Author Archives: themidlifesecondwife

The Uncertain Certainty of Moving

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in House and Garden, LifeStyles, Transitions

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , ,

RVAtruck2The last time you heard from me (January 23, 2013, if anyone’s keeping track), Downton Abbey’s Sybil Branson (née Lady Sybil Crawley) was still alive. So, for that matter, was Matthew Crawley, heir to the popular British program’s eponymous estate. The last time you heard from me, Pope Benedict XVI was still wearing his famous red shoes. Advance word from Hollywood revealed, however, that due to copyright restrictions, another pair of famous red shoes would not be worn in Oz: The Great and Powerful.

The last time you heard from me I was still living in Richmond, Virginia. That is no longer the case.

Yes, the world will turn. And with every revolution, changes large and small are writ large and small in lives large and small…even in lives fictitious.

Following a nine-week social media sabbatical, I am slowly making my way back to something resembling an online life. Blogging, tweeting, and Facebook-ing all took a back seat to real life, and although I’ve had pangs of guilt about my absence (Would my readers think I’d abandoned them? Would they rush into the arms of another midlife second wife and abandon me?) it was necessary to stay away. I haven’t had a vacation in years, and this hiatus in the real world felt like a vacation, albeit one with considerably more packing involved.

It’s easy to forget just how much work goes into in a cross-country move…how many details, large and small, demand one’s attention. The sheer physicality of moving is exhausting. Just as exhausting are the weeks preceding the move, when your life is in flux and you don’t even know where you’ll land.

In a recent New York Times interview, David Rock, director of the Neuroleadership Institute, talked about the notion of certainty in relation to the brain. Using the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy as an example, he said:

The feeling of uncertainty feels like pain, when you can’t predict when the lights will come back on and you’re holding multiple possible futures in your head. That turns out to be cognitively exhausting.

I cannot begin to compare my own comfortable situation to those displaced by natural, political, or financial disasters. I do think, however, that anyone who has ever moved, for whatever reason, can agree that the months preceding a relocation—with unsettling uncertainties about where one will live, where one will create a life and a home—certainly feels like pain. Certainly it’s every bit as cognitively exhausting as it is physically draining.

House-hunting is fun for about the first week; after that, it’s fraught with existential angst. Where will our new pizza joint be? What neighbors will we have, and what will they be like? What sort of days will fill our daily lives? Where will we dream our nightly dreams?

In The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard writes that “an entire past comes to dwell in a new house,” which is to say that “wherever you go, there you are.”

As I write this, my husband and I have been in our new home for 36 days. We have brought our past lives with us along with our books, dishes, and furniture. We are unpacking and storing, organizing and setting up, making room for all of these things in our new space in Northeast Ohio. The rooms that were bare and strange upon our arrival are starting to take on the look of us, the look of the familiar, as if we’ve lived here longer than 36 days.

And all the while the world is turning, and changes large and small are happening all around us.

Thank you for waiting for me. It’s good to be back.

Moving to Encourage Good Fortune

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Transitions

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

You’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve fallen off the map. I haven’t been blogging much lately because my life is about to change in a whopping big way. After two-and-a-half years in the fascinating city of Richmond, Virginia, my husband and I are preparing for our return to Northeast Ohio. Or, as I like to call it, the Land Where I Met the Love of my Life.

You’d be right in thinking: “My goodness! Didn’t she just uproot herself to move from Ohio to Virginia? I remember reading all about it on her blog.”

Well yes. Welcome to life in the 21st-century, where job changes occur with greater frequency than they did in our parents’ generation. My husband’s new job—a really terrific one—is the magnet pulling us back, and it’s a good move for many reasons, although we’ll discuss the frigid climate another time. My son is getting married this fall, John’s oldest son is receiving his doctoral degree in May, and we will be much closer to his younger boy. Our boys, I should say. Our sons. None of this “his” or “mine.” John and I believe that our blended family feels very much like an “ours,” although, sometimes, old speech habits are slow to catch up with the heart.

As for myself and this move? Well, I can write and blog anywhere—from the top of Mount Rainier, if I have to—as long as there’s Internet access and I don’t have to climb to get there.

But for now, I’m here, chipping away at the slow deconstruction of my tiny office in our Richmond townhouse. I’ve just removed the artifacts and “familiars” that adorn my bulletin board, and at present I have on my desk a great treasure. It is a poem, yellowed with age and riddled with pinholes. I will carefully tuck it away in a file for the move to Ohio, where it will resume its rightful place—I want to say like a talisman, but that’s not quite right and you’ll see why in a moment—in my new office. I also want to say I hope it will bring me luck, but again—habits of speech tend not to catch up with the heart. The poem is about anti-luck, or, as the late American poet William Stafford called it,

The Little Ways that Encourage Good Fortune

Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life,
you will simply be overwhelmed.
You may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life, and you
do not know why, you are just lucky,
And you will not move in the little ways that
encourage good fortune.
The saddest of all are those who are not right
in their own lives who are acting to make
things right for others.
They act only from the self, and that
self will never be right;
No luck, no help, no wisdom.

—William Stafford
(1914-1993)
©  1960, 1998 The Estate of William Stafford
Used with Permission of the Executor, Kim Stafford

When I emailed the poet’s son, Kim Stafford, asking for permission to reproduce this gem of a poem, I wrote that this is likely to be one of the poems I’d like read at my funeral. His reply?

“Perhaps the poem is more useful in the midst of life, when one can act so as to encourage the little ways …?”

And of course it is, which is why I’m sharing it with you here, thanks to Kim Stafford’s good offices, and why I’ve always kept it close to my heart, where old speech habits—even reflexively wishing someone good luck—sometimes lag behind.

Kim also shared something his father once said: “I must be willingly fallible to deserve a place in the realm where miracles happen.”

So I won’t wish good luck for myself, or for my husband or our boys. I shall will myself—and them—to be fallible in order to reside in the realm where miracles happen.

I wish that for you, too.

Note: Kim Stafford is an associate professor at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling in Portland, Oregon, where he directs the Northwest Writing Institute. He tells me that he and his colleagues are at work planning “The William Stafford Centennial, 2014: 100 Years of Poetry and Peace.”

Don’t Look: She’s Not Who You Think She Is

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in The Well-Dressed Life, The Writing Life, Transitions

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

, ,

FashionMistakeMidlife2ndWife

In the early 1970s, when I was in high school, a boy in my class had an older sister who worked for Glamour magazine. She edited its wickedly fascinating “Dos and Don’ts” column, with its pictures of ordinary young women going about their lives in various stages of street-scene activity. Unbeknownst to them, they were about to become anonymously immortalized as representing either sartorial savvy or a cautionary tale. If a face happened to be included in a photograph, black bars strategically placed across the eyes shielded one’s identity, sparing any number of poor girls the humiliation of being caught in broad daylight wearing ankle-strapped platform shoes with palazzo pants that were, sadly, too short. And with a panty-line to boot.

Believe me, having that kind of second-degree proximity to a fashion arbiter did make me think twice before getting dressed for school in the morning.

There’s little evidence in my own photographic archives to suggest that I had a terrible sense of style, or was prone to making serial fashion mistakes. In fact, I like to think that I was something of a snappy dresser, despite coming of age in the 1970s. Yes, I once purchased a belted polyester pantsuit, and I wore it with ankle-strap platform shoes. No, no pictures of the atrocity exist.

I did, however, come across this photo. What’s so wrong with it? you might ask. Well, quite a lot, actually.

The real fashion mistake here, aside from the tight curls that looked as though Harpo Marx dipped his head into a bowl of India ink, is the fact that this woman is not dressing for who she was.

Can’t blame her, really; she didn’t even know who she was.

The bridge in the backdrop of this studio portrait is fake. Even the pearls. And yes, the dress was polyester.

It was 1983, and she had dressed to play a role—the role of a certain kind of wife, a certain kind of woman. She was just starting to become who she was going to be…who she was meant to be. But she wasn’t there yet.

The word “corporate” comes to mind. This is a corporate look, whereas the woman fastened into it has a creative temperament. There was a poet and writer inside, struggling to get out, but it would be a year or so before the chrysalis would crack.

It was a film that would do it. She had recently seen Educating Rita, in which a character (played by Julie Walters) undergoes a metamorphosis through the study of literature, helped along with the tutorial guidance of Michael Caine’s character. Rita’s costume changes chart her evolution from tarty hairdresser—a streak of pink in her blond hair to match the color of her smock—to bohemian college student, dressed in studied earth tones, her hair allowed its natural brown. At the end of the film, Rita’s transformation is complete. Frank, her professor, presents her with a graduation gift: a dress. He bought it, he says, with “an educated woman” in mind.

“What kind of education were you giving her?” Rita jokingly asks.

I suppose the point of all this is that nothing represents our true selves better than our clothes. They are fashion markers charting the evolution of our growth and (at the risk of getting all New-Age-y), our self-actualization. In truth, the woman you see pictured here wasn’t representing herself falsely after all. Like Rita, her dress just hadn’t caught up yet with her education.

On Waking to a New Year Without Revelry

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Special Events, Transitions

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Calendarcropped2

MorgueFile image

Last night at midnight a New Year dawned,
But what did I do? I stretched and yawned.
For I was asleep, warmly snug in my bed
While visions of calendars danced in my head.

It was not a good year, two thousand and twelve,
And I’m glad to leave it behind on the shelf
With all of its storms and horror and grief
That threatened to shake my firmest beliefs.

I awoke to the news—not done in a jiff—
That our Senate averted the dread fiscal cliff.
All that remains is to rally the House.
Will they do the right thing? Or grumble and grouse?

I’m so weary of fussing and fighting, my friends.
Can’t we all get along? Can’t we all make amends?
Let this be the year we do the right thing
For our future, our children, and all living things.

Dory’s New Year Strata

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Food for Thought

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Strata_MidlifeSecondWifeIMG_1956One of my favorite holiday recipes has absolutely nothing to do with dinner or dessert. I’ve had this strata recipe for years, and it comes from the kitchen of Anne Morse. My former husband and I enjoyed many gourmet dinners with Anne and her husband Andy as part of a couples’ gourmet club in the 1980s and 1990s. They hosted fabulous New Year’s Eve parties, too. The lucky ones who got to spend the night were treated to this the next morning. I don’t recall it being a cure for a hangover, but it certainly helps get one’s new year off to a good start. My tradition since marrying John is to serve this beautiful strata on Christmas morning, accompanied by crisp bacon, perhaps some fresh fruit, and steaming mugs of tea (for John) and coffee (for me). It’s a great stick-to-your-ribs breakfast on a cold morning. I use sharp cheddar rather than mild, herbs and seasonings from Penzeys, and for this particular occasion I bought good semolina bread from Whole Foods. Any white bread will do—I’ve even used baguettes—just so long as the bread is dense and has had a chance to get slightly stale. If it’s too soft you can slice it and leave it sit on the counter for a few hours.

The recipe serves as many as six, but if you’re feeding a crowd you can easily double it (using two soufflé dishes, of course). Just pay careful attention to the note about doubling that follows. And take special note of the timings. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Dory’s New Year Strata

1 pound cheddar cheese, grated
1-1/2 Tablespoons dry minced onion
1 Tablespoon dry chopped parsley
4 eggs
Approximately 9 slices firm white bread
Salt and white pepper
3 cups milk*
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dry mustard

Grease a medium large casserole with high sides—I use a soufflé dish. Line the bottom with bread. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, followed by 1/3 of the onion, 1/3 of the parsley, and 1/3 of the grated cheese. Repeat this process two times. Beat eggs lightly, then add milk, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard. Pour the egg-milk mixture over the contents of the casserole.** Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in the refrigerator for 8 hours. In the morning, remove from the refrigerator and let rest on the counter at room temperature for 2 hours. Bake uncovered for 50 minutes at 375-degrees.

*If doubling the recipe to serve 12 instead of 6, use only five cups of milk.

**I find two tricks help avoid a mess when adding the milk mixture to the strata. First, poke a few holes in the top of the strata so the milk can more easily seep down into the bottom of the dish. Second, place the dish on a baking sheet to catch any overflow. Wipe away any drips and place the entire apparatus—soufflé dish on top of the baking sheet—in the oven.

Greetings, GenFab Friends!

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Humor Me, Indulgences, Special Events, The Life Poetic

≈ 59 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

MorgueFile photo

MorgueFile photo

In the holiday season, in days of yore,
Scribe Roger Angell his feelings did pour.
On New Yorker’s back pages, right at the end,
Were yuletide wishes he called ‘Greetings, friends!’

To bold-faced names and celebs aplenty,
Angell rhymed his tidings in couplets steady.
And so it is in that spirit this year,
I do the same, so all lend an ear!

To the bloggers I read who are known as GenFab
(They’ve the gift of the pen and the gift of the gab),
I fill stockings chock-full of dreamings galore
That start at the ceiling and stream to the floor.

To the founding trio—Greenthal, Jeffreys, and Parris—
I send jewels and baubles befitting an heiress.
To the duo known widely as Grown and Flown—
I give pricey and fragrant eau de cologne.

There are other pairs, like the sisters Irving
So to Karen and Wendy I present two gold rings.
And to Maryl and Caryl of Second Lives Club,
Let’s create a great feast; end it with syllabub!

But what is that noise? That great big BOOM-BOOM?
It’s the BOOMBox Network and they’re working the room!
To Bradshaw and Kovacs and Van Petegem,
I send iPhones with apps for ad stratagems.

And off at HuffPost where bloggers do frolic,
There’s Lois Alter Mark and Darryle Pollack!
And here to the left is Nancy Wurtzel,
With Julie Danis and Donna Highfill!

Oh what shall we give HP writers like these—
So smart and so quick as to be the bees knees?
A home by the sea to vacation in Spain,
And designer umbrellas in case it should rain.

But look over there, on the Next Avenue—
It’s Linda Bernstein! Hello! Bienvenue!
What would be right for this media maven?
We’ll deed her a Caribbean tax-free haven.

And while on the topic of real estate,
A house for N. Hill, with a very grand gate.
Recreational grounds for Ms. Jean Parks.
For PK Fields—all the Ozarks.

We cannot neglect Kay Lynn Akers,
To her we give mansions in Heights known as Shaker.
And lest we forget Robin Meadow Dinsmore
Here are keys to a cottage by the seashore.

To the Wolf called Big Little, a red riding hood.
And to Wolff, Linda Maltz, some Norwegian wood.
For Lisa Carpenter, the tools that she needs,
And for Nina Knox, some gold shiny beads.

There’s no therapy quite like retail,
So a flagship store goes to Beverly Diehl.
And Debi Aronson Pfitzenmaier,
Gets a personal shopper and personal buyer.

Still have shopping to do? Go and see Joy Weese Moll.
She’s getting a high-end luxury mall.
It’s all quite posh and there’s never a crowd
There’s even a spa for Connie McLeod.

For Sarah Chesko and Cathy Chester,
A titan of Wall Street to have as investor.
And Jacqueline Tierney De Muro
Gets an ivory inlaid mahogany bureau.

Think life is Better After 50?
Then tell Felice Shapiro that you think she’s nifty.
And please don’t forget Mindy Klapper Trotta—
Bake them a cheesecake made with ricotta.

Save some for their own Ronna Benjamin,
(Or would she like boots made out of snakeskin?)
For Molly Campbell and Lib Aubuchon,
We give each a chair with a plush ottoman.

For Barbara Albright and Jo Heroux,
We’ll throw a big shindig with great barbecue.
To Haralee Weintraub and Janie Emaus,
Ad-free Words With Friends that aren’t blasphemous.

On Jennifer Comet, on Wagner, on Blitzen!
On Amy Noggle, on Ruhlin—on Vixen!
Open your socks by the chimney with care—
They contain fine wine and imported Gruyère.

To cineastes Flournoy and Bradley Colleary,
We give options and meetings with Dennis Leary.
Helene Cohen Bludman gets signed first editions.
Jessica Bern gets successful auditions.

A collection of art for Ann Dunnewold.
For Lori Jo Vest, in case she gets cold,
A hat and a scarf and a coat of faux mink
For Maddie Kertay,
An ice-skating rink.

Who would like chocolate truffles from Belgium?
Lynn Forbes, Susan Williams, Walker Thornton—come get ‘em!
Denise Danches Fisher shall have priceless etchings.
Mary Anne Tuggle Payne gets Paul Klee’s sketchings.

For Midlife Bloggers’ Jane Gassner
A leather portfolio with jeweled fasteners.
For Laura Lee Carter, midlife crisis guru,
An all-expense paid trip to Peru.

To the spiritual Lori Lavender Luz
A new yoga wardrobe. Why? Just because!
And to Cheryl Pallant, the dancer so rare,
A trip back in time to partner Astaire.

Caryn Payzant, Kim Phillips, and Jodi Okun
Get to boogie with Springsteen and sing “Born to Run.”
To Judy Krell Freedman and Pauline Gaines,
Strands of fine diamonds on silvery chains.

To Patricia Patton and Patricia Petro,
Unlimited flights in and out of Heathrow.
She’s far too polite to ask, “Whatcha bring us?”
She was raised right, Bonnie Petrie Dingus.

To her we bequeath a wishing well.
And another just like it to Sara Cornell.
Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez
Gets whatever she wants. Sez who? I sez!

Daphne Palmer Romero, what do you say
To a comedy session with Tina Fey?
Lori Ann Lothian of Elephant Journal
Gets a date with a five-star general or colonel.

To Tammy Gordon and Missy Lawler:
A fully equipped fishing trawler.
Complete with a crew (or at least a sailor)
To teach nautical stuff to Karen Williams Taylor.

To Susan Keats and Cindi Moomettes,
Platinum combs and ruby barrettes.
To Sweeties Teamer Wendy Limauge,
Season Patriots tickets, with seats in the loge.

A language course for Ellen Dolgen
Taught by a bona fide Parisienne.
And last but not least, exotic ports of call
To Karen Espensen Sandoval.

My fear is I might have left someone off,
If your name’s not been spotted, well, tell me off!
It’s hard to keep track of so many bloggers,
There are more of them than Alaskan loggers!

For the writers I know and the ones I’ve not met
There are musical duos and string quartets.
And to readers of mine who have followed me here,
Thank you for indulging my GenFab cheer.

Wordlessness, Action, and the Sandy Hook Tipping Point

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Transitions

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Wordlessness. Def: When you have no words. When something is so shocking, heartbreaking, and horrific that you are compelled to create a new language to describe it. In Act 3 of Hamlet, Shakespeare advises:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

But I have no words to describe what happened last Friday in the bucolic little town of Sandy Hook—certainly no words to fit my feelings to the awful action. No words of comfort to those devastated parents and families. No words to try and process the snuffing out of those 20 bright lights…those beautiful, wondrous children. And so I invent a new word. And because I’m still numb, my emotions still so raw, I am dedicating this space on my blog today to the words of others. I want you to read them. Please. And then find the action to suit the word.

And yet I have managed to find some words, haven’t I? The very act of writing this appeal to you has allowed language to do something, even if that something doesn’t feel like all that much right now.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to note that Adam Lanza’s monstrous act is a tipping point for our country—not just with respect to the conversations we need to have about gun legislation, but also with respect to the honest dialogue we must engage in with respect to mental health care. But conversation and dialogue cannot simply be words strung together into sound bytes and position papers. They must—finally, now, at long last—result in action.

We need to suit the action to the word. But what action? My personal goal: an action that will halt the chaotic orbit our society’s been traveling—a galaxy with constellations named Columbine; Aurora; Tucson; Virginia Tech; Oak Creek, Wisconsin; Fort Hood; and Sandy Hook. And so many more.

Here are the thoughts of some GenFab bloggers. Sharon Greenthal, for example, whom I admire and respect, wrote a useful post filled with resources about what you can do to become part of the change we want to see in the world. I encourage you to read these posts. You might not agree with some of them. I don’t necessarily agree with those who say one societal problem is more poisonous than another; I think that both prongs of the devil’s pitchfork need to be blunted. I do, however, want to present you with the various sides and nuances of this issue.

If you are on Twitter, please follow the hashtag #stopitnow. And please add your voice to the collective.

By Sharon Greenthal
“The Sandy Hook Massacre and Gun Control: What You Can Do to Help”

By Darryle Pollack
“Newtown, Old News”

By Lisa Belkin in the Huffington Post:
“Gun Control is a Parenting Issue”

“After Newtown, There is No Place for Parents to Hide”

“Parents of Violent Children Respond to Liza Long’s Essay”

By Lois Alter Mark
“Guns Do Kill People”

By Randi
“Monday Morning After Connecticut”

By Lisa Weldon
“Gun Control Would Not Have Prevented the Senseless Loss at Sandy Hook Elementary”

By After the Kids Leave
“Thoughts on Yet Another Senseless Tragedy”

“Of Guns and Sleeping Elephants”

By Connie MacLeod
“Ten Small Things I Can Do”

By The Fur Files
“Hope for Humanity Rests with the Individual”

By Daily Plate of Crazy
“On Love, On Silence, On Speaking Our Minds”

By Yvonne Condes
“Parents, It’s Up to Us to Stop Gun Violence”

By SoCal Mom
“After Newtown, Holding Them Close”

By Mindy Klapper Trotta
“Searching for a Child, Searching for an Answer”

By Ronna Benjamin of Better After 50
“Countdown to the End of the World”

By Kathy Thompson Combs
“A Call for Action”

By Jo Heroux
“AND NOW WHAT”

By Janie Emaus
“What They Should Have”

By Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez
“#stopitnow: Bullet Points—or, Me and a Gun, Revisited

By Ambling and Rambling
“Solve for X”

By Lori Lavender Luz
“Do Something”

By Donna Highfill
“Why I Believe We Are Bigger Than Our Weapons”

By Melissa Lawler
“A Broken Heart”

By Felice Shapiro of Better After 50
“Stop the Killing Now! Click Here”

By Helene Bludman
“When Evil Shadows Good”

By Jane Gassner
“Knowing that No Sense Can Be Made of the Newtown Tragedy”

By Barbara Albright
“At the Park”

By Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post
“Newtown Massacre: What We Don’t Need Is a ‘National Conversation’–We Need Action”

Finally, please contact your congressman. Here’s a link with information on how to do so.

Viewpoints Product Review: The Panasonic Flash Xpress Toaster Oven

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Product Reviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

ToasterOven_TheMidlifeSecondWife_Viewpoints

The Panasonic Flash Xpress Toaster Oven, carefully positioned to do no harm.

Here’s how I roll: I use my traditional stove for cooking, my traditional oven for baking, and my microwave for reheating—usually mugs of coffee. When I want toast, I use my toaster. I never understood the point of a toaster oven just as I never understood the point of a rice cooker: both have always struck me as redundant kitchen appliances. (What? You can’t throw some water, rice, and salt in a covered saucepan and read the instructions on the label? Seriously?)

No, it’s just never made sense to me to dedicate valuable kitchen counter real estate for something that, to my mind, has little real utility. Don’t take away my blender or my mixer, and don’t you dare touch my coffee maker, but to a toaster oven I say, “Meh.”

Such is the preconceived bias with which I approached this product review as a member of the Viewpoints Blogger Panel. (You can read my review on the Viewpoints website, along with those of my colleagues on the panel.) I thought there might be a ghost of a chance that I could be convinced, thus becoming a zealous convert to the joys of toaster-oven-cooking. But after using the thing twice, I’m sorry to have to say no. That didn’t happen—the Panasonic Flash Xpress Toaster Oven has not made me see the light. (Although we’ll get to the oven’s light, and its potential hazards, in a moment.)

Let’s begin with first impressions.

The thing looks like a toy. The Kenner Easy-Bake Oven I played with as a child surely had more heft and substance. The toaster oven is ten-and-a-quarter inches high, thirteen inches deep, and twelve inches wide. It weighs a mere seven-and-a-half pounds. This is all fine if you’re short on space and upper body strength, but as I said in my first paragraph …

I must add that I found the oven’s numerous disclaimers slightly alarming, especially this one:

Do not use the toaster oven near wall or cabinet.…Keep the toaster oven away from flammable materials (wooden wall or cabinet) as follows: Rear: more than 10 cm (4 inches) Top: more than 15 cm (6 inches). Side: More than 10 cm (4 inches).

I carefully (and nervously) measured the area around the oven before I determined it was safe to proceed.

Infrared ray heating elements heat the surface and inside of the food efficiently. But the cautionary bullet points in the owner’s manual include this advice: “Do not stare at the near-infrarde [sic] ray heater for a long time. It could cause injury to your eyes.”

I felt like Carol Anne in The Poltergeist, being warned to STAY AWAY FROM THE LIGHT.

After regaining my composure, I began my test. I purchased all-natural frozen whole-wheat waffles, and decided upon a three-tiered experiment. First, I prepared the waffles in the toaster oven according to the package directions on the waffles. Ten minutes? Really? Okay, Van’s. If you say so.

ToastingWaffles_TheMidlifeSecondWife

The waffles are toasting. Don’t look at the light!

Ten minutes were clearly too long. And I cannot blame the toaster oven for this; I followed the package instructions. The waffles looked like hockey pucks and tasted like shredded twigs.

PreparedWaffles_TheMidlifeSecondWife

A couple of mornings later, I prepared the same breakfast, but this time I followed the toaster oven’s directions instead of relying upon the waffle’s cooking instructions. I placed the waffles on the rack, same as before. (I never did use the oven tray; perhaps one of my colleagues on the Viewpoints panel did.) This time, I pressed the button for “waffles,” stood back (not looking at the light), and let the product do its thing. I had waffles in about four minutes. Nothing could have been simpler. And I have to admit, they were nicely browned, with a nice exterior crispness. My eating experience was as pleasant as one could expect, considering I was eating frozen waffles. (I do own a waffle iron, by the way. Guess I’m old-school.)

The results of test number two? I used less energy by cutting the cooking time in more than half, and I ended up with tastier waffles. So what did I do for my third test?

You guessed it!

I popped two frozen waffles in my toaster, set the dial to a medium setting (I referred to the package instructions for toaster cooking), and in two minutes—two minutes, people—I had delicious waffles. Warmth being a matter of personal preference, I put the plate of waffles in the microwave and zapped them for an additional 15 seconds. Perfection. Lightly crisp on the outside, moist and tender on the inside…

The prosecution rests.

I’m in the midst of preparing for our relocation to Ohio, so unfortunately I had to sit out the discussion with my colleagues on the panel. When Viewpoints posts it I’ll add a link so you can see if I’m all alone on this toaster oven limb. I’m donating the toaster oven (with reservations, given my less-than-stellar review) to the Safe Harbor Shelter of Richmond, Virginia, with the proviso that they give it to a deserving family without small children.

I give the Panasonic Flash Xpress Toaster Oven two gold rings.

TMSW is Now a Huffington Post Blogger

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

Have you heard the news? I’m now a blogger for the Huffington Post!

My essay about how I met John on Match.com appeared this week on what is known in the trade as HP’s “vertical”—HuffPost/50. The first day it ran, I received nearly 600 visits to the blog. Yowza!

This has been quite a year, friends: blogging for Katie Couric’s new show, joining the Viewpoints Blogger Review panel (look for my next report tomorrow!), interviewing Sissy Spacek and Sally Field for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, being named one of the top seven blogs for those over 50 by the Huffington Post, and now this relationship with them.

As always, I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t be here it if weren’t for you.

If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could visit the HP site and like the article on Facebook, or tweet it, or leave a comment. In the wonderful world of digital publishing, that sort of activity makes a tremendous difference. Thank you in advance for your extra support!

Taking Time Out to Remember Dave Brubeck

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in The Cultured Life, The Musical Life, Transitions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

marci_brubeck_midlifesecondwife

With Dave Brubeck in October 2003, prior to taping a television interview with Cleveland’s WVIZ on the campus of Oberlin College. Photo courtesy of WVIZ-TV.

The world lost an irreplaceable treasure yesterday. The legendary composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, whose singular brand of musicianship and artistry changed the sound of jazz in the 1950s while ushering in an entirely new way to listen to the music, died the day before his  92nd birthday.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet had a sound like no other. Brubeck had studied classical music with French composer Darius Milhaud, and although he and his quartet were often considered integral contributors to the jazz genre known as West Coast “cool,” Geoffrey C. Ward writes in Jazz: A History of America’s Music (the companion book to Ken Burns’ PBS series), that there was “nothing remotely cool” about Brubeck’s playing:

He was a fiery, uncompromising improviser—dissonant, unsentimental, rhythmically daring. … His style was perfectly complemented by the playing of alto saxophonist Paul Desmond: light, lyrical, floating …like the sound, Desmond himself famously said, of a dry martini.

On a wintry March night in 1953, the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed in Oberlin College’s historic Finney Chapel. This alone was remarkable; Oberlin, home of the renowned Oberlin Conservatory of Music, was a bastion of classical music. Jazz? No one studied jazz at the conservatory in those days. Jazz was something kept under wraps and underground. Until Brubeck. And the aftermath was groundbreaking. Ward writes:

The audience—including the conservatory students—responded with ovation after ovation. The concert was recorded, and the album that resulted—Jazz at Oberlin—helped build enthusiasm for Brubeck. He was signed by Columbia, the nation’s biggest label; made another live album, called Jazz Goes to College; and soon found himself the leader of the most popular jazz group in the country.

Fifty years after that historic concert at Oberlin, I had the opportunity to meet Dave Brubeck. He had returned to campus with his current quartet to perform a concert marking the 50th anniversary of Jazz at Oberlin’s release. Because I was in charge of media relations for the conservatory, it was my task to publicize not only the concert—ensuring that every seat in the 1,200 capacity chapel was filled—but also the fact of the iconic jazz master’s return to the scene of his great achievement.

He was gracious and down-to-earth, with a twinkle in his eye and a sincere interest in Oberlin’s students. He generously signed the liner notes to my copy of Jazz at Oberlin. He walked slowly when he went out on stage, but when his fingers hit the keyboard, he was transformed; he played with the vigor and athleticism of a man half his age.

There are dozens of albums in the Dave Brubeck Quartet discography—1959’s Time Out is arguably the most famous and revered, and justifiably so. But my favorite will always be Jazz at Oberlin.

Click here for more information about jazz at Oberlin today, including a history of the development of the jazz studies curriculum.