EASTER 2008

JASON AND ERIN

Jason and Erin drove up from Memphis, TN to spend the Easter weekend with us. We had such a good time while they were here. We ate out several times, watched movies, played Skip-Bo, talked and laughed,and just generally had fun. I took lots of photos. Easter Sunday, we cooked the pork chops and salmon steaks on the grill, and they turned out just great! There were three Easter egg trees in the yard to add a little bit of whimsical color to a landscape that is still a bit drab. The forsythias and jonquils were in their glory so we had a hint of Spring outside. The temperature was cool, for the most part, but we got by with sweaters. Nice weekend. I am quite convinced that any holiday is so much better when family is around.

DON AND ME

EASTER EGG TREE

JASON FEEDS THE EASTER BUNNY

PORK CHOPS AND SALMON STEAKS ON THE GRILL

ST. PATRICK'S DAY MUSINGS

"St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time – a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic."-- Adrienne Cook



Another St. Patrick's Day! I've made it through another winter....just barely....although I must admit that this one hasn't been nearly as depressing as some in the past. That's probably because of the diversion the winter gathering of friends and family brought the end of January. A bright spot in the gloom.

This St. Patrick's day is not as gloriously beautiful as some in the past have been.....2006, in particular. That was a gorgeous day! Sunny, very spring-like, yellow forsythias blooming profusely. Not much sunshine today. A bit chilly. The forsythias are shy this year. Just a hint of yellow here and there.

It's time to start whipping the yard into shape. Don made a stab at it by bagging a couple of big bags of leaves. I need to tidy up the flower beds and prune the Altheas. They bloom on new growth, you know, and pruning encourages them to send out new shoots. I'm looking forward to working outside again, in one way: fresh air, more communion with the earth and garden plants, the diversion of birds, squirrels and insect life. On the other hand, there are so many reasons that I don't enjoy working in the yard: ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, for three. I also know that it's going to mess up my breathing; leaf dust is a killer! And the old Sciatic nerve always kicks in when I rake and sweep too much. Sciatica can, and has, sent me to bed for a week. I'll have to pace myself.

I wonder if the black snake will be back this year? I didn't see it last year. It's a big one.....5 feet long, I would guess. Black snakes are harmless, but they have a rattle on the end of their tails like a poisonous rattler does. That can scare the bejabbers out of you until you ascertain that it's only the black snake two steps away from your feet, not a rattler, and that death is not imminent after all. I hope it's still out there somewhere so I can get Don to take a photo of me holding it. That would be sooooooo cool!

I didn't see as many blue-tailed lizards last summer. Miss Priss was then a stray and lived outside last year. She was the cause of the demise of many of them. Now that she's an official member of the family, she's an inside kitty, so maybe the lizards will have a chance. I love to see them sunning on the stone wall next to the porch stairs. One of them was a fat guy. I named him Big Al.

I saw a hummingbird feeder hanging from a porch yesterday. It's a bit early for that. Hummers traditionally drift into town around the first few days in April. I hang 8 feeders for them. It's quite a job to keep them filled and keep the ants and wasps away from them. It's time to pull the feeders out of the cabinet underneath the sink to decide if I can use all of them from last year, or if I need to buy a few new ones. It becomes quite a responsibility if you hang feeders. The hummers depend on you to keep them filled and mildew-free. Don't start that job if you are a slacker. It's a job well worth the time and trouble. Hummers are very entertaining. Quite the clowns. Very territorial, and they treat me to many a fierce avian sword fight as I sit on the porch swing in the afternoons. You'd think that with 8 hummingbird feeders in the yard, there would be enough for everybody, but that's not the way they all think. Invariably, we have one or two who think only of themselves, claim all the feeders for their own, and chase off the others. I know people like that, don't you?

TWO HOLIDAYS, TOO CLOSE TOGETHER

I'm a bit befuddled by the closeness of St. Patrick's Day and Easter this year. St. Patrick's Day is staying where it should be, but Easter is extra-early this year. I read that the 22nd of March is the earliest possible day for Easter to be celebrated. It will be 280 something years before that will happen again. Easter is the 23rd this year. That's just too darn early. I have my fingers crossed that it won't be a cold, windy day. You never know about March. April is a much better month for Easter. For one thing, there is no green grass to be seen here in Eureka Springs. How in the world will the Chamber of Commerce hold their annual Easter Egg Hunt? The forsythias are lagging behind this year too. I've seen scraggly blooms here and there around town, but usually they are showing in glorious profusion by St. Patrick's Day. Not so this year.



Don and I thought we'd have a hum-drum Easter this year, but our spirits perked up when I received an e-mail from Jason this morning. He and Erin will drive up from Memphis to spend the weekend with us. Yippee! Now, I have planning to do. We will cook out on the grill Easter Sunday. I will probably make the Easter Bunny cake like my grandmother Baldridge always did. The last time I made one was in 2006. (See photo below.) I might even throw some Easter baskets together with the usual junk candy....jelly beans, chocolate eggs, Peeps, etc. I haven't done that in a long time, and the sugar won't kill us if we only eat it for a few days.

I bought Easter bunny ears at Wal-Mart to take a silly photo to e-mail to all our family and friends. I'll add it to this blog when I get that done. We'll look goofy, but so what? We're old; we can act as goofy as we like.


I think I can probably talk Jason and Erin into dyeing eggs Saturday night if they're not too tired from the drive. If they are, that's fine. I can do it alone. I'm looking for some sort of special way to dye them; something different from the usual food color dyes, but if I can't find anything, the old-fashioned way will do. At least it's traditional.



Speaking of Easter egg hunts: I miss not having any little ones around for that. When we move to Memphis, there are 4 darling little children that I think will allow me to join in their festivities. I'm looking forward to that.


I remember Easters of long ago. We always had to have a new Easter outfit. It would have been embarrassing, almost scandalous, not to have new clothes to wear to church. That new outfit included gloves and a hat. No decent woman attended church without both. Lots of women wore corsages for Easter. Do women still wear corsages to church? We always bought them for our mothers and grandmothers on Easter and Mother's Day.



St. Patrick's Day has always been a favorite holiday of mine. Maybe it's because green is one of my three favorite colors. Green is a good color to see as Winter drags its old depressing self off the calendar. Shamrocks, leprechauns, lilting brogues......I like them all. It's almost here again. Don't forget to wear something green tomorrow, or you'll get pinched. If you want to get pinched, forget what I said.



Happy St. Patrick's Day and have a wonderful Easter!

THINK YELLOW!

We are more than a week into March, and the month is living up to its capricious, fickle reputation. One day is spring-like, the next is like winter. We are beginning to experience more days --- more often --- that smell like spring. Green things are appearing ---though not quickly enough for my liking --- amongst the grays and browns in the landscape. Yesterday was a perfectly gorgeous day! It wasn't forecast to be, but the fact that it was made it even more enjoyable. Winter returned overnight, but the memory of yesterday, and the joy it brought, lingers.

Today on our way to lunch at the restaurant at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks, I felt color-blind. Yes, there was greenery here and there, but, for the most part, my eyes were assaulted by dullness...... grays and browns in the vegetation and a steel-gray sky. No sunshine today. No golden glow. Just blahness.

As we neared the corner by the post office, my eyes were drawn to a piece of earth next to the parking lot at Pine and Spring Sts. Color! And not just any color! Yellow! The brightest, sunniest color of all! Until I spotted it, I felt as though I was living in one of those black and white TV commercials that are monochromatic except for one bright spot of color used to draw attetention to a certain feature. They do the same thing in magazine ads where, say, in a black and white photo, one's eyes are drawn to a single red rose.

This morning my color-starved eyes were drawn to a spot of yellow and feasted on a clump of jonquils! They weren't there yesterday. Today, just when I've almost reached the end of my rope as far as believing that I will live to see another spring, there were cheery flowers to reinforce my will to live. Hold on a while longer. Spring is coming! If there's one thing we need in March, it's yellow flowers. Jaunty daffodils refresh the soul. Even if it snows tonight, they will soldier on and be there tomorrow to encourage me.

I don't think it is an accident that yellow is the first color to make an appearance in early spring. Have you noticed that? That flowers tend to bloom by color scheme. First yellows, then pinks, then purples, then whites. There is some overlapping, of course, because flowers can be renegades, and some rebel flowers appear when are doggone ready to, but for the most part, there is a pattern. That is not an accident.

What color is cheerier.....happier.... than yellow? None, and that's why forsythias and jonquils are the first to bloom at the end of winter when we need them the most. Yes, the jonquils are up and beginning to bloom. Buds are forming on the forsythia bushes at this moment. Every warm day that pops in to give them encouragement assures them that Spring is coming.

Jonquils are growing in my yard. The green is showing, but I don't see the buds yet. They're working on it though. Nature's mood lifters are on the way and will soon be here to bring a smile to my face as I walk back and forth to the car. What a relief to know that yellow is back and not a minute too soon! Bring it on!

VALENTINE'S DAY MEMORIES

I have a friend from my elementary school days, and he and I have been reminiscing about Valentine's Day parties. About a week before the big day -- in art class -- we would create beautiful card receptacles from construction paper, brown paper bags, paste, glitter and poster paints. They were works of art. Masterpieces. My friend found some of his sacks, still full of valentines, in his mother's attic. What memories! Some of the people who signed his cards are no longer alive. It's been 52 years! How can that be?

I was a take-charge sort of a little girl and, as far as valentines went, I did it all. I walked to the TG&Y store, or the ten-cent store, as we called it, on Getwell Road and purchased my valentines. I always bought one of those big variety packs and a special card for my teacher and one for the "cute boy du jour" that I had a crush on. I was very fickle in those days, and the object of my affection changed weekly, so the boy for whom I picked out the card might not be the one who got it.

In preparation for the card giving, our teachers wrote the names of the members of her class on the blackboard. We copied them all down in our tablets or three-ring notebooks. This would be our master list from which we addressed our cards. We were strongly encouraged by our teacher to be sure to give everyone on the list a card, even if we hated their guts. A kid who got no valentines could be scarred for life, and Heaven knows, I didn't want that on my conscience, so everyone received a card from me, and I certainly appreciated the favor. Popularity could hinge on something as flimsy as how many valentines a person received.

So, the Valentine's Day sack was made, and the teacher had hung it up on the wall with all the others. I had the valentines in my hot little hands. I had the master names list. Time to go to work. I can see myself now. I'm sitting at the dinner table. A stack of valentines and envelopes are on the table in front of me. To the left of them is the master list. To the right is a stack of pretty Valentine's Day stickers and three or four freshly sharpened pencils. Addressing valentines was not a job for an ink pen. If you made a mistake, there was no rectifying it. No bottles of "White Out" in those days, and even if there had been, would you have wanted to receive a shabby Valentine with white, gunky smears all over it? No, there was nothing to do for it except to toss the screwed-up valentine in the trash can. It just killed me to waste my hard-earned dollar a week allowance on messed up valentines, so I was very careful. I addressed them with a #2 pencil with a quality eraser.

Ok, so I would look at the first name on my master list, then thumb through my stack for the perfect valentine for that person. This was no haphazard undertaking. I tried to match the valentine to the person. If that person liked kitties, they got a valentine with a cat on it. A lot of thought went into the whole process. Then I signed my name, addressed the envelope, slipped the valentine inside and sealed it with a Valentine's Day sticker. Even then, I'm proud to say that I went the extra mile. After I finished, I carefully put them in a sack and placed them right next to my book satchel so I wouldn't forget them. The next day, it was so much fun to drop them in the prettily-decorated bags. The party would be held the last hour of the school day, and waiting for that time to come was as bad as trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve. The anticipation was almost unbearble.

I will never forget the Valentine's Day party when I was in the 6th grade at Sherwood Elementary School. That was the year that I, little June Baldridge, reached the height of my social life. It had never been better before that day, and it has never been better since. The triumph! The joy! The exhilaration! I received THREE --count them -- small heart-shaped boxes of chocolate candy! Let me tell you, it doesn't get any better than that in life. Since then, there have been beautiful bouquets of red roses, gorgeous Valentines from my sweetheart, and much bigger boxes of Russell Stover's candy, but that Valentine's Day will live in my memory until the day I die. Thank you, Sam Griffin, Joe Griffith and Mike Newsom....wherever you are .... and Happy Valentine's Day!

Don and me....Valentines since 1969

BOLOGNA CUPS

As our family and friends gathered here in Eureka Springs two weeks ago, the conversation turned, as it often does when families reminisce, to the comfort food of childhood. One of my children's favorites was, and is, Bologna Cups. Doesn't sound very appetizing? Maybe that's because it's a Memphis Thing. I think that's why my sons' ladies fail to appreciate the appeal of that tasty dish. They are from barbaric areas of our fine country.....California, Virginia, and Texas..... and just don't see it. Most born-and-bred Memphians love Bologna cups, having been introduced to them at a very young age by the school system.

I remember well the first time I ate a Bologna Cup. It was in the cafeteria of Rozelle Elementary School which I attended from the first grade through the first half of the fourth. I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life! What a fantastic idea! I loved Bologna, and I loved mashed potatoes. Here were my two favorites combined! It just didn't get any better than that.

Bologna, or baloney, as it's pronounced in good Southern homes, was a staple at our house, as was ground beef and canned meats such as Vienna Sausages, corned beef, and potted meat. These "meats" grew to favor during the Great Depression because they were dirt cheap. My parents' families were poor before the Depression, and during and after, they sure didn't have the money for steaks. When my parents married, they carried on the fine tradition of serving up cheap meats in cans and frying ground beef in all sorts of ways in pure lard. Yum. Yum. Bacon grease was saved to season vegetables. In those days, I'm surprised that anybody's heart was able to pump blood through blocked arteries longer than 40 years, but, I'm telling you, the food was delicious!

But to get back to the Bologna Cups.... every time the subject comes up, our children rhapsodize about them, but the family members, who don't actually have our blood coursing through their veins, sniff with disgust and roll their eyes. Bologna Cups! Whoever heard of such a thing? That sounds disgusting!

Our children love them, and our boys would like for their ladies to dish them up occasionally. Well, I don't think Jason expects Erin to cook them because she's a vegetarian, and he is sensitive to her feelings about that. Tom, along with Robin, does eat vegetarian most of the time, but he still appreciates a good Bologna Cup every now and then. He's had to master the delicate technique and learn to cook them himself. Keith's wife, Brandi, doesn't understand all the excitement about them. I think she has prepared them a time or two, but she'd really rather not, and she'd rather take a beating than to eat one.

If you don't know exactly how to prepare Bologna Cups, but your mouth is simply watering at the prospect of eating them, here's what you do:

First, you make a big pot of mashed potatoes. I use an entire 5-lb bag for this because I want to make enough Bologna Cups to last for a while When the potatoes are boiled and mashed, you grab a package or two of all-beef Bologna. Heat up a skillet.... an electric skillet is best because you can cook more pieces at a time and start gobbling them up sooner. Drop the Bologna in the skillet and stand back and gaze in wonder as it curls up into cute little bowls. Is that not the neatest thing you've ever seen? Some sort of mysterious scientific principle is involved here, but I can't explain it. Suffice it to say, that it's miraculous! After a minute or so, flip the Bologna over and let the little bowls curl up the other way. It's really fun to watch them, but try to contain yourself and only do it twice. You don't want to scorch your Bologna.

Now, here's the trick: Quickly, before the Bologna loses its shape, start slapping big spoonsful of mashed potatoes in the bowls. Use your own good judgment as to how much to pile on each one. When each Bologna bowl has taters, it's time for the final touch: Kraft's American Cheese slices. Place one-half slice on each Bologna Cup. Then, place the cover of the electric skillet over the skillet for a few minutes so the cheese will melt. Ah..... a Southern gourmet meal. Voila! Bologna Cups! That's some mighty fine eating!

Other family culinary delights are salmon croquettes, made sort of the way Mama made them... although I changed the recipe slightly.... and boiled peanuts. We are still in the process of convincing the ladies that those dishes are delicacies. We've tried for years, but they just don't get it. We can only pity them. They just don't know what they're missing.

GROUND HOG DAY

This morning I jumped out of bed and rushed to my computer to see if Punxsatawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. Yes, he did. Bummer! Six more weeks of winter. The more I think about it, though, that's not such a long time. It seems like the days fly by for me even in the winter. We should start seeing more days in the 50's and low 60's now. I was cheered enormously when I looked out the window this evening, and it was still light at 5:40! That's quite an improvement from the darkness I saw through the window at 5:15 in December. We still have capricious March to get through. Jonquils will be blooming, but it could snow at any time. Actually, March, here in Eureka Springs, was beautiful last year. Then came a killing frost in April that zapped my beautiful wisteria and lots of other early-blooming spring flowers. You just never know.

I was disappointed that AOL had not posted the Punxsatawney Phil prediction on my Welcome Screen. It was nowhere to be found. I had to do a search for the official Phil site to find out what went down this morning. Honestly, I think the Ground Hog story is every bit as important as the craziness in Britney Spears' life. I wish I had a dollar for every morning that I've signed on the computer to have her face or crotch staring back at me. Shame on you, AOL!

This is my favorite photo from last week's family/friend gathering: It's a family portrait. Left to right, standing: Tom, me, Don and left to right, sitting: Jason and Debbie

It's been so quiet around here tonight. So different from last Saturday night when everyone came back to the house after Jason and Emil's performance at The New Delhi Cafe. I'm bored. Don should be home from work any minute. Then I'll have some good company.