Category Archives: The Domestic Front

Women of a Certain Age

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My mother and me, both so much younger!

“Don’t grow old,” my mother unhelpfully advised.

Ever since I was diagnosed with cancer at age 57, there has been nothing I’ve wanted more than to grow old. It’s my aspiration, not something to avoid. I relish celebrating one birthday after another.

I just celebrated another one—my 71st. Although now seen as the younger side of old, reaching this age officially counts as having disregarded my mother’s advice.

Seventy-one is also the age she never lived beyond.

My mother smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and was also at least 150 pounds overweight for most of her life. Even when I was a kid, I remember my parents driving around and around the block to find a parking space right in front of wherever we were going because she couldn’t walk far. In my mother’s later years, she could barely cross the living room without stopping several times to catch her breath, and eventually was tethered to an oxygen machine. The aging process she exemplified struck me as an ever-tightening spiral of constriction, oppressed by living but afraid of dying (and nursing homes).  As my brother put it, “If you wake up every day for 10 years saying that this will be the day you’re going to die, eventually you’ll be right.” When that day finally came, it wasn’t exactly surprising, but it was mercifully quick and gentle—my mother’s heart gave out and she died instantly in her beloved home, her lovely Jamaican caregiver by her side and my brother downstairs.

My trajectory toward old age bears no resemblance to hers. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life, am a normal-ish weight, and walk two or three hours every day. I have had no further cancer scares or really any significant health challenges. Although I feel myself slowing down some and am on the list for cataract surgery, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll die anytime soon. Still, it’s freaky to have reached the milestone of my mother’s final age.

I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately, missing her salty humor, her devotion and love despite her suffering. Longevity is not in my genes—my father died when he was 72, and my brother when he was only 65! Aging quickly and poorly was the model I more or less assumed would be my fate, even though I’ve clearly made different choices to alter the outcome.

And I have succeeded (I hope—my mother made it more than halfway to 72, so I’m not out of the woods yet). Will my aging be a time of expansion or an ever-narrowing constriction as it too soon was for my mother? Luckily, I had some other great models to emulate, such as my in-laws, vital and mostly not caught in a downward spiral until their deaths at almost 97 and almost 90.

Do I have 20 more years left in me? Fifteen? I used to think I’d be lucky to make it to 75, but now I think it’s a reasonable hope that my husband and I will celebrate our golden anniversary when we’re 81. That’s only a decade away.

Dying together at age 85—holding hands in bed as we sleep, of course!—feels like a worthy goal. But 85 is so soon–the closer I get, the more I want to move the goal posts farther away. Will I see my 9-month-old granddaughter graduate from high school and college, or be lucky enough to attend her wedding?  What will it be like to have the years my mother missed out on?

I hope to receive them as the gift that they are, and to make the most of them, for my sake and for hers.

Another Pizza Anniversary

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My husband and I met on a Sierra Singles hike in Marin County 41 years ago today, after which we went with the entire group to Red Boy Pizza in Fairfax. Unlike the Ethiopian restaurant where Jonathan proposed and the Bed and Breakfast where we married, Red Boy is still going strong, just like us. It’s where we celebrate every June 2, always ordering a pepperoni and green pepper pizza and inflicting our history on the bored teenager taking our order.

We are not as fresh and ebullient as we were when we met, with the wear and tear long-term marriages acquire, the sometimes alarming aspects of being 70, and the outside world pressing hard on us all right now. So it was a special gift to listen today to Ezra Klein’s conversation with the writer Kathryn Schulz about how to hold radically different feelings at once.

The podcast springs from Schulz’s memoir, Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness, about the intense grief of losing her father while simultaneously falling in love with her partner. They’ve been together 10 years now, and have two kids–long past the bliss of love’s initial rush, well into the middle. The advanced middle is where Jonathan and I now live, and Shulz really captures the deeper appreciation and commitment that comes from living within those intertwining contradictions of life and love:

Most of what we read and hear and watch of love stories is either the beginning or the ending. . . . When you are happily together with someone, what actually matters to you is the middle. And actually what you want to have go on and on and on is the middle. But nobody writes about the middle. There’s very little about the day-to-day happiness and texture of a happy life, which isn’t just happy. . . . A lot of this book is about the endless overlap and contradiction and friction in different emotions. And a lot of happiness is infused with annoyance or frustration or bad days or whatever it may be, but still somehow, fundamentally feels for us that the deep and essential name you would give to it is happiness. 

Happiness is a state of profound appreciation for what you have in that exact moment.

At this exact moment, I have had 41 years with a man who sometimes drives me crazy and whom I deeply love and appreciate. I’m sure he feels the same way. And tonight we’ll both savor those radically different feelings along with our pepperoni and green pepper pizza.

Just Married!

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We were beyond excited last July when Emma got engaged. It’s always great to have a wedding to look forward to, at least when you like the person your child is marrying. Which we do greatly, adoring both our daughters’ choices.

From the get-go, Emma and J wanted more of a party than a wedding. They live 5 minutes from LA’s Griffith Park, so they reserved a picnic area there early on, and didn’t sweat the details too much. Emma, her sister Ally, and I pretty much cleaned out Trader Joe’s flowers, filled some mason jars, made a bouquet and a couple of boutonnieres, and called it a day. I always thought of this wedding as a picnic with vows, which turns out to be an apt description and a whole lot of fun.

But we had to practice for the picnic with vows, so the day before we had a walk-through and a fun rehearsal dinner with delicious food:

The real thing came the next day, June 1. It’s great when the officiant is your childhood friend (whose mother is a minister, so she had more than online-credential cred). The flower girl was the 2-year-old daughter of one of Emma’s best friends from 2nd grade. “She probably doesn’t know how to walk in a straight line,” Emma said, “But who cares?” (Note: The flower girl DID know how to walk in a straight line and loved sprinkling petals from roses randomly stolen from neighborhood bushes. She did NOT live up to the warning Meryl Streep issues to her daughter as she crams in all the advice she can think of before she dies of cancer in the movie One True Thing: “Don’t have a flower girl–they always ruin weddings.”)

Down the aisle we go!

With hugs before the hand-off:

Then the exchange of truly impressive vows (both bride and groom are from families of writers) and rings:

And the deed is done!

In case you’re wondering about the bridal footwear, Emma is an artist, which means she can get away with any dubious aesthetic choice she wants under the rubric of artistic flair. Emma had warned me beforehand: “You won’t like my shoes.” She got blisters (no comment from the mother of the bride):

Luckily, it was a footloose and fancy-free kind of wedding:

Toasting the happy couple:

A taco truck and appetizer trays and salads from Whole Foods provided sustenance. I volunteered to do all the desserts, which worked out pretty well, especially since my husband Jonathan hand-dipped and hand-sprinkled every single one of about 9 dozen chocolate-dipped pistachio shortbread cookies (the bottom two photos–Key Lime Blondies and Bittersweet Brownie Shortbread–are lifted from online photos; mine didn’t look nearly as professional, though they tasted great):

And, of course, there was cake:

Our baby girl, a bride!

Best of all, we are now grandparents. Not just to J’s pre-existing kids, but to 7-week-old kittens:

From Whales to Redwoods

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One of my best moves as a mother was to keep a journal through my kids’ childhoods, writing at least every month birthday and on special occasions, like when they said really funny or endearing things.

My husband and I recently discovered one such gem while reading through Emma’s journal, in preparation for our toasts at her upcoming wedding.

When Emma was seven years old, she declared, “In my second life, I would choose to be a whale, because they stay with their mothers their whole life.” This charming sentiment saw some revisions as Emma grew older. And a good thing, too, since it means she has instead wisely chosen someone else to spend the rest of her life with.

J proposed to Emma under the redwoods not far from her childhood home because, he said, redwoods grow strong and tall as they reach for the sky, live a long time, and are deeply interconnected with each other and their entire community.

Emma said yes, because how could anyone refuse such skill with metaphors? Not to mention J’s countless sterling qualities that complement her own.

Their deep love and comfort with one another is palpable. We have never seen Emma so happy, and are glad she traded in whales for redwoods, and me for J.

May they always reach for the sky, growing ever stronger together with deep love, interconnection, and happiness. 

Pinnacles

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Of all the places we love to go, The Pinnacles is one of our favorite non-local destinations. We first went 35 years ago, and just returned from our latest visit last weekend. Here’s a golden-oldie about that first trip (with new pictures, which is why that gent’s hair is gray)—magical then, magical now.

It’s a steep haul up the High Peaks Trail, especially when you’re seven months pregnant with your first child. But back then, giddy with promise, my husband Jonathan and I floated past the massive boulders of Pinnacles National Park. Cresting the summit, baby bulk and all, I relished the double take of the buff, shirtless teenagers loitering atop the rocks. They paused mid-swagger to glance in horror at my swollen belly as I conquered the mountain in my smocked maternity top.

Our family has returned to the Pinnacles again and again, drawn by the massive cliffs, soaring spires, and lush spring wildflowers. Leaving behind the fragmented kaleidoscope of daily life, we are calmed by the reliable sameness of the timeless, indifferent peaks.

Yet even in this constant landscape, change is under way. The fantastic rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano ravaged by erosion, creeping steadily up the Salinas Valley along the San Andreas Fault. I am grateful that only subtle clues dispel the illusion of permanence. A precariously balanced boulder has fallen from its perch. Spatters of chartreuse and rust lichen toil as alchemists, turning rock to soil. Their magic allows monkey flowers the color of apricots to bloom from dirt pockets hidden in solid stone.

Time has worked its alchemist’s magic on us as well. Two years after our initial trip, we camp at the Pinnacles, weighed down by the accoutrements of toddlerhood — diapers, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, a travel crib. Emma, whose in utero view had been obscured, now enjoys the scenery from the baby backpack that digs into our shoulders as we trudge along the dusty trail.

When we return again, the campground has been paved over for more parking. This time, we have two young daughters in tow, barely out of diapers. But Emma and Ally are definitely into sit-down strikes at the prospect of hiking more than a few hundred yards. Not wishing to fight an uphill battle, we content ourselves with the flat path at the base of the mountains so the girls can splash in the creek. Jonathan, impatient with the meandering pace of childhood, sprints to the summit while the girls and I delight in wild bouquets and rocky forts along the valley floor.

The next time the Pinnacles beckon, Emma and Ally gamely traverse the High Peaks Trail. They are enchanted by poppies sprouting out of boulders, the rock that looks like a camel. The girls nibble on miner’s lettuce and strategic bribes of chocolate, scampering around the summit while their tired parents lag behind. Rocks and children tame each other: whininess turns to exultation, forbidding stone becomes an infinite playground.

Although the incline invites vertigo, the girls clamber up and down, up and down the footholds chiseled into the rock, swinging from the metal banister as if nature and the Park Service had fashioned monkey bars just for them. Jonathan and I must squeeze through the narrow cliff passage in an awkward crouch. But it is just the right size for Emma and Ally, who march through boldly upright, giggling as their crooked parents bump their heads against the rocky overhang.

We are not the only ones who find the Pinnacles a good place for families. Condors, recently reintroduced to the park, build nests in the sheltered crevices. While they teach their young how to catch thermals, we show ours how to catch the shine of buttercups on their chins in the warm sunlight.

Now our daughters have taken flight too, soaring and wavering in their own grown-up landscapes. Alone again, Jonathan and I make our pilgrimage to drink in the riotous wildflowers and steadfast rocks whenever time allows. As always, we stop in Soledad at Pacheco’s Mexican Grocery for tortas — soft white rolls dripping with spicy carnitas.

Soledad, gateway to the Pinnacles, has sprung up even faster than Emma and Ally. Twenty-seven years ago, it consisted of Pacheco’s, a prison, a few dusty streets of dilapidated houses, and a fleabag hotel with a cracked, empty swimming pool. Now the highway billboard reads: “It’s happening in Soledad.”  Vineyards dot the hillsides, and a tony resort lies adjacent to the Pinnacles. Kids from tidy homes with manicured yards swarm the soccer field at the spanking new school. A vast shopping center dwarfs the original Main Street, but we still head to our old Mexican grocery. Pacheco’s, whose tortas remain a juicy, scrumptious bargain, is as timeless as the Pinnacles.

Fueled by the succulent tortas and memories, Jonathan and I start up the High Peaks Trail once more. Although stiffer and a little creaky, we ascend quickly past the boulders and apricot blooms of monkey flower.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves in the shelter of the enduring cliffs.

Christmas Passed

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I love decorating for Christmas, filling the house with greens, red berries, white flowers, and candles. I love hauling out our vast collection of ornaments, decorating the tree (though not stringing the lights), setting up the wooden trains we bought when the girls were little.

I also love dismantling Christmas after the New Year. This time, though, packing away the ornaments came with a dose of poignancy. I separated out all of Emma’s, fully expecting that they will no longer grace our tree, but hers and her partner’s in Christmases to come. After all, that has been the goal of our annual ornament ritual ever since our daughters were born. Just like our children, they are not ours to keep, but to send off into the world created and inhabited by our grown-up kids. (As long as said kids are capable of setting up more than a knee-high tree for their own Christmas traditions).

We’ve done without Ally’s ornaments since 2019, when she and her now-husband began hosting their own tree-trimming parties with a six-footer. Emma and her partner moved in together earlier this year, so I offered to gather her ornaments for the Big Transfer when we saw them at Thanksgiving. I confess to an inner sigh of relief when she declined, since they were going to spend the holidays away from home. But home is where the heart is, and their new home is full of heart. Even in this year of going elsewhere, Emma’s partner set up a miniature Christmas village and tiny tree. After all, he’s father to an 11-year-old and long accustomed to the habits of adulthood. I see a six-footer in their Christmas Future together.

So Emma’s ornaments are now in their own shoe box. As I went through our lists of how each of our ornaments came into the household, I was glad to see that some of the more hideous ones were from Emma’s era of gaudy poor taste (i.e., not mine)—gold-painted reindeer, a plastic peace sign, a plastic speed boat. I will miss, naturally, those selected by my superior taste, before she was too young to have a vote, especially this one, which we got for her first Christmas:

I will miss that little one in a cradle, just as I miss my little girls in their cribs and their belief in Santa and infallible parents. But I am thrilled to see them blossom into their own selves, and to pass on the bounty of Christmases past. I have the comfort of my memories, and knowing that these ornaments will forever be where they belong.

Plus, still with us is the ornament I will never relinquish—this inch-long striped stocking for the in-utero and mysterious Tadpole, more than a gleam in our eyes, but not yet known as the wonderful person to come who brought us into the magical world of parenthood:

Boss

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At the risk of revealing myself to be the troglodyte that I am, I’m only vaguely aware of Bruce Springsteen. Sure, I once bought one of his CDs a lifetime ago. I also once dated a man who was childhood friends with Springsteen; they and their friends roamed the boardwalk and bars together in Asbury Park. “We knew he was good, but we didn’t know he was that good,” he told me.

In this lifetime, I’m aware that Springsteen and President Obama started a podcast together. I’ve listened to my CD a handful of times, the podcast never. My careful titration of news via scrolling New York Times headlines informs me that Springsteen had a one-man show on Broadway until the pandemic shut it and everything else down last March, and that it has just reopened.

Which is why Terry Gross’s 2016 interview with Springsteen about his memoir, on which the Broadway show is based, just popped up on my Fresh Air queue again. So I gave it a listen.

The Boss was quite charming. He recounted with wry amusement that his father, taking advantage of Bruce’s helpless dependency following a serious motorcycle accident, brought in a barber to chop off his long hair, a source of constant Vietnam-era contention. At the time this act of butchery enraged him. But the decades bring perspective, which brings memoirs, which, if you’re famous enough, bring Broadway shows.

I also learned from Fresh Air that said show had been made into a 2018 film, Springsteen on Broadway, now streaming on Netflix. So I gave it a watch.

I didn’t much like the man who had so charmed me on Fresh Air. Springsteen’s self-mockery came across as arrogance. Plus he seemed kind of shouty, angry. This was probably due to Netflix’s close-in camera work of a lone performer far away from an audience of thousands. He knew what it took to be loud and brash enough to hold a crowd. Still, Springsteen came across as too well rehearsed to feel authentic. This impression was no doubt further cemented when he talked about being a fraud–hero of the working man who had never spent a day of his life on a factory, nor even worked five days in a row until doing this Broadway show. Still, Springsteen clearly comes by his pain and anger honestly, as story after story tells of his difficult relationship with his hard-drinking, constantly wandering father.

So I’m not that much of a fan, but any real fan would be thrilled to get a two-and-a-half hour concert, the songs augmented by the spoken word. Springsteen has the same inability to carry a tune as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but he shares their gift for poetry.

I gradually warmed to the show, the man. Then midway through, his wife, Patti Scialfa, came on for a couple of duets, and I was electrified. Springsteen softened, transforming from wayward rebel into a mature man who was burnished rather than undone by his pain. Springsteen first met Patti when she was performing in the same bar. He recounted that the first words he heard her sing were, “I know something about love.”

Evidently.

The intensity of their music-making, their chemistry burned through the screen. But it was when Springsteen stood alone and began to talk that I was won over:

“Trust in a relationship is a fragile thing,” he began. “Because trust requires allowing others to see as much of our real selves as we have the courage to reveal . . . it means allowing others to see behind our many masks, the masks we wear, overcoming the fear. Or rather, learning how to love and how to trust in spite of it. That takes a little courage, and a very strong partner.

This seemed like a great toast for our daughter’s wedding next year! Until Springsteen continued:

“‘Cause in this life you make your choices, you take your stand, and you awaken from that youthful spell of immortality where it feels like the road is gonna go on forever. And you walk alongside your chosen partner with the clock ticking. And you recognize that life is finite, that you’ve got just so much time. And so together you name the things that will give your life in that time its meaning, its purpose, its fullness, its very reality. And this is what you build together. This is what your love consists of. This is your life. And these are things you can hold onto when the storms come, as they will.”

Hmm, maybe a little dark for first-time newlyweds? But it was perfect for people who have been together for a long time, and later on I read what I’d jotted down thanks to the miracle of closed-caption TV to my husband, who agreed.

The part of Springsteen’s performance that really slayed me, though, was about a surprise visit from his father. Right before Springsteen’s first child was about to be born, his father drove 500 miles unannounced (“As was his style,” Springsteen remarked). They were sitting together at 7:30 a.m. over beers (“That was also his style”), and suddenly, “My dad, never a talkative man, blurted out, ‘You’ve been very good to us.’ And I nodded that I had. And then he says, ‘And I wasn’t very good to you.’”

This fleeting, sort-of apology was almost imperceptible. But Springsteen’s perceptions are keen:

We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children’s lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them and we haunt them. Or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chains of our own flawed behaviors. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence. My father, on that day, was petitioning me for a role in an ancestral life after being a ghost for a long, long time. He wanted me to write a new end to our relationship, and he wanted me to be ready for the new beginning that I was about to experience. It was the greatest moment in my life with my dad. And it was all that I needed.

I knew Springsteen was good. But I didn’t know he was that good. He is an ancestor for us all.

Bye, Bye, Birdie

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“I hope this doesn’t cause you to want a divorce,” my husband, Jonathan, began a recent conversation.

I braced myself. Was he about to confess an affair? Insist we relocate to New York City? Register as a Republican?

Jonathan continued: “I signed up for a birding hike with the Sonoma Land Trust.”

No wonder he was worried. Early on in our relationship, we vowed never to become birdwatchers, a pact that was threatened several years ago when we accompanied our good friends on an outing to see the sand hill cranes. You can get the full report of that marriage-jeopardizing venture here. You can also get a better way to see the cranes–from the comfort of your own home–here, courtesy of Google Images and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

Relieved that Jonathan’s announcement wasn’t all that dire in the scheme of things, I threw caution to the wind: “Why don’t you sign me up too?” At least this trip was only 20 minutes away, and we had our own escape vehicle, since we’d be meeting the group at the levee. Plus, they were strangers–who cared what anyone thought of us? The worst that could happen was that only one of us might have a good time. Or that rain would cancel the outing. Which we were both secretly hoping for anyway.

When the Big Day arrived, the weather forecast indicated a 30 percent chance of rain starting at 10:00 a.m. The outing began at 9:00 a.m., and we figured we could leave if the rain materialized. So we went, the sun burning through a heavy layer of fog to blue sky.

About 30 people were gathered. About 28 of them actually seemed to be birding enthusiasts, if the field guides stashed in pockets, high-tech binoculars, and tendency to stand about exclaiming at tiny specks were any indication. I was bored already, but at least the wetlands and green hills were pretty enough to keep my loutish tendencies in check. Plus, I felt reassured when Jonathan said to me in a low voice, “I thought it would be covered with birds.”

Our interest picked up when the Sonoma Land Trust guide recounted the history of the restoration projection. Everything around us, including the highway we’d come in on and the ground we stood upon, was once below sea level. Then, we learned, during the mid-19th century, a “Drain the Swamp” movement quite unlike Donald Trump’s version led to a frenzy of levee-building to create rich farmland. As the tidal bay waters receded, the land sank six feet. Now that people have come to appreciate the vital role wetlands play in protecting ecosystems and mitigating sea-level rise, a few years ago reclamation began with a breech in the 5-mile-long levee built by the Swampland homesteaders. The tidal waters and their natural silting process have returned, along with a rich feeding stopover for birds.

Some of said birds we could even see, either as specks with the naked eye or dots through binoculars and scopes. The guide remarked that our presence would ensure that the birds kept their distance, which seemed to defeat the whole purpose until I remembered that the real purpose was to see how resilient our marriage was.

After about 10 minutes of standing still, the guides picked up the scopes and we all walked about 50 feet to the next spot for standing still. The wind picked up, the clouds rolled in. Without the requisite birding passion, Jonathan and I were freezing.

“Ready to walk?” I suggested in a low voice.

Jonathan checked in with the guide to see if we’d scare off the already scarce birds if we went on ahead. He assured us it would be fine.

“If I had to choose between nature-hike-Hell,” I said to Jonathan, “I’d choose wildflowers over birds. At least you can see them.”

“Yeah, and they don’t get up and leave as you approach,” he agreed.

We walked briskly to the end of the levee and back, admiring the view, seeing more birds than we’d seen as part of the group, not caring what they were called. Two women also left the group, so we weren’t the only apostates.

At 10:00 a.m. on the dot, it began to rain. We returned to our car, damp in body but not in spirits. Once again, our marriage had survived the call of the wild.

Buche de Noel, Revisited

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Even though I now own a still-unused candy thermometer, I’ve been content to forever swear off my Christmas fantasy of making Buche de Noel. But when I went to my weekly consulting gig at a mental health agency on December 20, they had an incredible dense chocolate version from Sweet Adeline, the kind of bakery cafe I would want to open if I still harbored fantasies about opening a bakery cafe.

This Buche was a rich swirl of buttercream and chocolate smothered in chocolate ganache. By the time I got there, the staff had pretty much eaten away it’s log-like appearance, which is probably just as well, since its pristine form might have intimidated me.

“How hard could this be?” I asked myself, noting that it was not a delicate spongecake (which doesn’t taste very good anyway). It also had no ridiculous handmade brittle like the recipe that defeated me years before. And since just three weeks before I had made for a friend’s 70th birthday the super easy and delicious Chocolate Amazon Cake with Mocha Buttercream Frosting from the Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook, I thought, “Why not pour the same batter into a jelly roll pan, then smear it with buttercream, roll it up, pour chocolate glaze on it, and see what happens?”

What happened is pictured above. If I were auditioning for Cook’s Illustrated, I could tell you the science and recount in obsessive detail the five attempts I made to get everything perfect. But I only made one attempt, because it was the holiday season after all, and I had menus to plan and presents to wrap. Besides, I only subscribed to the magazine so I could cut out the pretty cover art and frame it for my daughter’s new kitchen (she didn’t like it, but luckily the subscription was only $5.00 for the year).

“If the Buche is a major fail,” I told my family, “I’ll just cut up the frosted cake chunks and layer it with whipped cream and hot fudge sauce and call it a day.”

Once trimmed horizontally with a serrated knife (it was a little too thick; I should have made cupcakes with some of the batter) and frosted with the mocha buttercream, the cake rolled up quite nicely, thanks to a nifty parchment paper cradle that kept everything properly aligned and tight. My daughter, a devotee of The Great British Baking Show, was impressed that I knew about parchment paper despite having lived my entire life without once watching TGBBS.

Another thing–it is perfectly fine to decorate one’s Buche de Noel with real mushrooms (and pine cones and mossy twigs and holly, as long as one does not ingest these latter items). Pomegranate seeds or cranberries with mint leaves make a nice garnish that won’t actually poison anyone. Plus, my daughter sauteed the mushrooms for her breakfast the next day, which you couldn’t do with the meringue kind.

I don’t yet know if this dessert will become a Christmas tradition, or if I will go back to my longer-standing tradition of dreaming without doing. One thing is certain, however: I will NEVER make good on my fantasy of opening a bakery-cafe!! Although couldn’t you just imagine this picture on Yelp?

Once in a Super Blue Blood Moon

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Since my husband and I failed to transform our lives with the life-transforming solar eclipse last August, we vowed to do better the next time big events involving celestial bodies occurred. At least if it wasn’t too much hassle.

This morning, we West Coast denizens were promised front-row seats to the trifecta of a blue moon/super blood moon/total lunar eclipse practically on our doorstep. So we set our alarm for 5:00 a.m., not much of a sacrifice for a middle-aged couple up several times a night to pee anyway.

Our weather app had predicted clouds from 4:00 in the morning on, so I was hopeful that we could glance out the window and go back to bed. I was already on a winning streak, having convinced my husband that no, we did not have to drive to a faraway high point and hike up a trail in the dark for a good view. Really, standing in front of our house and looking west should suffice. As a compromise, I had agreed to drive three minutes to a reasonably good vantage point if the eucalyptus trees on our hillside blocked the view. Assuming there was a view, if our weather app was wrong. Which it usually is.

When the alarm went off at 5:00, I awoke from a dream in which I was getting a commendation of some sort. I volunteered to put on my robe to see if the cloud cover had materialized. My dream became reality as my husband murmured from under the warm covers, “Thank you, you’re my hero.”

I could see through the living room window that the night sky was crystal clear, so as promised I made the extra effort to go down to the street in front of our house. Sure enough, there was the moon. Pretty spectacular, as the photo at the top suggests. Except that’s the street lamp at the end of our cul-de-sac.

This is what the super moon/blue moon/total lunar eclipse actually looked like at its awe-inspiring peak:

In order to get out of the street lamp’s glare, we hopped in the car and whizzed up the hill three minutes to a better vantage point. There we had an unobstructed view of a small orange-ish orb covered by a brownish smudge (see above). It looked nothing like the on-line photos that had lured us into becoming celestial gawkers at such an ungodly hour. Those showed the moon looking like a gigantic red clown’s nose blotting out the sky. Damned cheaters using filters and special lenses instead of an old iPhone or the naked eye!

It was too late to crawl back into bed, so we got on with our day. Life transformation would have to wait. Possibly until later tonight, when we resume binge-watching Season 3 of “Outlander,” where not only lives but centuries are routinely transformed. Claire and Jamie: Talk about celestial bodies.