12 Oakdale

We’d gone to Fort Lauderdale to celebrate Patten’s birthday, bringing the watermelon cake he’d requested. He said I’d made one for his birthday many years ago. That recipe was long gone with all the cook books I’d tossed when I sold 14th Court. Onto the internet for a recipe where I found one using watermelon-flavored Jello. None at Publix, but three brands at Wal-Mart: Jell-O, Sonic, and Starburst. Do those customers do a lot of Jello shots? I opted for the Sonic, which claimed it tastes just like their slushee. Could be. Because the frosting was buttercream, I’d had Grant put our camping fridge in the truck to keep the cake cold on the trip down. It thawed while we watched the Miami Dolphins beat the Baltimore Ravens 42-38. Actually, I watched while Patten, Ryann, and Grant went to the grocery store. They’d left at the beginning of the 4th quarter, Ravens leading 35 to 7, with the Dolphins not looking good. Fortunately, Patten keeps his phone on so they saw the comeback while they sh...

Figuring we would be exhausted after packing the car for our drive north, we cleverly decided to do that a couple of days before, so we had a day to rest up. Pretty dang clever of us. The next day, having hung our final laundry on the line, Grant got a call. I could hear a son on the other end of the conversation explaining he’d come down with Covid. I knew it wasn’t Patten because he’d tested positive last week after attending a Miami Heat basketball game. Spent all week at home, symptom free. Sounded like Spaulding. I thought at least he and Molly were able to go on their hike at the Grand Canyon last weekend. Starting at 5:30 AM on the North Rim, they hiked with four friends down in and across, coming up out the South Rim by 8:30 that evening. He said it was so hot that they laid for an hour in the Colorado River at the bottom to cool off.  Nope, it was Jamey, with whom we planned to spend the weekend with on our way north. He’d started feeling lousy Sunday evening but fortunate...

We really thought we’d stay up this year and ring in the new year. On the agenda was the Cotton Bowl at 3:30 PM in which out-of-it’s-league Cincinnati did much better than expected against Alabama. Final score: Cincinnati 6; Bama 27. Could have been much worse. Next up, the Peach Bowl at 7:30. My plan went away when Georgia got a touchdown on its opening possession and never looked back. Final score: Georgia 34; Michigan 11. I’d quite by halftime. Grant had wandered off to play his computer game. We’d eaten my onion tart with a bottle of American sparkling wine during the first game, and Grant’s black eyed pea salad with seltzer during the first quarter of the second. Desert was a shared Kris Kringle cookie (formerly known as Santa’s Winter White) from Gideon’s Bakehouse. Off to our respective corners, me to continue my binge of Episodes , a decade-old sitcom being retired by Netflix on January 4th, and Grant to manage his dragon quest. By 11:00, we were in bed.  The Town of Winder...

At least three years ago, I’d read about a fabulous exhibit of 6 paintings of Ovid’s myths involving fleshy, naked Greek women and goddesses that were united for the first time since the 1500’s, when Titian painted them for Philip II of Spain. Should we see it at the National Gallery in London or the Prado in Madrid? Both were appealing; both were rendered moot by Covid. The last stop of the tour was the Isabella Stanley Gardener Museum, in Boston. Mrs. Gardener bought one of these, “The Rape of Europa” in 1896, the first Titian brought to America, as the highlight of the museum she created. (Any woman named Isabella gets a free lifetime membership of the ISG. I am signing Bella up.) So to Boston we went, staying at the Omni Parker House Hotel, where they claim Parker House rolls and Boston Cream pie originated. Sadly, their restaurant is still closed, so we had to eat elsewhere. The Beantown Pub, Vietnamese Bahn Mi Ho, and Cantina Italiana substituted nicely. We are good hunter/gather...