​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.

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.