Retirement has made life simpler.
 
To clarify, this isn’t about the world stage. 
 
On that platform, we continue to struggle with the global pandemic being steered by the driver that’s COVID-19. And, even though we’re now in the third year of living with this tricky and sneaky virus, the infection marches on, having a major impact everywhere—a tragic mess impacting millions.  
 
Here in the United States, crazy inflation has made budgeting a losing proposition since nearly everything costs more. This even applies to Dollar Store items, whose price tags often no longer reflect the name of the business. There are also supply chain burps, not just with toilet paper, but in our area, lumber and Mason jars.
 
Covering all of this is the jumbo circus tent that’s the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
 
From the aggressor’s perspective, the attack hasn’t gone the way it was supposed to go—instead lasting much longer,
and with many more casualties on both sides.
 
Vladimir Putin might be a madman, or he might be set on making the destiny he has imagined for so long—the return of the Soviet Union by taking over adjacent, weaker countries. He very well might be both. As I write, though, Ukraine continues to fight back against bigly odds, despite heavy losses of human life and cities bombed into rubble.
 
It's all so heartbreaking.
 
But here at home, in our blue-and-white house on a one-block street in Oregon, things are less complicated.
 
I was sort of aware of this new shift, but didn’t really notice it until I saw it in black and white.  
 
Literally.
 
We were filling out our income tax worksheets, the dreaded, annual assignment from my trusted accountant. Once completed—and I drag that process out for weeks—our scribbles give him with the information he needs to ensure our tax return is done right.  
 
But, as I began retrieving records and filling out the paperwork, one Very Big Thing started to stick out.
 
For the first time ever, a lot of spaces could be left blank.
 
It seems that retirement does this sort of thing.
 
Breaking it down a bit, it’s now no longer necessary to keep track of the many expenses that went hand-in-hand with our previous working lives.   
 
For instance, we continue to drive, but never use our vehicles for anything job related.
 
So, we no longer have to log the cost of car washes and repairs, new tires, insurance and mileage. The Hubster once used his van to travel to homes to teach private music lessons, but these days, none of the above is necessary.  Also, since those lessons are now behind him, ditto for deducting the office supplies used to bill students, including printing costs, stamps and envelopes.  
 
On my side, I continue to score writing work, but now it’s part-time and all remote. Interviews are conducted over the phone or online instead of in person, although as a freelancer, I can, and do, claim deductions for books; subscriptions to magazines, and journals. 
 
Of course, I need my computer to write, so I made sure to save the receipt I received for my new keyboard and its installation (I used my PC so much last year that several of the keys stopped functioning.)
.
But all in all, there are many less worksheet items to fill in than there used to be. 
 
Simplifying our lives doesn’t mean we’re sitting around.
 
We’re just on a different schedule.  
 
I take aquatic classes at our neighborhood gym nearly every morning, and the Hubster has also started working out at the same venue a few times during the week.  He also spends a good amount of time grocery shopping at various markets, which he is happy to admit makes up most of his social life.
 
As for keeping my brain active, the book club I belong to, as well as writing questions for Quora and puzzling out Wordle, is helping.
 
Finally, with COVID-19 winding down in our part of the world, at least right now, we’re planning on a good deal of traveling later this year.
 
We’re not going all that far, but there are friends in Seattle, and The Daughter and The Boyfriend are in Los Angeles. A dear friend has offered us his family’s beach house not far from Portland. Another intended journey that’s slated for autumn is meandering along blue highways* in Oregon.There won’t be a set schedule for this trip. Instead, we’ll stop when we please, checking out roadside motels, diners and non-touristy historical sites.
 
The simplicity of this post-job life is proving to be an interesting chapter for both of us.
 
We’re both getting used to it. Mostly, we’re also liking it.
 
 
* This descriptive noun comes from the 1978 autobiographical travel book, which is also titled Blue Highways. These are small and mostly forgotten, out-of-the-way roads that connect rural America--drawn in blue on the old-style road maps of the day.
    
 

(A note: I didn’t set out to write this post for Girl Clown Dancing. Instead, it’s the essay I submitted to the Modern Love column in The New York Times—the gold standard for essayists. Hundreds of very personal stories, or more likely thousands, are submitted every year from around the world to its editors, with less than 100 ever seeing the light
​of day. So, I knew the chance of seeing this published was slim to none. I was right.
 
But going through the process was absolutely worth it. 
 
One more thing: I thought the O. Henry ending, as well as mentioning my time as a professional circus clown
and memories of living in New York City, were unusual enough to nudge the editors toward publication. But in
retrospect, my story probably wasn’t “modern enough” to meet the column’s current criteria. To this end, my essay
isn’t about falling in love while navigating a nasty divorce; meeting one’s soulmate in the middle of a pandemic,
or the challenging work of bonding with a stepchild.
 
Still, I really like how this came out. Also, I worked hard on it. Enjoy!)

 
 It was what used to be called a one-night stand.
 
Perhaps because I’d never done such a thing before or since, and probably because the attraction was also more overwhelming than anything I’d ever experienced, forgetting him, even after decades, proved to be impossible. 
 
Just a few weeks before Christmas, I found him.
 
John had been dead for close to a year.
 
I’m online a lot, so whenever he snuck into my head, about every four or five months, I’d do a quick search to see if I could find out whatever happened to him.  As it turned out, I had been spelling his first name right but his last name wrong all of this time, sometimes with an extra letter, or sometimes with the correct letters but one misplaced vowel. 
 
Now, finally nailing the configuration, I sat in my office, starred at the computer screen, and read John’s obituary.
 
He had died in a long-term nursing home, his spouse of 35 years beside him. 
 
That final place was in Mexico, Missouri, the town where John was born and raised, and had returned to 15 years before. Scanning the memorial guestbook, I let out a loud exhale after clicking on what appeared to be his wedding day photo.
It had been snapped in my California hometown of Long Beach, the city where we had met.
 
The picture was posted by John’s widow Christine. We both had hazel eyes and dark brown hair, and wore it the same way, curly and above our collar line. 
 
I had dropped out of college and already knew a little about John the night we came together, at a cramped and dingy bar frequented by reporters and editors. Not coincidentally, it was across the street from the newspaper where
he worked.
 
John was the political cartoonist for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and his drawings were smart, sassy and on-target with issues of the day. In person, he was curious; had a big laugh, and knew how to listen. 
 
Then there were his looks.
 
If not for the Southern drawl, John might have been mistaken for someone who grew up in Malibu—in his 30s and not an ounce of fat, but tall and lean and tan, with sun bleached hair and a casual cut neither too long nor too short. When I see photos of Jeff Bridges at his most hunky, I see John as well.
 
I was short and curvy, with unruly hair and decidedly Eastern European looks. I couldn’t imagine why anyone who
looked like him might want to be with someone who looked like me, even for one night. But I guess, at least right
then, he did.
 
We left at the same time, both knowing what was going to happen next. 
 
Besides the charged anticipation, there was an assured innocence, too.
 
After all, this was long before anyone had heard of AIDS or any of the other scary complications that sometimes happen now after sleeping with strangers. It was also the peak of the contemporary women’s movement, and a time when reliable birth control was easily available. Putting both components together, it was more than okay to be sexually active. It was, in fact, something to be celebrated.
 
It was very dark and probably close to 11 o’clock when I got in my car and John got in his.
 
I followed him to the white Spanish style house he rented with a roommate I never did meet, on a street named after a tree common to California. I also remember the bed. It was on the floor, big enough for two, and the sheets smelled as if they had just come out of the dryer.
 
Details aren’t needed here, except to say that both of us got what we wanted, and many times over, with only an hour
of sleep.
 
And while I don’t remember much small talk, I did tell John that I had been a professional circus clown for a time, coming off the road the year before. Also, I mentioned that I was Jewish. 
 
Hours later, with the sun beginning to rise, he propped one elbow on the bed, hand on his cheek, looking hard at me. ‘’Damn!” he said, in that sweet twang.  “You’re the first Jew I ever slept with!” 
 
Shortly after that, the phone rang. It was one of John’s colleagues, inviting him to see some sort of NASA landing in
the desert several hours away. John told me he really wanted to go, and so, he did. I must have left at the same time.
 
We stayed in touch for a few months. But the white-hot intensity had dissipated by then, and we lost contact. 
 
I eventually received a journalism degree from San Jose State, doing some birthday clowning gigs to help pay my tuition. I had also sold a piece on flea market tips to Seventeen, and right after graduation, because I wanted to write for magazines and because that’s where all of the big ones were, moved to New York City.    
 
First I lived in the East Village with one roommate and hundreds of cockroaches, and then snagged a walk-through apartment three flights up in Brooklyn, all for myself, on Henry Street. The kitchen featured stained burgundy carpet and the bathroom was in the hallway, but the place also boasted a spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty. 
 
Not long after, I had a job as an editorial assistant for a small publishing house and then was a staff writer for the CBS company magazine. 
 
Four years after leaving California, I came back because I missed driving, my friends and the beach. I found a pink duplex in the flats of Beverly Hills and wrote press releases about celebrities, then reported for a weekly film industry publication. Eventually, I thrived in a long career as a network television producer.   
 
However, I had stayed in contact with a few people at the Press-Telegram, where John still worked.  
 
Committed to no commitment when we met, I learned then that nearing his mid- 40s, he had married Christine. 
 
The obit provided other facts I’d never known.
 
After graduating from Mexico High School, John was an Army officer in Vietnam with the infamous Big Red One unit,
a fact that made him immensely proud.  Indeed, he had landed in Southeast Asia in time to take part in the 1968
​Tet Offensive, the notorious and bloody campaign that marked a major escalation for the United States in the war.
 
At around this time, he had also left a brief marriage and a four-year-old son behind.     
                                                                             
After leaving the military, John attended the University of Missouri, majoring in history, which became a lifetime passion. Described as a cartoonist, artist and author, the last sentence of the memorial defined the person I remember. “Everyone that knew John thought he was a nice guy, a great story teller, and a hard loving man.”
 
In the funeral home guestbook, a retired colleague from the newspaper, and a Vietnam vet as well, offered more.
 
“John was my friend,” he wrote. “I have a lot of acquaintances, but very few friends.” The writer went on to describe the lengthy walks the two took every morning for more than a decade, long after I knew him, where they “solved all the world’s problems, swapped lies and dirty jokes, and bonded the way brothers are supposed to. We laughed a lot and cursed a lot and tried our best to leave a legacy of peace and love.” 
 
The researcher and writer that I am wanted further details. Luckily, the reporter was easy to find and open to answering a few questions. 
 
To let him know I was who I said I was, I included my Facebook handle, which has photos of my days as a clown. 
 
“I expect you were among his fonder memories,” he wrote back. “For a one-nighter, you picked a good one.” 
 
The reporter went on to tell me about the historical novel John had co-authored, set right before the Civil War
and published in 2007. It remains in print and while there are only five reviews, each one is stellar in its praise. 
 
The friend also mentioned that near the end, knowing he was dying of cancer but upbeat, John was working on a
second book. 
 
He had also reconnected with his long-estranged son, with whom he’d lost touch with after Vietnam. “In my last conversation with him,” added the reporter, “he was fairly giddy over the fact had he had a couple of grandchildren.”
 
One more thing came out. 
 
“Some considerable irony here,” the friend wrote. “Christine was a professional birthday clown when she and John met.”

So, now, living in a big blue and white house in Oregon, with a front porch wide enough for two Adirondck rockers,
one for my husband and another for me, I wonder.
   
What if the chemistry that John and I acted on that one night so long ago hadn’t vanished? What if I had stuck around my hometown, and ended up in Mexico, Missouri?
 
I’ll never know.
 
But then again, for some reason, I don’t think I should. 

Girl Clown Dancing is seven years old this month.
 
So, as I’ve done every February since the blog’s one-year blogaversary, I look over GCD essays posted from the last
year and pick out my favorites.
 
This helps me remember what piqued my interest most in any given month. Also, it provides a snapshot into
what was going on in the world—both here in Oregon and in other, far-flung places.
 
The biggest life change for me in 2021 was joining a gym. I wrote about this last May, in
hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/gym.  
 
I’m still not a gym person.
 
Also, there are many days that I don’t want to go, but I go anyway.

And except for a few tweaks, I’ve stuck to the schedule I wrote about then—taking a 50-minute aquatics class in a warm pool every weekday morning at 10 o’clock. Because classes aren’t offered on weekends, I ride a stationary bike on Sunday afternoons for about an hour.

I take Saturdays off.
 
I won’t keep a scale in the house, but I know I’ve lost weight by how my clothes fit now compared to last spring. What
I know for sure is that my balance has improved; my energy level has increased, and my brain is sharper.
 
Still, aging is part of life.
 
I explored the impact of this in March, when I wrote about the decision to stop coloring my hair,
in hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/going-my-gray. The color correction process continues, and I’m happy
to report that my hairdresser makes me feel beautiful and confident every time I leave her chair. As for
changes to my face, here’s my obsessing over one droopy eyelid, in hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/the-eyes-have-it. 
 
Aging has also taught me that comfort is more important with each passing birthday.  
 
To this end, I wrote about our new mattress warmer last January, in hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/the-mattress-warmer.  Warmers are cozier and distribute heat better than electric blankets, and I bet if more people tried one, they could help millions who suffer from insomnia.
 
Unlike the previous year, I didn’t write much about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
 
But I did address the anti-vaccine movement in September with hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/here-we-are. 
A few months later, in November, I wrote hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/book-club, which calls out the joy
of getting out and getting together with like-minded folks—all fully vaccinated and boosted—who love to read.
 
Even though Girl Clown Dancing is seven years old, I continue to find things to write about every month. 
 
Thank you for sticking with me, especially to those who let me post directly to their Facebook page, or the folks
who click “Like” or “Share” on that same platform. For my readers who find me on Twitter, thanks for your affirmatons as well. 
 
Also, here’s an extra-shiny gold star to fans who take the time to leave a comment every time I post. You know who you are, and you are deeply appreciated.   
 
As for me, I’m planning to stick around.  I hope you’ll do the same. 

I’ve been repurposing stuff long before I had ever heard the word.
                                                                                                               
To clarify, I’ve found excellent uses for one vintage juice glass and two coffee mugs; a blue and white biscuit tin,
and two wooden boxes. Respectively, they once held orange juice and coffee, luxe butter cookies, elegant cigars
and wedding gift spices.  
 
None holds anything remotely edible these days. But each receptacle is sturdy; serves a need, and has a story behind it.
 
Which means every single one is perfect.
 
I spotted the three-and-a-half-inch tall glass on its own at a thrift store, with neither matching glasses nor pitcher in sight. I wasn’t going drink out of it, but the turquoise painted daisies splashed across the glass made me smile. It’s on my office window sill these days, crammed with ballpoint pens and sharpies, and picking up the reflection from the sun.
 
One mug—perhaps a collector’s item because it’s from Olivia Newton John’s long defunct Korner of Australia store on Melrose—sits there, too, my place to keep a dozen water color brushes. The other cup was found at a tiny boutique in 1979 in the East Village in New York City, a few blocks from my first apartment there. Boasting a bright red ladybug on one side and a tiny ceramic one at the bottom of the cup, I had very little money then for non-essentials, but this called to me. Here, I keep pencils, mostly from the dollar store, in different colors and patterns.
 
The blue and white tin is labeled Patria Quality Biscuits, and appears to be from a bakery in Amsterdam. Depicting a pastoral scene of trees and a windmill, several are on eBay for about $10. This one belonged to my mom when I was small, and after the cookies were consumed, she stored hairpins in it. Now it houses my dozens of colored pencils.
 
Neither of the wooden boxes is visible, but they’re used just the same.
 
The tinier one is nestled in the single drawer of my office work table. Once upon a time, it held 20 cigars from
the Tabacalera Tambor cigar company, which Google says is based in Nicaragua but the box says is from Costa Rica.
The container was empty when it was gifted to me by a neighbor in West Hollywood shortly after my partner
suddenly passed. There’s not even the faintest smell of a stogie, but there are pushpins and half a dozen
Pete Buttigieg campaign buttons.
 
The last box contained spices from Penzys and was too durable to toss. So, it’s in my hope chest and has all of my sewing supplies. Remarkably, this box has jumbo-sized spools of thread from my days at Clown College, where we had to make our own graduation ceremony costumes.
 
It turns out this kind of recycling is more common than I imagined.
 
A 2021 New York Times essay reports that one popular use for Royal Dansk cookie tins is to repurpose them into sewing kits. Other empty containers used for new reasons are tubs of Cool Whip and Country Crock spread; Bonnie Maman jam jars, and Dannon yogurt containers. Then there’s the 2019 video with actress Mindy Kaling and now Vice President Kamala Harris cooking an Indian crepe called dosa. Setting up in Kaling’s kitchen, the two discovered their parents both stored spices in Taster’s Choice instant-coffee jars.*
 
The Times article goes on to say that in my parents’ generation, reusing store-bought containers was a common way
to stretch a budget. Indeed, not a lot of families then splurged on brand-name storage products such as Tupperware
or Rubbermaid. Why spend the money when a perfectly solid but now empty holder could be used for something else?
 
This is absolutely one very good reason why I’ve repurposed my cups, tin and boxes.
 
But the other, and more important intention, is this.
 
Each has a relationship to me, and each has a story.
 
For a writer, there’s nothing better.
  
* Here’s Mindy Kaling and Kamala Harris bonding over Taster’s Choice jars.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7rNOAFkgE
 

This is our third December in Oregon, and the third time our holiday tree has come from a cut-your-own Christmas
tree farm.
 
I didn’t get to have this kind of adventure as a kid because we were Jewish and sorta-kinda did Hanukkah instead.*
 
On my part, this wasn’t for a lack of trying.
 
I still remember lobbying for a Hanukkah Bush—for all intents and purposes, a Christmas tree without any Christianity themed ornaments—one year. Using my tween reasoning skills, I explained that it could be small and decorated on
the cheap, with six-pointed stars made from origami sheets and blue and white construction paper chains. There
​didn’t have to be any lights.  
 
My mother was so appalled that I never brought it up again.
 
Still, even if we had been in the market for some sort of tree, buying a cut-it-yourself one wasn’t easily doable.
 
Mainly, this was because we lived in Southern California in a beachside city, where the only living pines I ever saw
​were in city parks.
 
So, the kids I knew got Christmas trees from neighborhood pop-up lots, or if they were lucky, at a grocery or hardware store that gave away paper cups of hot chocolate and red-and-white striped candy canes. Other folks bought their trees straight off a train, most likely coming from Oregon.**  
 
Then, while researching this post, I found out that even in my native land of palm trees and the Pacific Ocean, there were honest-to-goodness Christmas tree farms less than a 30-minute drive from our house.  
 
Mostly, these cut-your-own places were directly underneath enormous power lines on land unsuitable for housing, but doable for hardy pine trees.
 
It turns out our local electric utility once offered long-term leases, allowing the trees to grow all year round. One woman remembers her family heading to the same lot, but at some point, the height of its trees was no longer to anyone’s liking. “So,” she says, “we would keep driving and follow the big power lines to find other tree farms.”  
 
The Hubster didn’t need to look up in the sky for a Christmas tree.
 
Born and raised in Ohio, he and his first wife headed to one of many farms near their home. Each farm was about 80 acres, and while not every tree there was for sale, the sheer amount of land offered a lot of choices. And, rather than the Douglas firs or Monterey pines common to the West, these farms were full of blue spruces, whose needles are a silvery-blue hue rather than the dark green color that was familiar to me.  
 
Bow saw at the ready, driving to these farms was an annual custom that eventually included the Hubster’s three now-adult daughters. But after the family moved to Southern California, the tradition stayed behind. When I told my spouse about my recent cut-your-own discovery, he said he hadn’t known such a thing existed.
 
Here in Southern Oregon, the Christmas farm we go to is called Rudolph’s.
 
While one assumes this moniker must have come from a certain red-nosed reindeer, it’s the farm owner’s first name. Balance issues don’t allow the Hubster to do the cutting anymore, but luckily, Rudy has helpers in golf carts who not only saw trees down, but pack them into cars or vans for a smooth ride home.
 
Not bad for $50, cash preferred.  
 
For those who are younger, stronger and definite risk takers, the National Park Service in Oregon offers a much
better deal.
 
Starting in November, the agency sells permits for five dollars a pop, which lets the buyer cut a tree from one of many ranges overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Some areas allow five trees for this price, but there are several think-about-it-first caveats. One, the roads leading to these BLM lands are unplowed, so it’s paramount that the woods be exited before dark. Two, having tire chains, shovels and a tow chain are also highly encouraged. Lastly, it’s suggested that bringing an overnight survival kit is a very smart move.
 
As much as my spouse loves the forests that surround our home, I’m very happy this isn’t an option for us. 
 
Perhaps more than anything, I’m thrilled that the Hubster’s Christmas farm trek has come full-circle.
 
This Girl Clown is pretty much along for the ride, but it has proven to be a terrific way to kick off the holidays. 
 
 *   This GCD blog from a few years back has more details. 
      hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/my-crazy-jewish-girl-christmas
 
**  Oregon is the number one producer of Christmas trees in the United States,
     selling about 4.5 million trees per year with a market value of $104 million.

I’ve joined a book club.
 
Doing so wasn’t spontaneous on my part, or an impromptu idea by my friend Deb, who came up with the concept.
 
In fact, Deb was ready to go with a solid timeline in place the spring before last. She’d also compiled a list of friends
and acquaintances who loved to read. And even though most of us didn’t know one another, she figured that we
could have enough in common—mainly, age and political leanings—that once we had all met, we’d be good to go.
 
Of course, you know what happened next.
 
The tsunami called COVID-19 arrived. 
 
And just like that, the idea of any sort of grown-up playdate migrated to everyone’s back burner.
 
Eventually and as the months dragged on, there was talk of putting the club on Zoom. But since I loathe the platform,
I knew I couldn’t take part. Also, our library was closed, and since I’d decided to procure all of my books this way,
it made no sense to join.
 
But now that the library has reopened, and everyone in the group is double vaccinated and boosted, I’m thrilled to say that seven of us are reading our hearts out.  
 
In fact, we’re already on our third book in the same number of months. 
 
Each selection has been fiction, with one written by a woman and the other two penned by men. But there’s no set genre (such as mysteries) or topic (such as the history of the United States), so at this point, we’re all over the map.  We’ve also been instructed to suggest two books, although none of mine has been chosen.
 
At least, not yet.  
 
But I don’t mind.
 
That’s because when left to my own devices, I get stuck in the same kind of books—short stories, memoirs and biographies of classic Hollywood movie stars.  Thanks to this club, I’ve been pushed into topics I’d never go for alone.
 
So far and in order, here’s what we’ve read.
 
Released only months ago, The Sweetness of Water was an instant New York Times best seller, likely due to the fact that it was an Oprah Book Club pick. 
 
The author also appealed to Deb because of where he’s from. Just 29 years old, Nathan Harris grew up in Ashland, about an hour’s drive from the town where most of us live.
 
But this novel, set days after the end of the Civil War in a tiny Georgia town, never appealed to me, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters—white landowner George Walker, who has a bad hip and a gay son, and two recently emancipated brothers heading to a new life up north. Plus, my favorite books are beautifully written, and Sweetness lacks this. Still, I slogged through to the end because I’d made a commitment that if I was going to be in the group, I’d do the talk and the walk.
 
Thankfully, our second choice had me hooked on the first page. Published last year, The Vanishing Half is the second novel from Britt Bennett, whose debut book The Mothers was a smashing success.
 
Half takes place over a longer period of time—spanning nearly half a century, from the 1940s to the 1990s. Focusing on “creamy skinned” twin sisters Desiree and Stella, the siblings were raised in a Southern town started and meant for only light-skinned blacks. As teenagers, the two snuck away from home together, but eventually went on wildly divergent paths. One wed and divorced a dark-skinned man and the other passed as Caucasian, married to a white man and giving birth to a blonde, blue-eyed daughter. So satisfying was this book that I read The Mothers immediately afterwards.       
 
The book we’re just finishing is The Overstory, written by Richard Powers and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction.
 
At over 500 pages of very small print—and no pictures--it’s a super dense read and challenging to get into. The plot is also hard to summarize, except to say that Overstory focuses on nine people in the United States; their relationship to trees, and how that brings about a shared experience. Powers can be morose, too, but his prose is lyrical and full-bodied, with the first chapter about the beginning, middle and end of a stupendous chestnut tree in Iowa. I can’t wait to see how all of the many sub-plots will come together. 
 
One last thing. 
 
I’m not a book club newbie.  
 
I’ve been in two others, one when my 23-year-old daughter was a preschooler and we lived in a California beach town, and another shortly after moving to Oregon two years ago.
 
The first club met in comfy homes but had too many members—at least a dozen women. So, staying on topic was challenging. But what was more maddening was that most participants didn’t bother to read the book. This made the gatherings purely a social club, which wasn’t what I was looking for.  
 
I lasted just one meeting with the second group.
 
The head of this club was not only its founder, but a micro-manager who chose every selection, as well as the date and time for every meeting. Also, most of the women were at least a decade older than me, and we met at a retirement home in its brightly-lit conference room. It was the wrong leader; the wrong demographic, and the wrong venue.
 
Now, though, the third time seems to be the charm.
 
And who knows?
 
Maybe one of my book suggestions will be picked soon. 

​I know cooler days are coming when I start thinking about making brown beef stew.
 
Like my spaghetti and chicken soup, this filling wintry dinner starts with the recipe my mother used. But similar to her other scratch-made meals, I’ve jollied it up to fit my own taste buds.
 
Here’s the first and most important step.
 
I retrieve mom's ancient Dutch oven out of the bottom cupboard next to the oven, and place it on a front stove burner.  
 
Heavy and a dull silver color, the pot measures 10 inches in diameter and five inches high. I wish it was a tad bigger, but it still does the job nicely, making spaghetti sauce for six and all kinds of soups for a few more bowls. The Hubster brought a larger and lighter stock pot to our marriage, but the Dutch oven makes whatever I’m cooking taste better.
 
I don’t know why, but it just does.
 
One more thing.
 
It’s probable that once upon a time, a brand name was etched somewhere on it. But now that this pot is about seven decades old, and has boiled and simmered and baked thousands of dinners, there’s no visible stamp anywhere.
 
That makes this Dutch oven that much simpler and more basic, just like the stew.
 
With the pot now on the burner but no flame turned on yet, I take the meat out of the fridge so it comes up to room temperature. Then I get to work slicing, chopping and assembling the requisite vegetables.
 
This means a large sliced white onion (preferable over yellow because it’s sweeter and milder); one cup of frozen peas which I start thawing in a glass Pyrex measuring cup, and three big carrots. Like my chicken soup, the latter are peeled and cut into sticks instead of round nickel shapes because I’m convinced they’re prettier this way.   
 
Once the veggie prep is done, I finally heat the Dutch oven over a medium low flame, and melt a couple of tablespoons of bacon grease for the needed fat.
 
No other fat options are allowed.
 
The next step is spreading out my two-and-a-half pounds of chuck roast, already cut in one-and-a-half inch cubes at our local meat market. This is by far the most expensive ingredient with a price tag of over $25.
 
But heck, it’s beef stew, so the meat has to be good because it’s the star.  
 
Just before dropping the chuck into the now-sizzling, bacon greased pot, I lightly sprinkle almond flour over every cube. I once used all-purpose flour, but now have this alternate thickener since it has more fiber and less carbs. Arrowroot could be another way to go.  
 
I then let the cubes brown evenly, and after that add boiling water and the onion, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and spices that include sweet paprika, allspice, sugar and salt and pepper. A couple of sliced garlic cloves and broken up bay leaves are thrown into the mix as well.
 
When the meat and onion mixture come to a rolling boil, I reduce the heat, cover the pot and simmer the yumminess on a low flame for two hours. During this time, I occasionally stir the ingredients with a wooden spoon to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom, but mostly, leave it alone. Sometimes I’ll add a bit of Kitchen Bouquet for deeper color and flavor, and if I think of it, a splash of red wine.
 
After this, it’s time to toss in the vegetables.
 
However, you might be wondering right about now why there aren’t any potato cubes, which is a brown beef stew tradition.
 
The answer is that I have potatoes, but make mashed spuds instead, complete with a generous amount of butter and warmed cream, as well as kosher salt and white pepper. (When I don’t want the carbs, I’ll mash cauliflower. It’s not the same and never will be, but it’s a decent substitute.)
 
After half an hour, I remove the now tender meat and veggies in order to transform the thin sauce into a thicker gravy. This is done by mixing a few tablespoons of almond flour and a heaping teaspoon of white flour together, along with
a quarter cup of so of the hot stew liquid.  Once the concoction has dissolved, back it goes into the Dutch oven.  
 
Pouring this in doesn’t make the liquid thicken immediately. But start stirring, give it a few minutes, and the
magic happens.
 
Once at the consistency I like, I put the meat and veggies back in to heat up for a few minutes. Then the burner gets turned off; the lid goes on, and I let everything set up for three to five minutes
 
While that’s happening, my already-made potatoes or cauliflower are piled onto dinner plates. When the stew is ready to eat, I use a ladle, covering the dish with at least a couple of big spoonfuls of stew. I make sure to get in as many chunks of beef as I can handle. I’m also a big fan of fresh black pepper, so I grind a bunch of that on top.  
 
Finally, it’s time to dig in.
 
Chilly days don’t get any warmer.

Earlier this year, I had high hopes that I’d never need to write about COVID-19 again.
 
But here we are.
 
Despite the easy availability of three very effective vaccines, all of which are free of charge, millions of Americans are continuing to resist the jab. Meanwhile, death rates are again on the rise.  

As I write, one in every 500 of us has now passed from COVID-19. Also, there are now close to 2,000 reported deaths in the United States every day, and about 114,000 new cases per day.
 
Looking at these stats from a longer lens, over 692,000 Americans have now passed from the virus—which more than matches the number of Americans killed in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the 9/11 attacks combined.
 
Lastly, pretty much everyone who has died this year was unvaccinated.    
 
Generally speaking, members of The Anti-Vaxx Crusade hang out in one of three circus tents.  More often than not, there’s some overlapping.
 
The largest and loudest group insists that personal freedom should always take priority over public health and safety and the greater good of the community.
 
They’re the folks we hear the most about because they make great TV sound bites—captured by news crews at rallies, hoisting signs and yelling outside hospitals. Part of their noisy platform, too, is that lawmakers will never be able to force them to inject or ingest anything that they’re not 100 percent sure about. 
 
However, this group ignores the fact that mandated immunizations for children is the law in most states, and has been for decades. They also seem to have forgotten about downing artificial sodas; eating mystery meat in fast food tacos, and purchasing iridescent-colored yogurt for their kids’ lunch boxes.
 
The second faction is those who insist they have “natural immunity.”
 
These folks proudly announce that they’ve never had a flu shot and never will. Also, they swear that their super healthy bodies can fight off every infection that will ever come their way since they eat organic; meditate regularly, and take herbal supplements. The owner of an established health food store in my town is a vocal advocate. He’s also a
city councilman. 
 
Finally, there are those who have made the vaccine political. 
 
Most of them voted for Donald Trump, who very early on knew how bad the virus was, but decided to “play it down.” In fact, just before the country entered its initial lockdown, he also said, “One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
 
Where I live, a good number of these believers are uber evangelical Christians, who think masks and social distancing are ridiculous because God will always protect them. This group is also comprised of those who insist the virus is a liberal global hoax created to scare us, and that the number of deaths is far less than what we’ve been told. 
 
I remember a different time and a different virus.  
 
One of my earliest memories is standing in line for my first polio shot at the community center in our neighborhood park.
 
This vaccine really was considered a miracle—so much so that when its approval came down the pike, church bells across the United States pealed in celebration. There was, of course, no social media, Fox News or YouTube influencers with zero scientific background to tell us otherwise.  
 
Today, polio has been eradicated.
 
It’s hard to say where we stand now.
 
There was a short window of time, maybe only a month, when all of those who were completely vaccinated took our masks off. The Hubster and I had dinner with another fully jabbed couple at a crowded bar; made travel plans, and thought about taking in a play.  
 
Then a monster wave called the Delta variant arrived.
 
Despite pummeling India and the UK earlier this spring and summer, this way more contagious and dangerous deviation came as a surprise. Indeed, its advent was especially disconcerting to those of us who were sure the worst of the pandemic was in the rear-view mirror.  
 
Physician J. Stacey Klutts works with the National Director of Pathology and Lab Medicine for the entire Veteran’s Administration, and in a Tampa Bay News article, unpacked Delta this way.
 
“It has a particular collection of mutations that make it extremely effective in attaching to human cells and gaining entry,” he wrote. “If the original COVID strains were covered in syrup, this variant is covered in ultrafast-drying Gorilla Super Glue, the industrial strength.”
 
Klutts added that Delta is also problematic for youngsters not yet eligible for the vaccine.
 
“You spew enough of any human pathogen on someone without immunity,” he said, “and it’s not going to end well.”
 
However, some hope might be at hand.
 
Following the science, mammoth corporations including Google, McDonalds and United Airlines are now requiring that employees be vaccinated. The Biden administration has also announced that our more than 1.3 million military troops on active duty must get the shot.
 
Too, federal employees and contractors doing business with the government have to follow the same protocol. Also, workplaces with 100 workers or more fall under this policy. Finally, the White House is putting pressure on entertainment venues to require patrons to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test.
 
Once this multi-tiered approach is complete, another 100 million Americans will have had their shot in the arm.  Still, with the central question of exactly how much authority the government has to regulate workplace safety, there’s a long road ahead to that end. Lawsuits have already been filed.  
 
Ultimately, it’s up and each and every one of us to do our best to reduce the level of virus around us.
 
And, getting the COVID-19 shot is the very best road to that end.
 
So, please.
 
If you haven’t done it yet, get vaccinated. If you’re eligible for a booster shot, get that as well.
 
Remember, too, to keep clean masks at hand and wear them properly. Also, play outside; continue to social distance,
and wash hands thoroughly. Most of all, heed the good advice from trusted virologists and medical centers,
​including Anthony Fauci, Johns Hopkins University and The Mayo Clinic.
 
All have a front-row seat to what’s coming next. 
 
Until then, know that in time, winter always turns into spring.  

I was making some Thousand Island dressing a few weeks ago when I remembered that I’ve wanted to write about it
for a few years now.   
 
An uber popular salad topper in the United States, it’s on the menu in nearly every American-style coffee shop, restaurant or diner. Also, Thousand Island dressing is like meat loaf or deviled eggs because everyone seems to have a favorite variation.
 
As a child, the first version I learned had only two ingredients—ketchup and mayonnaise, blended to completion with a whisk. Later I added a tablespoon or so of green pickle relish for extra sweetness and contrasting color, and a few years after that, a smattering of sour cream or cream, or both. A thicker approximation of this, I think, is what comes in condiment packets when ordering a hamburger.
 
These days, my most-liked Thousand Island recipe is more complex than what I made as a kid—but putting it together is time well worth it.  
 
From The Settlement Cookbook, ingredients include finely grated onion and one chopped hard-boiled egg, as well as minced green bell pepper and heavy whipping cream. Only a tablespoon of ketchup goes in, but two tablespoons of chili sauce, along with a sprinkling of paprika, gives the dressing its signature pink hue. Other online recipes call for tomato sauce or paste, dill pickles and even almond milk.
 
Where I live in Oregon, there’s even an adored Chinese restaurant version, called pink sauce.
 
Mayonnaise isn’t an ingredient, but it does feature a full cup of sugar and twice as much vegetable oil. I recently made a different Asian inspired take called yum-yum sauce, which has the mayo and ketchup combo, but adds butter, onion powder and rice vinegar. Thinned with a bit of water, this sauce is superb on salad as well as ground pork and chicken.     
 
Given the many ways to enjoy Thousand Island dressing, it’s probably not surprising that no one really knows who first invented it, or even where it was originally served.
 
But according to a 2012 segment on CBS’s Sunday Morning, there are three possibilities.
 
The two most repeated legends come from the same place, an area known as the Thousand Islands. Located between northern New York State and Canada on the St. Lawrence River, the moniker comes from the numerous tiny islands dotting this part of the water—to be precise, exactly 1,864.
 
For many, this fact is reason enough to assume that the dressing had to have made its debut here. Carrying the idea
​a step further, some fans believe the itsy-bitsy pieces of pickle or chopped bell pepper found in most Thousand Island recipes represent an homage to the locality.
 
The first and more detailed story from the region focuses on wealthy hotelier George Boltd, who summered on the
St. Lawrence with his family in the late 1800s.
 
It was said that Boltd’s wife Louise very much enjoyed Thousand Island dressing while dining on their yacht. After her sudden passing, Boltd honored Louise by bringing the recipe to the famed Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, where he served as manager. From there, the topper gained national prominence.
 
The second tale comes from the town of Clayton, New York. The proprietor of the now-closed Thousand Islands Inn there says that after he bought the over 120-year-old hotel, he decided to rummage through its ancient office safe. There, written in the careful penmanship so often seen a century ago, he found what he calls the first, and still secret, Thousand Island dressing recipe, author unknown. Some swear this find was penned by the wife of a local fishing guide, but there’s no surefire information to back this up.  
 
Story number three is the most ho-hum, merely saying the dressing debuted in 1910 at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago where it was invented by a chef named Theo Rooms. In a bit of a twist, the Settlement Cookbook has a Blackstone dressing recipe, which has some Thousand Island ingredients but adds a different flavor profile by including olive oil, vinegar and pearl onions.
 
Ultimately, where this most American of salad dressings was first created will likely always remain a mystery.
 
Given that I’m a researcher and reporter, I wish I knew more.  
 
Still, as long as I can break out a head of crisp iceberg lettuce and top it with my homemade Thousand Island dressing, I’ll have to be content with what is known.
 
For now, that has to do.
  

I woke up last week to one droopy eyelid.
 
Some people call this a hooded lid, but for me, that means smooth skin hovering in symmetry over both eyeballs.
Think about the smoldering sexiness of classic Hollywood star Robert Mitchum, or the gentle vulnerability of
Sylvester Stallone as boxer Rocky Balboa.   
 
My lid looked nothing like this.  
 
First, given that it was a single eye, my whole face appeared lopsided. And while the droop didn’t reach my pupil, which was sure to impede my sight big time, I immediately worried that it could.
 
It’s not like I haven’t treated the skin around my peepers with care.  
 
Starting in my late 20s, I rolled a vitamin E stick around the area every morning and evening, a ritual that lasted
for decades. Thanks to the inevitability of aging, there’s no escaping the wrinkles there now. Getting a good night’s
sleep makes them less visible, but trying to apply the shimmery eye shadows of my youth left that train station
a long time ago.
 
Nonetheless, this droop added a new twist, and not in a good way.
 
After obsessing in the mirror for more than a few minutes, I asked the Hubster to look at my left eye. Then, he was instructed to tell me the difference between that eye and the other.  
 
He wrinkled his brow. “Do you have deeper crow’s feet on that side?” he asked.
 
This wasn’t what I needed to hear. When I pointed out the problem, he said, “So what? We’re old!”
 
Again, not the optimum response. So instead, I went to my laptop.
 
Luckily, Harvard Health Publishing, a division of its famed medical school, had the answers I needed. And, perhaps not surprisingly, there’s not one reason for droopy eyelids, but several. 
 
Take blepharitis, a fancy word for inflammation of the lids which might be from a bacterial infection. A second possibility is ectropion, which causes the muscles of the lower lid to weaken, making the lid sag and turn outward away from the eyeball. As a result, the upper and lower lids can’t meet when the eye is closed. Another culprit is blepharochalais, which occurs when eyelid skin loses its elasticity. Brand new folds then appear, which could hang over lashes and block the upper field of vision.
 
I’ll admit to chuckling when I read that Botox injections can also cause droopy lids. While these shots work well to temporarily smooth brow and forehead wrinkles, the sagging side effect can last up to four months.
 
Eliminating all of the above led to what I likely have. 
 
The official name is ptosis—but really, it’s another indignity of aging.
 
As a physician friend pointed out, gravity always gets us in the end—whether that means breasts pointing down; jiggly upper arms that could star in a Jell-O commercial, or a no-longer-perky rear end.
 
Like the above examples, the muscles in my eyelid are sagging because those muscles have begun to lose the strength they once had. Also, in People of A Certain Age, ptosis is the primary reason for lazy lids.
 
In my case, heredity might also be a factor.
 
As I began researching this piece, I remembered that for as long as I could remember, my father squinted out of one eye. The more I thought about it, I realized this wasn’t the case at all, but rather, a droopy eyelid which got markedly worse with each birthday.
 
By the time my dad passed in his 70s, that lid covered most of his pupil. The procedure done to correct the imperfection never happened, and to my knowledge, he simply accepted that he could only see out of one eye.
 
His younger brother, my Uncle Joe, had not one but two age-related droopy lids. But when they began to mess with his vision at around age 70, he opted for surgery on both lids. Actor Jack Lemmon had the same thing done, and both were left with a permanent but not unpleasant look of surprise afterwards.
 
Thankfully, the repair job isn’t that big of a deal. 
 
According to Harvard Health, it’s performed on an outpatient basis under local or general anesthesia. Also, most health insurers cover the cost, but only if the ptosis affects vision.  When and if that happens, I’ll see a specialist to determine if this is the appropriate next step.
 
To this end, I’ve put the Hubster on notice that if one eye begins to look like I’m winking 24/7, it might be time to step up my game toward surgery.
 
So far, though, so good.  
 
For this, I’m blessed and grateful.  
 
What health issues run in your family that could likely need attention as you age?