There’s something about holiday baking that makes the season seem brighter.
 
Maybe that’s why I whipped up more goodies than usual this month.
 
I began with my favorite snowballs, also known as Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes. It really doesn’t matter what one calls them, since they’re all irresistible balls of butter and flour dipped in a liberal amount of powdered sugar. Next was traditional shortbread, but rather than taking out my usual rectangular cutter, I chose another road. Instead, I used a cookie cutter shaped like a Christmas tree, and then, after finding a recipe for simple gingerbread man icing, decided frosting was in order.
 
There was a slight glitch here.
 
I couldn’t find my green and red food coloring, so made do with neon blue. But since we also celebrate the Festival of Lights around here, they became Hanukkah bush cookies.
 
Then came my most ambitious project.
 
We were having a guest for a Hanukkah night dinner, so besides the customary latkes, applesauce and sour cream on the table, I went all in with a three-layer candy cane cake for dessert. I haven’t made this since we moved to Oregon over three years ago and while assembling the ingredients, remembered why: it’s pretty labor intensive.
 
But the cake came out perfectly. Plus, having found itsy-bitsy pieces of red-and-white peppermint candy in the bulk aisles at WinCo eliminated one huge step. So, rather than having to carefully remove cellophane from individual candy canes and then hammering them with a meat pounder, these pieces were ready to go, and only needed to be folded into the batter and cream cheese frosting.  
 
Then came Christmas dinner pie.
 
My choice here was a grasshopper pie, as pictured in full color in Betty Crocker’s Pie and Pastry Cookbook, circa 1968. The creamy filling comes from nearly three dozen large marshmallows melted on low heat in a bit of milk, and placed in the refrigerator to thicken. Whipped cream from scratch is added, and along with crème de menthe and white crème de cacao, the sweetness of the marshmallows was nicely tempered.  
 
By now, I’d located my green food coloring, so added a few drops to the filling, giving it the desired mint green hue. Pouring the mix into a dark chocolate crust I’d baked earlier, this was an image to linger on.
 
I wasn’t finished yet.
 
For the last few Decembers, the Hubster has been jonesing for the chocolate drop cookies his mother made every Christmas when he was growing up in Ohio. While I love nearly all things chocolate, this flavored cookie has never appealed to me (Oreo Double Stuff is the exception).
 
But this year, my spouse did more than wax poetic about these cookies—he researched where the recipe might be; found it, and then sent me the link to it.
 
I knew then that I had to make them.
 
And so, I did.
 
Like snowballs, they weren’t hard to put together, and I topped them with royal icing, which consists of a lot of powdered sugar and a bit of milk to achieve the desired consistency. One recipe yielded over three dozen cookies, and the batch was quite festive after being adorned with red, green and blue sprinkles. Some of these treats will be gifted to the Hubster’s farmer friends, one who works at a creamery and another who supplies us with our weekly carton of fresh eggs.
 
One other thing made this year’s baking feel extra special.
 
When I decided to shape the shortbread into Christmas trees, I took out the identical white plastic cookie cutter that my mother used for hers so long ago.
 
The cutter has to be at least 50 years old and probably cost a nickel. Also, the handle had broken off a few decades back, but I’d never been able to throw it away.
 
This was A Very Good Decision, because the cutter was still quite useable.
 
But something more important and unexpected happened.
 
This simple act made me feel closer to my mom, who passed 30 years ago this coming year. She was quite the baker and I imagine she was closely watching me step-by-step, guiding me so that I’d get these treats down pat.
 
Thank you for that cutter, Mom.   
 
And now, here’s to 2023—a brand spanking new year of adventures, memories and of course, recipes.
 
Here’s wishing that every single one turns out exactly the way we’re hoping they will.   

It’s time for some wiggle room at Girl Clown Dancing.
 
Here’s what I mean.  
 
While I have no intention of ending this blog, I’m taking a step back from my self-imposed schedule of delivering one essay per month.
 
Loyal GCD fans know I’ve been performing in this circus ring for a while—to be exact, seven years and six months. Indeed, after publishing my first blog in February of 2015, I made a vow to download two original pieces every month. I maintained this schedule for more than a few years and sometimes, a third essay got into the rubric. Doing so was a way to keep my writing polished; let my creative juices flow, and give those thinking of hiring me a chance to see how I mesh words and ideas together.
 
More than a few years went by, and then I realized that having to post twice per month was just something I didn’t feel like doing anymore. So, I switched to one blog per month, which worked.
 
The new deadline was great. And then, it wasn’t.
 
In fact, I was starting to dread having to come up with a different idea every three weeks or so, since I never allowed myself to wait until the last few days of the month to start writing. Given that I’m a perfectionist, I didn’t want to
post anything slapdash. I still feel this way.
 
But more and more, I shuddered at the thought of having to look for one more idea and then making myself write
​about it.
 
So, for now, a pause.
 
I might post next month. Then again, I might not. I’m proud to call myself an alphabet wrangler and word collector—that’s not going away, and I don’t expect that this description of who I am ever will.  
 
In the meantime, I intend to repost some of my most popular blogs from time to time. There are plenty of folks who never saw those, and to this end, I have more than 100 original essays to choose from.
 
Until then, happy trails. 
 
One more thing.
 
I promise that we’ll meet again on this platform. I just don’t know when.     
 

Our vacation in Seattle didn’t go as planned.
 
If you’ve guessed that this had nothing to do with anything on my end, you’re right.  
 
That’s because I prepare, and often over-prepare, for trips that last more than a day. Years ago, I had a boss in Hollywood who literally packed her suitcase for the Cannes Film Festival in the back seat of a car while being driven to the airport. She laughed about it, but I swore that I was never going to be anything like her.
 
Indeed, I’m prone to making detailed packing lists, which include hair ties, mint tea and exactly how many pairs of underwear to roll up in my large duffel bag. There’s also triple checking my wallet to ensure I have the right identification to board a plane. These days, my COVID vaccination card comes along, too.     
 
But before doing any of this, I needed to confirm that my best friend and another dear friend, who both live in the Seattle area, were going to be around.  
 
In fact, hanging with them was the reason for this destination.
 
That’s because I hadn’t seen either of them for a very long time—one when I got married 17 years ago, and the other in over a decade. Taking in the sights of Seattle was going to be fun, but really, just the cherry on the cake.  
 
Both said yes.
 
That meant the Hubster could now buy plane tickets. Also, I could scout for an Airbnb. Since I’d planned to spend a lot of time with my best friend, I booked one near her place. We couldn’t stay with her because her house is undergoing massive renovations, but I wasn’t worried.
 
I expected the accommodations to work out.
 
In fact, I was especially pleased with my host’s excellent communication, who confirmed availability in the affirmative less than 30 seconds after I emailed her to see if her listing was open. That should have been a warning, but I was
so happy to find a townhouse close to my best friend—and at an amazing price of $50 per night—that I ignored my
gut instinct.   
 
The first snag happened a few days before our non-refundable flight.
 
My best friend told me someone close to her had attended a super-spreader event. Despite being vaccinated and taking precautions, he now had COVID.  By week’s end, she had the virus as well, and was feeling so rotten that she had to be taken to a hospital emergency room in the middle of the night.
 
I did get to see her, because we took an Uber from the airport to her house to pick up her mini-van, which she had generously offered us during our time in the area. 
 
But we couldn’t hug, and only spoke briefly through our N-95 masks. We had been planning to have dinner that night and in a few days, go sailing at a nearby lake. Neither was going to happen now.  
 
The next stop was the Airbnb. 
 
In some ways, the description was accurate: we dropped our bags in a light-filled bedroom in a townhouse. But sitting in cheap canvas chairs on the balcony, we watched termites as they plainly came out of the woodwork. Also, while the amenities were pretty much as advertised, I was taken aback by an inch-sized cigarette hole burned into one of the bed sheets. A few other things: the place was lick-and-promise clean, but the carpet was deeply stained; the stairs were much steeper than pictured, and the neighborhood was a hard-scrabble one.
 
Still, our smiling host stopped in every day, although she never stayed long. We assumed this place generated extra income because she didn’t seem to live there, and also had a long-term tenant in another bedroom. When I saw the light of the big TV on in the living room in the middle of the night, I figured the renter liked late-night viewing. 
 
We spent the next few days in Seattle, and this part was terrific.  
 
The weather was picture perfect—blue skies with puffy clouds and temperatures in the low 80s. First on our list was the Museum of History and Industry, better known as MOHAI and adjacent to a large marina. This proved to be a perfect starting point, because it was here we learned about the history of Seattle, including early industries that included logging and fishing. I also enjoyed MOHAI’s take on the 1961 World’s Fair, which was held in Seattle, and both of us loved the touring Ansel Adams exhibit.
 
Later that day, we headed to the elegant Smith Tower, Seattle’s first skyscraper and for decades, the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. An upscale bar and restaurant are on the 35th floor, and after a gourmet snack, we walked around the open-air viewing deck for a clear, 360-degree view of Seattle.
 
The next day was a visit to Volunteer Park, home of a stunning historical greenhouse and botanical garden that we strolled end-to-end. Beautifully maintained multi-million-dollar homes in this area sit on streets shaded by mature trees, giving the location an aura of tradition and gentility. We also ventured to the very crowded Pike Public Market, founded in 1907 and one of the oldest and largest continuously operating public markets in the United States.  Across the street, we had lunch at Maiz, a hole-in-the-wall tortilleria where I had the best beef tacos in my life.
 
But I was especially looking forward to our next day.
 
We were going to get up early and grab a ferry to Vashon Island, a 20-minute ride away from Seattle. This place is also where my other dear friend lives.
 
But upon returning from the Public Market, I got a text. 
 
My friend had gone to a large gathering the night before, where she had hugged and talked and interacted with many people she hadn’t seen in months. Now, she reported, many of those friends were feeling sick and testing positive for COVID. Even though she was negative, did we want to take the chance? 
 
Given our age and other health considerations, the answer was no. 
 
We spent our last few days doing unscheduled stuff, including a trip back to Volunteer Park where the Asian Art Museum is located. That was wonderful, but I would have preferred to see my Vashon friend. We also found a terrific Thai restaurant near our Airbnb, and had a relaxing picnic in a nearby park.
 
Before heading out for breakfast on our last and final day, our Airbnb host showed up. We found out then that we had been staying in her bedroom, and that it was she who had been coming in every night to watch TV before falling asleep on the couch. We also realized she was pregnant. 
 
That’s when I decided that while I could never stay there again, I couldn’t write a negative review.
 
As a friend who also hosts for Airbnb in another city wrote me, “I think a pregnant woman working two jobs and giving up her bedroom for $50 a night really needs the money.” So, instead, I focused on the cost of the townhouse.
 
Now that I’ve had time to think about our time in Seattle, it wasn’t awful.  It just wasn’t what we had planned. 
 
To this end, we turned a lemony vacation into lemonade. And for that, I’m grateful.
 
Have you ever taken a holiday that took an unexpected turn, either for good or bad?  I look forward to your comments!
 

​I saw we were running low on Kitchen Bouquet a few weeks ago.
 
Since no home cook worth his or her salt should ever have the bad luck to run out of this, I immediately had the Hubster add it to our weekly grocery list.
 
For those thinking that this Girl Clown erupts into a wailing hissy fit unless there’s a vase of flowers on display that I must see while cooking, let me enlighten you.
 
Kitchen Bouquet is a sauce that makes nearly every red meat-based stew, gravy, sauce and soup taste way better. It can also be added to baked beans, pork dishes and even crumbled tofu. More potent than mere salt or pepper, the entrees I use this bottled tastiness in include shepherd’s pie, onion pot roast and beef vegetable soup.
 
It's important to note here that some folks think that Kitchen Bouquet doesn’t much enhance the taste of any given dish.  Instead, they’re of the mind that its rich brown color tricks our brains into believing that food tastes better with a few shakes. 
 
I disagree in the strongest of terms.
 
While eating experiences are absolutely tied to color as well as smell and taste, I know I’m right since I’ve tasted my entrees just before adding Kitchen Bouquet and then immediately after. There’s a definite and zesty upgrade in flavor.  
 
I knew nothing of this magic elixir until the Hubster and I got married.  
 
Even then, my spouse had never heard of Kitchen Bouquet until his early 30s, when he worked as a newbie salesman for a corporate food company. When a straight-faced nutritionist informed him that Kitchen Bouquet was what professional cooks use to dab behind their ears to prevent them from tearing up while chopping onions, he had no reason—at least not at first—not to believe it.   
 
On my end, my mom was a good cook who never became a great one because she worked with a tight budget. As a result, she might have thought Kitchen Bouquet was a luxury item—way too fancy schmancy for our family. Or, it could also be that the sauce simply wasn’t on her radar.
 
But my mother was wrong about Kitchen Bouquet being only for the luxe among us.
 
The four-ounce bottle we buy costs four dollars, and lasts me a good half year and often longer. This is because the sauce is condensed; hence, one or two teaspoons does the trick when it comes to reaching the desired flavor and color. So, crunching the numbers, Kitchen Bouquet costs mere pennies per use.
 
I thought there wouldn’t be a lot of information about the history and uses for Kitchen Bouquet online, but I was wrong. 
 
Culling facts from half a dozen sites, it turns out this unique product was invented neither by a chef nor a butcher, but was instead formulated by a European candy maker named K.G. Tournades. This all began about 140 years ago, when Tournades started experimenting with ways to make caramels. But, despite the fact that his end game might have been wanting a produce a new confectionery, somewhere along the way Tournades took a hard turn and created a savory gravy. Nonetheless, Kitchen Bouquet’s primary ingredient, although not at all sugary in taste, is caramel color. 
 
Water and a sweet vegetable profile that includes carrots, parsnips and turnips rank number two and three. Kitchen Bouquet is also kosher, gluten free and vegan. But don’t think it’s that natural: the bottle’s yellow label proclaims that Kitchen Bouquet is “Produced with Genetic Engineering.”
 
Here are more facts.
 
According to The Clorox Company, which bought the brand in 1971, the original concoction is one of the company’s oldest items, and the only confidential asset, in the Clorox Archive. Indeed, the Kitchen Bouquet recipe is handwritten on an index card which had been glued to a wall in Tournades’ kitchen. Also, that card is still attached to its wooden siding. 
 
While the product hasn’t changed all that much since originally written down, the marketing has.
 
For instance, a Kitchen Bouquet leaflet from 1923 was geared toward the busy, modern woman who had just won the right to vote, with the promise that one needn’t spend hours preparing a meal to make it taste great. Then, in post-World War II, a 1949 pamphlet was distributed to young wives that featured tips on how to make inexpensive cuts of meat “taste like a million!”
 
New ways to cook in the 1980s also benefited from Kitchen Bouquet. One cookbook of this era advised that brushing a mixture of the sauce and egg onto raw meats before placing them in a crockpot or microwave made for a rich brown coating—much like how the dish would look if it had been seared on the stovetop or heated slowly in an oven.
 
Being a researcher at heart, it was fun to discover all of this background, as well as finding new recipes. Even though I use Kitchen Bouquet a couple of times per month, this is stuff I’d never known about before.
 
But here’s what I do know: no kitchen is complete without it.
 

I had the pleasure of serving on a grand jury this past spring.  
 
For those who don’t know how this commitment works, here’s a rundown.
 
At least here in Southern Oregon, potential jurors are first sent a letter via snail mail, which states the time period required for duty. In our county, this duration is just two months, with one weekly meeting in the afternoon that lasts about four hours.   
 
I filled out and returned the detached postcard, which was required but probably not followed up on.
 
Then, since there are close to 90,000 residents in our area, I forgot about it, figuring any further correspondence was slim at best.
 
So, I was surprised and excited to receive a second notice a few weeks later  stating I’d been selected for duty. Later,
I learned that getting picked is luck of the draw, since all names are randomly pulled from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles.
 
The second notice gave a date, time and place to meet for orientation about a week later. Thirty-two of us gathered at eight o’clock on a cold Monday morning near the courthouse, where we were briefed on the history of grand juries;
the importance of being a part of this service, and the fact that we’d receive $20 for the first two times we appeared, and $25 per meeting after that.
 
We are also told that all of the cases we’d hear had felony charges attached, and that we’d be privy to an underbelly of persons and criminal acts that hardly ever made the news.
 
Then, standing up together and raising our right hands, we recited an oath of service. Finally, we were given
our assignments.
 
I was chosen as an alternate.
 
This was deeply disappointing because I’d been looking forward to taking a bigger part in the process.  
 
To hopefully remedy this, I patiently waited to speak to the scheduler after the meeting.
 
Face-to-face with just this one person, I told her I’d be happy to pinch hit at any time, even with no notice. This willingness also meant that instead of being in only one group of eight jurors, I’d potentially get the chance to interact with every one of the three groups.
 
As it turned out, that’s what happened, and I ended up coming in nearly as often as those whose instructions were to show up every week. Once, I was called three days in a row.
 
Another note for clarity: unlike traditional jury duty, grand jurors don’t vote on a defendant’s guilt or innocence.
 
Rather, we only had one job to do: to determine if there was enough evidence in each case to see that case move forward to trial. 
 
My notes had to be left behind. But, a few things continue to stay with me.
 
One, every grand juror took every case seriously. 
 
At any given meeting, there were half a dozen to 10 cases to vote on, all summarized by the district attorney handling that particular case. Sitting in front of us in a conference room, this DA laid out the facts, and then, mostly in person but sometimes via Facetime or Zoom, interviewed the victim or victims, witnesses and law enforcement who had been called to the crime scene. We were always encouraged to ask questions after the presentations.  
 
In about 99 percent of the cases I was on, the grand jurors voted to move the crime forward. 
 
There were an inordinate number of DUIs, which is how I found out that per capita, my county has the most drunk driving incidents in the entire United States. There were also many victims threatened at gunpoint—Oregon allows the open carrying of handguns or long guns for those 18 or over, except for felons and in a few other cases—most of whom knew the alleged perpetrator.
 
Making and selling methamphetamine is also big business here, and some of those weapons charges appeared to overlap with illegal drug shenanigans.
 
Two, we heard at least one domestic abuse case every time I reported for duty.
 
All involved girlfriends who had mostly been strangled; one woke up to her boyfriend’s hands on her neck. She had known him since elementary school. Another was a woman instructed to get into her partner’s car for a ride to a sketchy part of town, so that crime had an extra charge of kidnapping. Many of the victims were teary; had to be coaxed to speak louder, and swore they should have known better.
 
I hoped they might make better choices next time.
 
A couple of cases have stuck in my craw.
 
The first was a DUI that left an experienced motorcyclist with permanent and severe injuries. That victim had signaled and was about to make a left turn into a convenience store, but was then hit head-on at a high rate of speed by a heavily intoxicated driver.
 
The latter was so drunk that a multitude of beer cans flew out of his car on impact. Unrepentant, he told officers he drank every day and got drunk every day. This case was also what’s called a secret indictment, meaning the perpetrator is currently a fugitive.
 
The crash had occurred a year earlier by the time we met the victim. He could walk, but it was really a slow shuffle, and he was propped up with a head-to-toe walker and his grown daughter helping. He had no memory of the accident, waking up in the hospital the next day minus an eye. He will never be able to work again.
 
Because the injuries were so egregious and the perp so carefree, the grand jury asked to add charges. We were able to do so and if this drunk driver is ever caught and tried, he’ll face a dozen additional years behind bars.
 
That felt good.
 
The other case involved a brave eight-year-old girl I’ll call H.
 
Both parents work long hours and last summer, she and her siblings were sent to stay with a grandmother during the day. That woman lived in an apartment complex that boasted a large courtyard, and it was here that H spent a lot of time playing with other children. One afternoon, a tenant approached H, telling her that he had noticed her toy monkey had gotten dirty. 
 
The middle-aged man was happy, he told H, to wash the toy for her if she came up to his place.
 
H was informed by a playmate that the man was “creepy” and that she shouldn’t go with him.  But, H did.  After putting the toy in soapy water, he took her to his bedroom and had the little girl lie down, then lifted H’s top up and began blowing on her stomach. He then asked H about men’s private parts.
 
At that point, H ran, closing the man’s apartment door behind her. However, she didn’t tell anyone about the encounter until a few months later, when she blurted out what had happened to a parent.  
 
H’s story was then reported to the police almost immediately, and with a specially trained social worker in a quiet setting meant to put her at ease, she was interviewed. H was shy and withdrawn—something her parents said H had never been before the incident. Still, she recalled many details of the man’s apartment, including where the bed and television were, as well as the different types of sports equipment in his bedroom closet.
 
By the time law enforcement got involved, the perp had relocated a few times. When he was found months later, he begrudgingly agreed to an interview. Confronted with H’s detailed account, he was arrested and in custody when we were presented with the case.
 
H was more than courageous. 

​Her willingness to tell her story has likely saved other children from this alleged pedophile, who I can only hope will be sentenced to a very long time in prison.
 
I was sad when my grand jury duty ended last month. 
 
In a small way, I’ve helped my adopted community, and that’s A Very Good Feeling.
 
While the county DA can’t call me again for two years, I can get a notice to serve on a federal grand jury one town over.
 
I’m ready. 

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.