apricot sponge

I always called my mother the queen of pudding making!

Saturday was her day to "prepare". Like her mother before her, she spent the morning making sweets for Sunday - and the week to follow, but particularly Sunday. They took the form of cakes, pies, cookies and, always, puddings. Cracker pudding, graham cracker pudding, tapioca, sometimes rice pudding, chocolate and vanilla puddings, caramel pudding, pineapple fluff and the clear winner of the bunch - apricot sponge!

It was always served in a glorious heavy cut-glass bowl.

The preparation involved soaking apricots, cooking them, putting them through a fruit press, adding gelatin to one part and whipping the other. The end result had a gelled apricot bottom, a feathery apricot middle and all topped with swirls of whipped cream.

I'm hyperventilating just typing the words!

And do I make it a lot? Once or twice in fifty years! I think I try to excuse myself saying that I no loner have a fruit press, but that's nonsense. I could improvise. I think it's more that I want to preserve a shining childhood memory.

 And let the queen reign forever.

neighbors

Isn't it interesting how the snow empties houses?

If you live in a house-close community you could go an entire year without talking to any of your neighbors more than the merest chat about the weather and that's only if your coming or going coincides with theirs. We have great neighbors and know a few of them on a social basis and still fewer are close friends. Yet when it snows we're all blood brothers and shovels are our tongues!

My husband had just begun the mammoth task of unearthing his car when new neighbors across the street (husband Japanese, wife-American, kids-adorable) came and offered their help. A two-hour solo job for one  person became 40 minutes with three people digging it. Later, he baked them scones and took them over, warm from the oven.

On the other hand when I was trudging through a neighboring cluster trying to avoid the huge drifts, I heard two young 30 something coo to another snow-shoveling neighbor, "Ooh, you had the baby - when?" And he said, " December 7"! This was January 26. And until I could slog by, I learned that the baby had to be re-hospitalized for some virus in that period of time. I just had to think that we know some sketchy parameters of our neighbors lives, but really we know nothing unless we make the effort.

Speaking of which, a new woman moved in three houses down from us some months ago, and as of the snowstorm, I hadn't even caught a glimpse of her. Walking back from the lake I saw her outside her house and stopped to introduce myself - finally. I learned in just a short conversation that she had lost her mother just a month ago and was having a hard time getting to even ground. We talked for 1/2 hour, despite my freezing toes.

Good snowstorms make good neighbors.

being there

A friend of mine told me that her granddaughter had gotten bitten at daycare - hard enough to see teeth marks.

Now I know that biting is an age-old tactic of the young . But seriously, I have two boys and I can't dream of either one ever doing such a thing. I don't mean they were perfect or didn't fight in any way, but biting just seems to be in such a different category. I would be worried about the amount of aggression/hostility revealed.

But, of course, it happened in day care where a whole universe of copycat activity takes place. I'm sure studies have been done a hundred times over about the contrast of kids raised in daycare, and those who were raised by stay-at-home moms. You certainly must have children who benefited from the stimulation of daycare and thrived there. You certainly must have children who were stunted by the routines of just a regular household.

But in my heart of hearts, I can't help believing that children who are raised within the loving radar of parents guiding, comforting, instructing, joking, supporting them 24/7 turn out differently from those left in purchased hands.

I know there are extenuating circumstances that require daycare. But I would be comforted to know that it's not  just the natural default of modern parents. If you're going to bring a child into this world, do whatever you can to nourish them as completely as you can. And it seems to me that time spent together is  like "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

And probably biting isn't part of that picture.

Say it isn't so

I can truly say, and most thankfully and humbly say, I don't feel the aging process very much at all. I have been most fortunate health-wise and I know it. But one measure of age that stares me in the face is my activity in the snow!

Yesterday when I was out in the deep snow, whenever I go to a place where the "path" - i.e, a semi-trodden down area - ended and I would have to navigate snow that was two feet deep in order to proceed, it was all I could do not to panic! When did that happen??

As kids, the deeper the drift, the more exhilarating! We'd fling ourselves into the snow with such total abandon. The thought of broken bones never even brushed our consciousness! Now, though I refuse to stay inside and have walked every day at the start, middle and end of the blizzard, I walk so very carefully, while visions of fractures dance in my head! I really hate that transformation!

So I guess I will just sigh and accept the vulnerability factor and give thanks that for the large part of my life at this point, I still feel like a kid!

the storm

Snowbound!

Why do we love it so! But love it we do at this household. And we are still in the exhilarated stage of looking out.

Later, when it comes to shoveling, our ecstasy may waver!

Last night as the snow was falling we walked down to Lake Anne to our favorite Greek restaurant, and out of the cold and snow, walked into a world of light, calypso music, food, wine, laughter and community. 

It was the perfect send-off to our blizzard celebration.

Still better, was to walk home in the darkened white, with only the quiet swish of snow to guide us home.

mother

"She was bendable light - she shone around every corner of my day."

I can't quite remember where I picked up that quote, but I think of my mother every time I see it. Her light wrapped around me completely, always, still.

She wasn't perfect, but she was so doggedly optimistic. She'd sing, "let the merry sunshine in" and she did.

She didn't truck fools, but she could tear up over a sentimental card.

She was the church librarian and knew every single child's first name and greeted them personally.

She quoted Longfellow and Mother Goose.

She played as hard as she worked.

And laughed.

And loved.

Her spirit bends toward me each day.

And keeps me safe.

weather or not

Snow.

Why do we love or hate it? I always feel a kinship when I see a  fellow traveler's eyes light up at the prospect of a storm! But of course that's all woven into your personal fabric by experience.

Snow in my childhood - if it was bad enough - meant that our two-room schoolhouse closed down. It also meant building snowmen, having snowball fights, building forts, playing snow tag and sledding on Kliney's hill if you had older brothers and sisters to take you there. The airborne zing of taking an icy bump as you sped down the long slope provided all the inner heat you needed to stay warm despite frozen mittens and toes that suffered inside rubber boots!

But now, I most love the silence of a big snow.

Here in the noisy suburbs, the snow slowly shuts down all activities, one by one, and there is just a solemn quiet.

And just for a little while, you can be still.

And try not to think about all the shoveling to follow!