pass completely outside of my radar, and I am surprised to learn of them months after the fact. Such is the case with NASA's launch of Curiosity, a new rover headed to Mars. It was launched successfully on November 26, and after an eight-month journey, it should land on its predetermined target. It will spend what amounts to two years for Earthlings studying the Mars environment, but what would amount to just a year for Martians, if there were such a thing. I was intrigued by this story, which I only just read this past weekend—where was I on November 26, 2011? I was spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws, so I must not have heard the news that day. Well, better late than not at a...

Our property is split up a bit, with lots of lawn space in the front and on one side, and then a fenced-in patio space that includes a big pool. The fence also encloses some planting space up on a hill and a flat area we have designated as Baxter the dog's potty. You open the back door for him and say, "Go potty, big puppy," and he trots over to his green area and does his business, unless there is snow on the ground, in which case he makes a deposit wherever. The problem is when he decides to leave his green space and hike up the hill to dig for moles. It's a mulched hill, so he comes back down thick with mud and black with wet mulch. With his goldendoodle fur, that makes for a real mess that can be difficult to clean up. When the temperatures were warmer, I would hose him off, but in the dead of winter, I can't very well get him soaking wet and then leave him to dry. The poor guy would get pneumonia, if dogs even get pneumonia (hmm, I'll have to look that ...

When I travel, I pack a bag to keep myself amused, and I think of it as an Activity Bag. When the girls were little, I would pack Activity Bags for them with fruit snacks, crayons and coloring books, little travel games, audio CDs and maybe a movie if we had a DVD player in the minivan. My personal Activity Bags don't have crayons and fruit snacks—it's a pity. It usually includes a book or two, a notebook and pencil, some Chapstick, some M&Ms, mints, my iPod and my iPad for magazines and Angry Birds. When I get bored with one thing like reading or listening to music, I dig around in the bag for something else to do. Last week on the flight home from Hawaii, I had read and listened and played, and then I went to sleep. When I woke up, the plane was dark, and it was somewhere between 2 and 3 in the morning with a few hours left before Chicago. So, I plugged headphones into the armrest and tuned into the stupid TV. There was a sitcom, and then came a documentary. For a m...

As I said yesterday, we've had a birthday in the house—Husband has turned over another calendar year. He didn't care to have a big shindig last night and didn't even seem to want to have dinner out, so we stayed in. I made a yummy mussels and pasta dish with andouille sausage, sauteed onions and mushrooms simmered in a rich tomato sauce. Nice. And I made a pineapple upside-down cake. Husband isn't big on desserts as a rule, but he has always loved this kind of cake. Actually, he hasn't had this cake for a long time because it's gone out of fashion. Really, when was the last time you saw pineapple upside-down cake on a restaurant menu? I couldn't even find a boxed mix for the stuff. So, I made one from scratch using a recipe from momswhothink.com . I wish someone would explain this site name to me, which seems to suggest there are a lot of moms out there who don't think and who aren't interested in recipes, health, nutrition and parenting issues....

Back in my days in the office, I remember Husband (the Boss) often claiming "Flexibility" was his middle name. Other employees would look at him with a slight amount of scepticism, but as the boss, he was allowed to make the claim. Over the weekend, flexibility was his middle name. Today is Husband's birthday, but Eustacia can't be here on a weekday, so she asked that we drive up to her dorm and have dinner over the weekend. We picked her up Saturday evening, and then did what we usually do. Where do you want to have dinner? Don't make that my decision, where do you want to go? I don't know, what are the options?...all the while, you're driving around aimlessly until all the restaurants are full to the brim, and you're left with the food court at the mall. To head that off as quickly as possible, I suggested we go to Crocker Park, which is just about 15 or 20 minutes from Eustacia's school. Crocker Park is one of those fake towns, shopping cen...

I own a Kindle, and I feel dirty. Dirty like a spineless slug. Dirty like a sell out. Dirty like a book whore. Dirty like the cause of the downfall of civilized society. Here's how it happened: We were on our way to the airport for the long trip to Hawaii, and we stopped at Best Buy because Husband wanted a Kindle. We would be doing a lot of reading on the beach, and the iPad isn't conducive for that. The screen is glossy glass and shows a lot of glare in the sun, but the Kindle's screen has the perfect texture for daylight reading. Those commercials with two people sitting by the pool, and the one reading an iPad is struggling, are accurate. Husband chose the one he wanted and headed toward the cashier, all the while I was wandering around that part of the store touching everything like a kid in a candy store because that's how I am at Best Buy. And then Husband turned around and asked if I wanted a Kindle, too. Of course, I didn't because I had my iPad and ...

We're back from our vacation to Hawaii—got home just yesterday afternoon where the sky was gray, the wind was howling through the trees and snow was falling in clumps. We didn't get much more than a dusting in the end, but it looked like it was going to be a real blowout for a few minutes. I've spent the morning running every errand—pet store, post office, dry cleaners, liquor store, grocery store—and now I can catch my breath and reintroduce myself to the puppy. We think he grew in height and weight while we were away. So, we went to Hawaii, Honolulu more specifically, and the Kahala Resort to be exact. It's a hotel on the southeastern end of the island in a quiet residential area. The resort has a private beach, three restaurants, and a helpful concierge, so all you need is handy. View from our balcony. Every morning, we would wake up, open the doors to the balcony and have a gander at the ocean—I was surprised by the view every single day. "Oh yeah, ther...

After three years of writing columns for Small Town Newspaper, I've done Martin Luther King day. There isn't much else I can say about it other than what I've already said. And with so many people still living who knew the man personally, it seems best to let them speak to the occasion of MLK Day. But despite all the talk—all the interviews and news stories and columns—I haven't heard anything about one of King's great mentors, Howard Thurman, the man who met Gandhi personally and counseled King decades before the civil rights became a national movement. So, here is my column for today's edition .

I prefer not to walk Baxter, the big puppy, in my own neighbor despite the obvious convenience—slip on the harness, hook on the leash and off we go—because I hate walking the hills, and for some reason, the place seems desolate. Beside the occasional passing car, you could get to feel like you're the sole survivor after a global catastrophe. So when it's time to walk the dog, I'll often put us in the car and drive five minutes to the town park. Beyond the tennis courts, there is ball field after ball field, a wonderful playground funded by a women's group that literally baked cookies to raise money, and then a walking area with a kidney-shaped pond, trees and benches. You can walk up one hill to an access road to the town pool, then take that road down the hill to a little bridge, cross a tiny creek, and follow a path back to where you parked the car near the pond. On some days, I'm the only person walking there, but it never feels desolate. That is to say, I neve...

I made a sandwich for lunch today. Nothing to write home about, I know, but the process reminded me of the way my father would make sandwiches, and there's a story there. Daddy loved food, and I mean loved it. He would get up very early in the morning to pack his construction worker lunch, and he would knock around in the kitchen like he was making a feast for a whole family. He'sdmake two sandwiches, pack some chips, some Archway cookies, an apple, a Mars Bar or a Twinkie or both, and a big thermos full of coffee. It was never a chore for him. It was always a delightful task. On Sundays, we would often have a roast for lunch with the traditional sides, and we'd sit down at the table after church for the big meal of the day. Mama would pack away the leftovers, and later for dinner it was everyman for himself. Daddy would pull out sandwich fixin's from the fridge and lay them all out on the counter. There would be whole wheat bread, roast beef sliced thin, cheese, le...

This afternoon, a guy from Invisible Fence was here installing a "fence" so that Baxter can run wild in his own yard. As it is, the big puppy can only run wild on the patio and in a mulched area so sloped that he looks like a goat when he stands at the highest point. In fact, we have occasionally called him Goat Puppy. An invisible fence is really an electric wire buried in the ground that interacts with a collar that reminds the dog where his boundaries are. That's a polite way of saying that it zaps the dog if he gets too close and ignores the warning beeps. When the guy finished with the wiring, we walked Baxter around the perimeter of the yard to introduce him to the beeps and the flags, and I wore my winter boots and coat and scarf because we were trudging and sliding through what's left of two inches of snow, now less than an inch and slushy and mushy. It was raining at the time and cold and a little windy, and I was very happy to be finished with the exercise...

I have new boots. I've never been one to care about boots and have only kept a dusty pair in the closet for those few days a year when I would shovel deep snow from the driveway. But now that I have a dog, I think I might be trudging through snow and sludge much more often than in previous years—so, boots. I like them. In fact, I put them on today just to break them in a little, even though I probably won't be going out until the current snowfall subsides. Baxter seems content to romp around on the patio on his own, so I'll stay warm and dry for as long as I can today. But when I put on my new boots this morning, a terrible image flashed through my mind, one that might keep me from wearing them inside for much longer, or at least keep me from wearing them while walking downstairs. I have a bad association with boots and stairs, you see. When I was in fifth grade, I lived in a neighborhood filled with kids, and we would invent games to play, like jump rope in the stre...

No, it's not really. That was Monday, but my weekly columns for Small Town Newspaper don't appear on Mondays anymore. They now appear on Thursdays, so I'm reworking my schedule and thinking in new terms. For two years, I have written with Mondays in mind—what happened on a particular Monday, what Monday holiday are we celebrating, and the like. It's a new day. So, for this first new day with the new schedule, here is my column as written for Small Town Newspaper , the Thursday edition. It's about being messy and about how there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In my living room and kitchen, I'm pretty tidy. My bathroom, my side of the counter at least, is free and clear of debris. But my desk is my space and my space alone, and if I choose to spread out and be a mess, that's my business. It's where I keep the things that belong solely to me. Not only are my music and knitting and a few recipes there, I have little toys—a miniature Etch-A-Sketch...

be bought, maybe? The other day, Eustacia said whadayasay we go to the antique mall? We've got a huge one here that Husband estimated must be 40,000 square feet or some such. It used to be something like a K-Mart before whatever it was went out of business, and someone had the bright idea of turning the space into a central place for dealers to sell their wares. These aren't all antiques by the official definition. Some of it is cool vintage like ladies' hats or a metal dollhouse just like the one I had when I was eight, and some is flea market stuff like a collection of Star Wars juice glasses and Johnnie Mathis albums, and some of it is just old like the chipped dishes that no one wanted to throw away but should have. Regardless, it's all fun to see. The store is set up in aisles labeled as streets, and you start on First Street and walk down, and then walk up Second and back down Third and so on. If you look at everything, you'll be in there all day. Eust...