Mercies Again

Dusk quietly shushes the lake

As trees on the opposite shore

Stare back softly:

An uneven stand of rough charcoal gray

Fencing in twilight’s blessing,

Holding it close.

I am young-at-heart,

A child viewing simply,

While deeper wisdom recognizes

Shadowy years past

As a collective first chapter,

Proving I’ve only just begun to see

Clearly, even in this half-light.

Faith grows strong

In this unique moment,

And I give glory to God for His mercies

At the close of a day

Ripe with new beginning.

Boys (and Men) will be Boys

It was time for another Man Night.  My input during the planning of the evening’s adventure involved suggesting to Grampa that he needed more than just manly brats for their special party-barge dinner.  He agreed, so I shopped for the food, prepared it, and made sure they had paper towels and paper plates and such.  It’s always good to have a woman in the mix.

Before heading out to sea, playful Grampa posed for a “nice” picture while our pseudo-militant son and mock-victimized grandson created manufactured drama.  Notice the tiki lamps (strapped to the boat railing with duct tape) that would light up their favorite private cove during dinner and cards.

This was the inaugural trip for a new toy: Grampa’s latest-and-greatest tiny gas grill that mounts to the side of the boat.  Perfect for brats, I’m told.  

And they’re off!

After dark, I watched for the boat’s headlights (well-reflected on the lake), and stood on the pier to take a picture as they drew near.  Notice the higher-up dots of light - blazing torches (tiki lamps) announcing the return of my heroic, lionhearted macho-guys ready for the next installment of their Man Night: ice cream and a red-blooded X-Men movie.

House Molt, Part II (a continuation of June 17th)

The exterior of our house is sided with wide redwood planks. This siding sheds its paint every few years - a reptilian-like molt - probably because the house was built without a moisture barrier applied to the inside. Whenever the peeling starts, we help it along by scraping and re-painting in manageable doses, one side of the house at a time. 

We just finished the third side.  One more to go.

If my dreamiest remodel dream were to come true (fat chance), this scarred old siding would be torn off by hired help (another fat chance) and replaced with fiber cement board in a natural woodsy color, or at least something other than sterile white that screams, “Suburbia!  Suburbia! SUBURBIA!”  I can picture this in my mind’s eye: classy cultured stone applied to the bump-out porch area, and a cedar-look siding everywhere else.

As it is, we remain grateful for what we have and keep scraping and painting, scraping and painting.

Our neighbor was here when this house was built in 1961.  She says during that era it was unfashionable to leave redwood natural (a travesty, to be sure), so it was painted boring white and has stayed that way ever since. Painting a darker color at this stage of the game would only invite exposure of white underneath come molting season…so I guess it will remain white at our own hands. 

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

Some people seem to need a golf club in their hands. I am not one of these people, but I do know some of them.  And wonder about their sanity. Our pastor and his son.  My husband and our grandson.  They live to golf.

Depending on the moment, I live to eat chocolate or compose a creative writing piece. I do not live to golf.

However, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  As a young golf widow in my 20’s, I dutifully took golf lessons, and routinely practiced playing with a few girlfriends in order to someday join my golf-crazed husband.  It was painful. That nasty par 5 at the City Park course required me to hit the ball at least 15 times to move it from the tee box to the pin. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I should care about chasing this illusive, maddening little white ball over hill and dale when I could have been elsewhere. Anywhere else, actually.

One day my friends and I were slowly making our way around another course (I don’t remember its name), playing our most focused version of beginner golf.  Unfortunately we didn’t notice we should have let a foursome behind us play through.  We were doing our best, but even then were so gosh-darn slow.

Anyway, when the pro saw things jammed up he came blasting out from the clubhouse in his spiffy golf cart (with raw fury coursing through his veins) and chewed us out, big time. I don’t blame him for being upset - we were in the wrong - but I do credit him with effectively axing any slight inclination I had to ever put foot on a golf course again.

That was the end of my brief career as a golfer.  THE END.

* * *

Shift gears to the summer of 2015.  My dear husband has played golf twice a week, every week, and is currently reading “Bob Hope’s Confessions of a Hooker: My Lifelong Love Affair with Golf.”  You get the picture: this guy lives to golf.  But I already told you that.

Back in June he asked if maybe I might join him sometime?  I said sure, but talk is cheap and the days slid by without my picking up a club. However, yesterday he flat-out invited me to play with him on a little good-for-beginners course near our house that used to be an airstrip for private planes.  Easy by anyone’s standards.  Flat.  Pretty, like a park.

I went.

It was fine.  Also frustrating, just like old times.  The golfer husband was in high spirits, and patiently congratulated me whenever I did anything remotely well, bless his soul. The course wasn’t very busy, so we didn’t hold up play (my worst nightmare).  He also gave me advantages sometimes, like starting from the 150-yard marker instead of the tee box, to move things along and keep me from crying over my score (the scorecard was not accurate, but he kept score anyway).

Afterwards he kept telling me how much fun it had been, how much he enjoyed being with me on the course, how I have innate large motor skills and could be a “good-as-it-gets-when-beginning-at-your-age” golfer (that’s a quote) if I’d just practice.

So now it’s up to me to make an important decision.  Do I hold fast to 4 decades of practiced refusal to swing a golf club?  Or do I agree to play with him again?

Aw shucks.  How can I resist that handsome golfer-guy with frog-eye sunglasses who wears the straw hat with the shark embroidered on the band?  Of course I’ll go.

Plan D

Once upon a time, I had a plan all laid out for my day – we’ll call it Plan A.  It was a nice Plan, and goodness knows…we all try to be nice, don’t we?  Plan A was generous and kind without requiring a serious sacrifice or undue amount of effort.

Nice.  I’m not necessarily inferring it was best.

But then another person’s Plan A cancelled my nice Plan A, and two new Plan Bs emerged for me and that other person. They were fine Plans, fine and dandy. Not long after, my anticipated Plan B - also nice - evaporated.   The other person’s Plan B held firm.

I moved on to Plan C, a potential husky in this pack of Plans, one that had been waiting in the shadows, licking its chops, for this very moment of empty space! I guess I’ll call it the get-down-to-business, stop-messing-around and knuckle-down, you’ve-been-putting-this-off-for-months Plan.  That one. There’s no time like the present, it barked.

But the present is slippery, and hard to grasp in the face of distraction, I whined, mourning the loss of sweet little Plans A and B.

Anyway, the aforementioned other person is now seated before his computer cranking out his Plan B, and I’m hunkered over my screen and keyboard, reluctant to confront an overwhelming Plan C that requires Hard Work and Mental Effort. I tiptoe around Plan C, a real taskmaster that has been pricking me for almost a year now, reminding me that I’m putting it off. I recognize its snarl from encounters in the past, and hope to avoid disciplinary measures by messing around and writing stuff that doesn’t matter in the least, like this stupid blog – my Plan D.

Pesto

A couple of neighbors invited me to join them in making pesto from lakeside basil growing a few doors down from our house.  I gladly agreed, and was soon pulling leaves from stems and toasting pine nuts in a skillet at my namesake’s house (the other Beth on our road).

I returned home with aromatic green stuff begging for some sort of culinary adventure. So I thawed frozen (wild caught) cod steaks and topped them with the fresh pesto, then added sliced super-ripe roma tomatoes (purchased from a roadside stand), crumbled goat feta, and pine nuts. I drizzled everything with olive oil and placed the pan in a hot oven (450 degrees) until the fish flaked and the nuts began to gently brown.

Black and wild rice (cooked together and seasoned with garlic and thyme), and roasted baby peppers/ mushrooms/ Bermuda onions/kale…and a glass of very nice, no-sulfite-added cabernet sauvignon…were perfect companions.   

Mmmmmmmmmmm.  I could easily become a pesto-holic.