Sunshine made it through the clot surgery very well. The doctor was able to get the clot with little danger to her losing her leg. “She isn’t out of the woods,” her doctor had warned us, but we were in a celebratory mood. “She’s a tough old bird!” my aunt exclaimed. It would be some time before anyone could see Sunshine while she was in recovery. The crew of us that had been there all day decided to go for dinner.

We drove around the hospital and settled on Chinese. My grandfather and uncle each ordered a lite beer, and I joined them. We all said a toast: “To Sunshine!” We laughed and loved and helped each other ease our pain and worry. The food tasted like food would taste if you’ve only eaten canned foods for a month: every dish was better than the next. I was so emotionally exhausted my beer made me light-headed. My grandfather and I split a second beer, drinking them in tall, skinny glasses.

We returned to the hospital and visited my grandmother. I went in with my parents. My father, being the deacon, prayed over Sunshine. I assumed he was giving her her last rites. She was conscious and seemed relieved to have the prayers said for her.

We went home a bit more reserved than we had been during dinner. At dinner, we were celebrating that Sunshine had made it through the surgery. But that euphoria had worn off and we were now concerned about the true success of the surgery. The next morning, things were calm and I went into the office and visited Sunshine that evening. It was a long day, and one in which Sunshine’s stats changed very little. Her leg no longer looked like a dead limb, and that was reassuring.

My sister recognized one of the ICU nurses as a friend with whom she went to grammar school. She told my sister not to hesitate to call throughout the evening for any update. My sister did call, and things weren’t changing. This was slowly becoming alarming. My grandmother should have been getting more stable, but she wasn’t.

Over the weeks of Sunshine’s hospitalization, I found it hard to concentrate on any work I’d brought with me to the hospital. My mind wasn’t clear enough to focus on anything but Sunshine and the family. But my hands weren’t preoccupied and they exposed, as well as added to, my nervousness. To help settle my nerves and give my hands something to do, I knit my loopy scarf. Knit four, purl four, knit four, purl four.

After about a week on the rehab floor, my grandmother’s kidneys began functioning on their own and she had progressed well enough to be moved to the Skilled Nursing Facility Unit—floor six. We were elated, and I teased her that before she was done, we’d see all the floors of the hospital. The tubes and other attachments were all removed from her, and once she was able to walk steadily on her own, they had arranged for her to be discharged. It seemed as though we were over the worst of it.

A few days later, my aunt had called to say that Sunshine had developed a blood clot in her left leg, and that it was being monitored. When I got to her bed, I was not prepared for what her leg looked like: a dead limb. Fear and anxiety washed its cold bath over me again. The family bantered and bustled and did not discuss the grave danger of the situation in front of her. The doctor put her on blood thinner and informed us that if the clot did not dissipate by morning, she would need a second surgery. We had to be prepared for the potential of the clot moving to her heart during the night and killing her or for the necessity of the amputation of her leg.

As CS drove me home that night, all my worries and realities of Sunshine’s loss, her very real impending death, overtook me and I broke down. I sobbed uncontrollably, gasping for air. This wasn’t going to end in her returning home like the times in the past. What we all knew as “normal” was going to change. And I couldn’t bear the thought of her losing her leg; I preferred her to die. Her mind was really weak now and the lose of her leg would just burden my grandfather further. He simply would not consider putting Sunshine in a nursing home; he’d get round-the-clock nurses before that. The idea of losing her piece by piece was nauseating. Once home, my eyes were welted and my head was pounding.

The first time I purled, it was for a scarf: knit four, purl four.  The yarn was chenille; it loved being in my hands.  It was hand-dyed, lilacs and blues and pinks. My purls were coming along slowly, and as a result, the scarf was very loose and loopy. It was to be a long scarf and it was taking some time to complete.

The thing about knitting is that every finished piece has a story. That loopy scarf tells the story of my grandmother’s death.

* * *

My phone rang one evening as I was walking out of my office. My aunt was calling to tell me my grandmother had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. My mind felt as though my body had been dipped in freezing waters. I drove home in my frozen state and told CS the news. He asked, “Do you want to go to the hospital?” “Yes,” I said without thinking although my plan upon entering the house was to wait by the phone. “Let’s go,” he said. I didn’t feel CS would want to come and sit for what could be hours only to have my grandmother pull through again. I wanted to go, but I didn’t feel I needed him to go, too. That is, I didn’t feel I needed CS until he said he was going with me. His wanting to go meant it was real and really bad; I cried in his arms.

After I pulled myself together, we hopped in the car and met my family in the Cardiovascular Unit on the third floor of the hospital. My grandmother was still in surgery, and we waited. We all looked like we had seen a ghost but no one was then crying. After an hour or so, the doctor came out and said Sunshine had made it through the surgery. She was in ICU where she’d be watched until her condition was stable. We visited her in pairs that night and prayed she had dodged another bullet. No one in this family had died since before I was born, and it was something for which we were ill prepared.

But then my eye settled on a third event.  A book reading at New Orleans Main Library.  The book was “Cooling the South: The Block Ice Era, 1875-1975,” by Elli Morris.  See, my family, way back when, was a very major player in the New Orleans block ice business.  A great-great-great uncle made a fortune in the business and sold it just before the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  And his line of the family sailed through the Great Depression flush with cash.  My great-great-grandfather had a small piece of this family business and my great-grandfather worked in the business, too, until it was sold.

So, with my curiosity piqued, we were off.  Getting off the elevator on the Main Library’s third floor brought me back in time to the countless hours I spent there researching my family.  How coincidental that that research had brought me back where I started for a book reading.

Inside the auditorium, there were few people.  Elli Morris talked for about 45 minutes.  Her family owned the Morris Ice Company in Jackson, Mississippi.  She grew up around all the machinery.  Her photographer’s eye drew her to the icehouse over and over.  Their icehouse is no longer working (like so many other block ice plants) but it is still every bit in tact.  She lived there for a year in 2001.  And explored and photographed.

Then she researched and learned that her family played a role in a much bigger piece of southern, even American, history.  And so her little story about her family’s business mushroomed into a much bigger project.  Her book is the result of her hard work.

She talked about the inventor of the first ice machine and ice deliverymen, and the ice trucks that were pulled by mules.  She explained that some trucks did not have a spot in the front for a driver; that the mule knew the route and didn’t need to be steered.  And she talked about the switch to refrigerators and the customers who returned their refrigerators because they were too noisy!

She intimated to the decline of the block ice industry, but “didn’t want to give away” the end of her tale.

Morris then opened the room for Q&A and then signed and sold her books and blank cards of her beautiful photographs.  Her book is wonderful–it is hardcover and filled with lovely photographs along with her thoroughly researched story.  The cover of her book shows a block of ice “feathering” as it freezes from the outside in.

Elli Morris will be in the New Orleans area for about a week and then she is moving on to other parts of the country with her book tour.  This is something that is truly fascinating, and hearing her tell of her story and read from it was just a delight.  Click on her site here and check out her schedule.  You won’t be disappointed.

Earlier, I wrote about knitting and how whatever I experience as I knit goes into the piece and becomes a part of it every bit as much as the yarn. Cue the awwws. Yeah, well, the warm and fuzzies have left the building.

And instead of going on a political rant that will generate comments that are certain to make me seethe, I will only quote the philosopher Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” And I will be pissed if I am repeating a past others failed to learn.

Goodnight and good luck.

Whatever the reason, I was a sewing fool.  I sewed curtains and pillows and eye pillows (I actually sold those) and wine bags for Christmas gifts (including the wine!). Then I sewed a dress and hat for SoMo’s daughter.  Well, hell, that was using a pattern and it looked pretty good!  Then I got addicted to Ebay (don’t judge–you know you’ve been there!).  And I searched all manner of vintage sewing notions.

Confessions of a Misplaced Southern Belle recently turned me on to Giabella Designs.  Giabella’s aprons make me ache.  They are sooo beautiful–go check them out!  They remind me of the best find I had found on Ebay back when the sewing bug bit me, this vintage apron pattern:

But I wasn’t done with Ebay.  I then found some Michael Miller designer fabric, called “Cocktail Time.”  It was the perfect match for the pattern.  And so I made an apron:

Isn’t it adorable?!? And with the extra fabric, I went to my sister who owns a serger and she made me two bar towels and eight cocktail napkins.  I still adore this set.  It’s my favorite thing I ever sewed.

Then I made the little black and white number, but I used some designer Christmas fabric. It’s in the attic, or I’d show you a picture of it too.

Then I got courageous and made this cocktail one again for a newly-married friend with Miller’s fabric entitled, “How to Keep a Husband,” and I adjusted the pockets to mimic the pattern.  She, too, got towels and napkins.

And since they are so darn cute, my sister and mother-in-law put in requests, and we even bought the fabric they wanted, for me to make them one, too.  That was about three years ago.

And now, after not having sewn in a really long time, I have that itch again.  That itch to stitch.

]]> http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/24/an-itch-to-stitch/feed/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/22/cant_go_home/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/22/cant_go_home/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:29:50 +0000 Nola http://www.nolanotes.com/?p=427 I went on a field trip yesterday, really a wild goose chase that bore no fruit.  It led me to the neighborhood I grew up in.  The area was very badly damaged by Katrina.  As I drove toward my old address, I passed the hospital I was born in, the library I used to spend hours in, street names that immediately reminded me of my childhood.  Simultaneously, everything, all I remember, was different.  But the same.  The buildings are, for the most part, still there.  But most are no longer what they were when I moved away over 15 years ago.

So as I was driving not recognizing a thing, I was turning on the streets without having to look at signs.  I know that area like the back of my hand.  I always will.  And it was the oddest emotional mixture being reminded of dance lessons and summer school and swim lessons and the house that kept their glass Christmas tree in their front show window all year ’round while at the same time seeing just the skeleton of those memories.  The neighborhood is still raw, exposed, vulnerable.  It’s like someone took a huge swath of duct tape and stuck it on all the surfaces and then YANKED.  Underneath it all, it is what I remember, the past.  But on the surface, what is the current, real situation is destruction and slowness of recovery.

The Catholic Church that was right down my street, that housed my Catholic grammar school, is in good shape.  They obviously worked to get it re-opened.  It looks different.  Again, the buildings are the same, but there was a new street and new paint that changed the appearance.  It no longer felt like “my” school.

Then I turned on my old street.  And I got butterflies in my stomach.  I remembered so much!  Our friends’ homes; the house of the cranky old man who had a hook instead of a hand (he was a fireman and lost it in a fire and was very bitter about it); the big house with the fountain in the center that we’d go through as it was being built; the house of the architect and his family–he built it off his own design ala Mike Brady; the houses surrounding my old house that house more memories than I could maintain in the moment.

And for each house that had been worked on and had a car in front, four houses were still empty with the tell-tale watermark and spray-painted “X” on the wall.  Some had painted over the “X” but when your house is brick, paint is hard to cover.  The one bright spot was that there was a car in the driveway of my old house.  It wasn’t a vacant, forgotten house.  It had no watermark.  It looked surprisingly like we left it, even down to a sticker we left on a small window in the front.  That sticker!  I have a shrinky-dink of that sticker in some box somewhere.

I do not think a single neighbor from 15 years ago still lives there.  The empty lot across the street had a “new” house on it.  It was vacant all those years we lived there.  It had been flooded, and the For Sale sign had a Mississippi phone number.  Another NOLA ex pat.

I pulled away and drove the block and a half to the location of my first job–a hardware store.  It is still open.  Just after Katrina, when we were still rather numb but functioning, I recall being at the corner of my street heading to drive to Baton Rouge (an hour away) to go to the temporary office my firm had set up.  On the local talk radio was a familiar voice.  My first boss.  He was pleading for help in getting electricity back on at the shop so he could sell, you know, HARDWARE to folks that needed it desperately. I almost cried when I heard his voice.  I had been thinking about him, the store, the old neighborhood, knowing it had been hit hard.  But he is tough and survived and was fighting to get back on line.  It was the first real sign to me that the city WOULD recover.  Because of the business owners like him that just wouldn’t walk away and would make it go even with no help from our government (fed, state or local).

I walked into the store yesterday.  He’d expanded the ol’ place.  One of the doors was boarded.  The front desk has a watermark a foot high.  I sneaked to the back and saw him doing something so typical–bending over a lawnmower with a wrench.  He sharpens chainsaw, lawnmower, and edger blades and fixes their motors, too.  He looked up and said, “Can I hep ya… [then he recognized me] … Girl, get over here and give me a hug!” And we embraced. And caught up on the last five years, focusing mainly on his recent heart surgery and his troubles post-Katrina.

He was like a second father to me back when I worked for him.  Two of my brothers worked for him before me.  And his key employee is the same as it was 15 years ago.  And many of her siblings worked there over the years too.  It is a quintessential family joint.

Damn. Writing this is getting to me.  I titled this post before I started writing it.  And I realize I am wrong.  My home wasn’t that house.  It was the people that housed my life back then.  And many are relocated but still around.  And seeing my old boss, my dear friend, WAS going home, at least a little bit.

First, you need to boil crawfish.  Then pick them.  Then clean the heads.  Cleaning the heads is the worst part of preparing this dish to me.  Not because it is as gross as it sounds (it isn’t much more weird than peeling the tails) but because you have to snip off the noses of the crawfish.  This rips my fingers to shreds.  Here’s what four look like cleaned and ready to be stuffed:

Only 146 more to go.  Yes, the recipe I use (from Marcelle Bienvenu’s “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make A Roux? A Family Album Cookbook” –great title, eh?) calls for 150 stuffed heads.  That’s a lot of heads!  Now, the next step is to stuff said heads.  To do that, you chop bell peppers, celery, onions, garlic, and crawfish tails and mix that together with stale french bread crumbs.  You then mix in more tails you did not chop and saute in oil with lots of salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.

Cooling crawfish head stuffing.

Let the mixture cool.  Then stuff the heads and roll them in a mixture of seasoned and plain breadcrumbs.  They will look like this:

Bake them until golden brown in a 375° oven (about 20 minutes).  At this stage, go crack a beer.  And give yourself a high mark for Effort.  You have come far and done well.  You are clearly at the point of no return and the rest, as they say, is a cakewalk.

Okay.  Now, the recipe calls for sauteing more crawfish tails (the recipe calls for a total of four pounds of crawfish tails) with salt, cayenne pepper and paprika.  The recipe suggests 1 tablespoon of cayenne.  That will blow my mouth apart.  We used 1/2 tablespoon this time, and that seems juuust right.  Then you add warm water and roux to the pot.  Well, damn. If I hadn’t read ahead, I’d have been in a pinch because I make roux and don’t buy it.  So before I get going on this step, I make that roux first so that I can add it without having to take my cooking pot off the stove.

Pontchartrain Pete doing the work of the sous chef.

In yet another pot, saute green peppers, onions and celery until they are tender then add them to the main pot along with more water.  Cook vigorously for 2 minutes.  Add more water and cook for 15 minutes at a lower heat.  Then add green onions and parsley and let cook 10 minutes more.  Use this time to also cook a pot of rice.  Your hard work will be rewarded with a lush pot of this:

Everyone you know, and some you don’t, will invite themselves over for dinner.  Seriously.  It IS that good.

And the best thing is that this is one of those dishes that tastes better the next day after the flavors have had time to meld and relax.  So leftovers are as decadent, if not more so, than the first eating.

Bon appetit!

]]> http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/20/crawfish-bisque-like-your-maw-maw-makes/feed/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/15/libvations/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/15/libvations/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:25:20 +0000 Nola http://www.nolanotes.com/?p=421 Drinking in New Orleans.  I could say no more and just post pictures.  But who are we kidding?

Friday, a small group from the Twitterverse met up for lunch at Galatoire’s.  I adore Galatoire’s, and have said so time and again.  For a succulent read of Friday’s foray, read Pete’s post.  It was a glorious time.  After we finished dining, we were not done imbibing.  So after having two Sazeracs at Galatoire’s, we headed off into the French Quarter for more.

Galatoire’s Sazerac

Being already on Bourbon Street, we did not have to stumble walk far to end up here, the quintessential place to continue the consumption of Absinthe:

Since absinthe is again legal in the U.S., there is a new fascination with the green-glowing liquid.  The first brand we tried was Le Tourment Vert from France.  The Old Absinthe House burns the sugar cube and then pours water over the cube to melt it.  There is debate whether to burn the sugar cube or not; historically the cube was not burned.  But, damn, it is pretty:

We then tried Lucid (also from France):

Then we did Kubler, made in Switzerland.  My preferance? Tournment, Kubler then Lucid.  But they were all smooth and tasty.  Absinthe is anise-flavored.  Licorice.  But with the sugar and water that is added, it isn’t overly bitter.  In fact, as for drinking, it is refreshing, and kind of like a breath mint.

Absinthe posters at The Old Absinthe House

Now, aside from the booze, there is really an allure for me to be in a bar in the middle of the day.  It scares me sometimes how much I like it because left to my own devices, well, let’s not think about where I’d be on a given Wednesday at 2:30 in the afternoon if left to my own devices.

My ancestors on my father’s side of the family came to New Orleans over 100 years ago.  We stepped of the boat and started tending bar in the Central Business District and the French Quarter.  And we did this for decades.  It hasn’t worn of yet, that desire to be in a bar during the day.

And most appealing to me is an old bar, one that may have seen my ancestors.  Like the Old Absinthe House.

All the wood and brass.  The patina of years of traffic.  The legends and myths of meetings of pirates.  Ah, to go back in time in the very seat you are sitting on!  As the time passed, the bar went from mostly empty to quite busy.  Much of the crowd, like us, meandered from Galatoire’s.  Mid-afternoon, the skies growled then opened.  And it rained.  A lot.

And if there is one thing I like more than being in a bar in the French Quarter in the middle of the day, it is being in that bar with its doors thrown open when a good, hard rain comes through.  It quiets all of the outside noises down; no sounds of traffic or Lucky Dog vendors or folks walking down the street.  The entire universe, all, is what is inside that bar with you.  It is a lovely way to span time.

After more absinthes than I care to recount (ok, four), we left the French Quarter and made a stop at the Swizzle Stick Bar for my other recent luxury, the Adelaide Swizzle.  It was now 6:30pm.  I was exhausted.  We parted ways and ended a perfectly wonderful day of imbibing in the Quarter.

]]> http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/15/libvations/feed/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/12/freestyling/ http://www.nolanotes.com/2008/06/12/freestyling/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:57:53 +0000 Nola http://www.nolanotes.com/?p=420 I am going to try something new here–I am going to write what is in my head right this moment. No previous thought has gone into this post; my thoughts have been all over the place. Here goes.

I had an epiphany this week. Ok, epiphany is a bit strong of a word. I had a realization. A confirmation of a suspicion. An acceptance.

In the hospital two weeks ago, my sister offered to drive to Dallas to allow my husband to return to work ASAP. She’d have had to have driven 8 hours each way; we knew I wasn’t going to be able to drive. Turned out I was sprung early enough that my sister did not have to follow through.

Upon my return, my sister took Sun for 3 days/2 nights. Then another 3 days/2 nights. And Sun was content to be with my sister and her family. I had worried she’d be fussy; she wasn’t in the least.

I knew my sister would make a great aunt. She’s the aunt to six other nieces and nephews just on our side of the family. And I knew my sister would do anything for me, no matter how intrusive or short-noticed.

But.

It’s a completely different thing when someone DOES anything for you than from you KNOWING they would do anything. And it was meaningful to her that I LET her do for me. I tend to do for myself, not ask for help and turn it down when offered. But this surgery brought me to my knees.

My sister and I spent today at the zoo with Sun and my sister’s niece. She wants to start seeing Sun once a week during the summer while she’s off from work.

When I mentioned to my sister once that I was sorry that Sun wouldn’t know our grandmother or the fun childhood memories we had of our fun aunt, she said, “Sun WILL have that. With me.” And she is being true to her word.

My sister and I are close in a sisterly way. We don’t talk every day or gush about every detail of our lives when we do talk. She doesn’t know about this blog, even. But I KNOW there is NOTHING I couldn’t tell her, nothing she wouldn’t support or help me with. Even if she thought I was in the wrong, she’d take me in and hug me.

The boil we had this past weekend didn’t have all of my family, but it did have many of the friends that we consider family, the family you create. And when I think back on the boil—Sun swinging; box fans blowing; the screened porch blocking both sun and rain; family and friends enjoying good food, drink and company—I realize that such event is EXACTLY like the childhood memories I cherish so dearly. (Is that an epiphany?) Except now we are creating these memories for Sun, just as I had hoped we would.

And THAT makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Or it’s the absinthe I am drinking.