A Christmas List

 Kathleen has been watching me gather Christmas presents for other people and store them under the bed for the last few weeks.  Almost every day I was in Reno she would call me and tell me another package had arrived and I would say, "Don't open it.  Just put it under the bed."  And she has watched as the pantry filled up with dried fruit in anticipation of making the Christmas Fruit Cakes.   Well, yesterday she asked me to write a Christmas list for me.  So, in no particular order here it is.  

1.  A trip to Seattle and back on The Coast Starlight.

2. A subscription to First Things Magazine.

3. A stay in the Old Faithful Inn.

4.  A Fiskars garden trowel.

5.  Baking paper.

6.  A 20th century table lighter and ashtray set.

7.  A copy of These Truths We Hold.

8. A SW/LW/AM/FM/WB radio by C. Crane or Eton that has an antenna port so I can run an antenna up to the roof, and can use AC or DC power or DC only with an adapter.  A transmitter would be cool too but that might be too expensive.

9. A box of MREs.

10. A subscription to Ancient History Magazine.

11.  The Lamp.

12.  An icon of the New Martyrs of Libya.

13. An Icon of St. Basil the Fool-for-Christ.

14. Any book by Fr. Dimitru Staniloae

15. A meatloaf pan.

16.  Russel pull-on boots for hunting.

Last trip to Truckee/Donner/Reno for 2020 and an Eagle Scout.

Kathleen and I went to Reno last Friday night.  I promptly got altitude sickness and was no good most of Saturday.  I had never experienced that before, and I hope I never do again.  It was misery but I started feeling better late on Saturday.  In the afternoon we went shooting at Reno Guns and Range then out to dinner at Wilde River Grill.  I had meatloaf.  Kathleen had braised beef spareribs.   On Sunday morning we stopped at St Anthony Church to pray before going up to Donner Lake to get the boat.  We had to get the boat because the berth I rented back in June was only until September 20.  So, we strapped it to the roof of the car and drove it home.  Now it is in Kathleen's garage.  I'm going to have to do something about that.

When we left San Jose on Friday night it was horrible smokey and still very hot.  Reno was the same.  While we were gone something must have happened because when we got home the air quality was much improved and the temperature was much lower.  It is almost like a normal September.  I'm starting to plan for Thanksgiving.

Covid is still messing with my life.  One of my goals every year is to be in church for all the Great Feasts.  I have never achieved this goal.  I was off to a good start with Nativity of the Theotokos but due to restrictions put in place because of Covid none of the parishes in the in the San Jose area had services open to the public.  So, maybe, next year.

Exactly a week ago tonight, Anselm Samuel (AKA the Little Boy) attended his last Boy Scout Troop meeting.  Technically, he hasn't been a Boy Scout since the spring when he turned 18 but Covid messed stuff up and there were no more troop meetings from before he turned 18 until last Wednesday.  And at that meeting, he was given the emblems of the Eagle Scout rank.  He did it.   Fewer than 5% of the boys who start out as Cub Scouts attain the rank of Eagle Scout.  He started in 2008.  It's been a long 12 years.  I  am super proud of him. 

Darkess at Noon, Working in the Garden.

I didn't have work for the Census Bureau today and I'm on leave from Bass Pro Shops until Sep  17 so I took advantage of this time to work in the garden,  I took all the tomato vines out of one bed (So, yes, we are having fried green tomatoes at supper tonight.), chopped them up and threw them in the compost pile.  Then I dug up the whole bed to loosen up the soil and and mix straw into it.  About 6 inches down it was very compacted so it really needed to be broken up; and the straw should help with water retention.  Then I transplanted six basil plants from various places in the garden to the north 1/5 of the bed.   In the remaining part of the bed I transplanted onions we started in a 2'x1' pot back in March.   There were hundreds of them in the pot, all totally root bound.  I separated them transplanted the biggest 40, gave some to the Indian woman who showed me how to grow garlic a couple of years ago, and some to the HOA's landscaper to take home and put in his garden.  What was left over went in the compost pile.

There was ash from the fires on the ground this morning.  On cars and on the balcony, too.  One of the fires, a small one was about 1/4 mile from my house but San Jose Fire Department extinguished it in just a few hours.   The smoke is so thick today that I had to turn on the lights in the house and the street lights (they come on automatically when it gets dark outside.) came on about 11 a.m.  The sky is dark orange and even the hummingbirds are confused.  They are acting like it is end-of-day feeding time.  The nice thing about today is that it is cooler than it has been in a week.  

The Garden and How I Cook Eggplant.

Today we lost three red kuri squash vines and all the beet seedlings  to the heat.  I tried picking cherry tomatoes but many of them fell apart in my hand, cooked on the vine.  This heat is brutal.

Gretchen asked me to post an eggplant recipe.  Because eggplant is new to me and I do not understand its properties very well this is all I do:  Slice them thin (1/8 inch - 1/4 inch),  sprinkle with salt pepper, and garlic powder, then lay them in a pan of very hot olive oil.  I fry them about a minute on each side, or until dark brown.  Its simple but it tastes good.

Home Again.

The time is just a few minutes after midnight on Monday.  It has been such a crazy couple of days.  On Saturday I woke up in my hotel in Reno, and drove to Incline Village where I had been assigned about 70 difficult cases.  After reviewing the case histories and seeing what I was facing I didn't really expect to close more than ten at the most.  But by 4 o'clock p.m. I had closed more than 20.  So I decided to head back to Reno and not work any overtime because my two youngest sons were on their way to Reno to spend a couple of days with me.  In the hour it took me to get back to the hotel my boss's boss had been fired and we had been ordered back to California.  So, I called my sons and told then to do a U-Turn and go home.  And when I got to the hotel I packed up my stuff, checked out of the hotel, and started for home. 

When I got to Verdi I stopped to buy gasoline, check the oil, and check the air pressure in my tires.  And that is when I noticed that I didn't have my key to the house.  I had lost it.  That shouldn't have been a problem because Kathleen would be home and would be able to let me in.  But she wasn't home.  She was at Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County.  So I had to drive to Pismo Beach to get a key to the house.  So, after driving from Reno to Incline Village, working all day, and then driving back to Reno I had to drive another 440 miles to to Pismo Beach.   Oh, I did do something really fun on the drive from Reno to Pismo Beach.  When I got to the summit of Donner Pass I put the car in neutral and coasted down the hill.  I descended 5,000 feet over 49 miles and didn't touch the accelerator from Donner Pass to Applegate.  At Applegate the road started to flatten out and my speed dropped below 40mph so I gave it the gas and sped down I-80 west  to I-5 south to Hwy 41 west to Hwy 101south.  I passed by Shandon where my two oldest sons lived with their mother about 25 years ago.  I drove past the ranch where my oldest son died 10 years ago. And I drove through Atascadero where 30 years ago my first wife chose her drug dealer over me.  (I was inexperienced and naive and did not recognize what was happening.) 

Except for Pismo Beach, where I took my two oldest sons to spend an Independence Day with my parents and my Uncle Fred and Aunt Nettie,  SLO County is not a happy place for me.  Bitter memories of my own failures, her betrayals, and my sons' suffering.  It was 1:55 a.m. on Sunday morning when I arrived at Kathleen's hotel room.  

We woke up about 9 on Sunday morning and I took Kathleen and her kids to breakfast at The Sand Castle.  Then I drove home. On the way home, (Hwy 101 the whole way.) I stopped at my oldest son's grave in Paso Robles and prayed for him.  Someone had put a little American flag on his grave.  Standing there at his grave I suddenly started sobbing and the strength went out of me and I almost fell.  I had to leave.  The pain was too great.  A decade later it has not faded.  

When I got home the thermometer in the garden said 105 degrees.  The garden was completely wilted.  We lost two squash plants and a lot of fruit.  

I don't have to work Monday.  I'll just work in the garden and try to stay cool.

Nevada

 I’ve been living in a hotel in Reno for the last 8 days while working for the U.S. Census Bureau.  I’ve been driving all around Washoe County and have fallen in love with it.  It is beautiful.  

Kathleen came over the mountains to be with me for a few days.  We went to the shooting range a few times.  She is getting good with the six-shooter I bought her.  

Today I wennt to church at St Anthony Orthodox Church.  The priest there is the brother of the priest who use to be the deacon in Saratoga.  It was the first time I’ve seen a priest since March.  Wuhan virus, insurance companies, Governor Newsom, and cowardly bishops: Damn them all.

The Census Bureau asked me to stay in Reno for another week.  It ought to be fun and worth quite a bit of money.