Unchanging Change

So much for the pinkie swear of writing more often. However the intentions were very good as I see in my computer file that I have notes from being at the Rodney Street Laundry on April 29th. Seems like that was just last week that I was intent on writing and ready to go but, alas, that didn’t happen. On my behalf and for my behalf, we did have our biggest fundraiser of the year at the Myrna Loy Center a mere two weeks ago so there was the work ahead of time and the recuperation afterward –it was a wine tasting after all and very successful for the wines, tasters, auctioneer, and the MLC till and programs. Now I’m back at the computer and the Laundry and raring to go.

Meanwhile, since I last wrote, the Legislature came back for a special session, rallied, passed the budget, and the Republicans fired Rep. Lange as the top House Republican dude, more for having a clandestine meeting ahead of the special session than for his tirade. In addition, Spring peaked from around the clouds and then slid back in a game of hide and seek. In the 80’s, toasty with a clear blue sky one week, lots of rain in the city and snow in the mountains the next. The lilacs kept their enrapturing scent throughout, the apple blossoms on my tree came and then were swept away by a storm’s wind. Today though is a gorgeous one with plenty of sunshine and warm air.

I talk about the weather more here in Helena than any place I’ve lived, maybe because there is more variety, actual seasons for example. Or because my love life is dormant so instead I have more time to consider other drama like weather systems. But always Weather has been close to my mind. Starting with my great-grandmother Sally Geers Sandusky who thought all weathermen were liars. I dated a boy in college who was studying meteorology. When she met him and found out his major, she promptly said, “Why do you want to be a liar?” Her view was rather reasonable as she was born before the Weather Service came into being and I’d guess that they had a steep learning curve but unwavering confidence. The combination of which would lead to overly somber forecasts that weren’t realized or sunny ones that were rained out, all given with the certainty of an overly-zealous new field of experts. Mammaw, as we called our great-grandmother, used to watch tornados rip through her flat West Texas landscape and be the last into the storm cellar so she knew storms, skies, warnings and masquerades. She’d also spent a lifetime leaning into the everyday West Texas wind which makes Chicago’s classification as the Windy City seem like a dog’s mild panting (though really the Windy City isn’t named for actual wind but blowhard politicians). In order to stand upright, she’d had to plant her feet solidly on the ground with a little flex in the knees for the gusts. Weather was no lofty science.

Another thing about the talk of weather is that wherever I have lived, people say a similar verse, “If you don’t like the weather here in Ama-ril-ah (or College Station or Tulsa or Dallas or Chicago…) just wait a while and it will change.” The speaker would always localize the change but really, weather is universally changing. However, I don’t know if this saying is pronounced in Honolulu, St. Martens, or Mozambique.

I think that Mammaw died before the advent of the Weather Channel on television. Its presence would have been quite a stretch for her. I am however taken with watching it especially listening to the local forecasts. First, the announcer always says it like he’s here, “tonight we’ll have lows in the 30’s.” Then there are the descriptions, one day “very cold” dipping to “bitter cold.” Missing however as the temperature dives to sub-zero extremes is the classification “unfuckingbelievable cold.” Then there are predictions like, “chance of rain and a rumble of thunder.” I don’t know about you but I don’t remember a thunderstorm with just one rumble of thunder. But for all the wording, I do love seeing the map of the US of A and how my weather is moving east out to friends in Chicago and onto my brother in New York City, even if it does morph into something else by the time it gets there. And in the bitter-ass cold of winter, I can see that Dilia in Phoenix is having a nice time of it until summer when the blazing sun creates extreme weather down her way. But it’s a dry heat. The last thing about the Weather Channel that I’ll mention is my theory of how they audition reporters for hurricane season which, by the way, starts in June. They give the would-be reporter a script, microphone, and then train a firehose on them and see if they can stand up. Mammaw would have passed the test with her withstanding-the-force-of-wind experience but then she would have been a liar and she was nothing if not a straight shooter.

The rains have brought forth a huge harvest of the only crop that is in my yard…unless you count the wormy apples. Rhubarb. Without my help this green, leafy plant sprouts and spreads out of the ground and when cut back, still returns about three more times with the suspicious and mysterious red stalks that couple with strawberries to make a good pie (pronounced “pah”). The Joy of Cooking goes to great lengths to clarify that rhubarb is not a fruit even though its pie is in the fruit pie section of the cookbook. Not mineral or vegetable either. Though my earliest years were in the Dakotas and Montana where rhubarb is plentiful, other places we lived it was not so we were much more likely to have cherry or pumpkin or apple pie (Mrs. Smith does not make a frozen rhubarb pie) so rhubarb was a relatively unknown entity. But when I moved into my house here, my friends Annie and Barb identified for me the rhubarb plant. It looked more like what I remember the Summer Squash plant to look like when my brother Paul and I were sent out to hoe the vegetable garden in our side yard. Our dad spent his early years on a farm and I guess he thought we should be using that soil for something. Mostly it would offer up tons of cucumbers that made their way into sweet “bread & butter” pickles. The smell of vinegar on pickling day held a certain fondness as my father seemed to tackle the cucumber transformation as a feat of engineering: an efficient, orderly production line with a satisfying end-product. He had the added benefit of having the soured & sweetened harvest on ham sandwiches the rest of the year…there were that many cucumbers. I think I'll stick with my one rhubarb plant.

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As you may be able to tell, I don’t really know where these posts will go once I start writing. Today I was going to write about the DOC as you can see on the back of the t-shirt of Kim Drew, one of the new co-owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop. This DOC stands for Delivery of Chow, a play on the DOC (Department of Corrections) across the street. But I’ll ponder that another day. The DOC t-shirt and chow scenes in the pictures were taken at the Rodney Street Laundry & Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen Open House on May 5th. The BBQ beef brisket sandwich was mighty fine and the signature potato salad delish. It was another bright sunny day!

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One final note, there are some new comments on the last two posts. I added them from excerpts of email people sent me. So please check those out. Also, if you can’t figure out how to add a comment, send it to me and I’ll add it under anonymous unless you want me to add your name. I won’t add your email comments unless you give me permission. It can be short, quick, off-the-cuff, irreverent, insightful, humorous or pointless. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be shy. Also, please share the blog site with others. The more readers, the more interesting the comments.

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For those that have asked:
604 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
Oh, now to 603 days…