More cheating- Ol' Green River

Writing about my husband, Pete, the other day and the trials and tribulations of those who wrestle with Demon Rum  brought back a wonderful old Dixieland Jazz song that I can't get out of my head. I wish I could publish the music so you could sing along, but I do not have it so I will simply quote the lyrics and try to give you an idea of the rhythm.   Please remember that this is old fashioned stuff where the lyrics tell a simple story and the melody has.....well melody....many of you young whippersnappers may find it difficult to relate.

I was floating down
    that old Green River
On the good ship Rock and Rye.

But I drifted too far,
   I got stuck on a bar

I was left all alone
  Wishing that I was home......

The ship went down with
     the Captain and Crew
    So there was only
          one thing to do.

I had to drink
 that whole Green River dry
   to get back
       home to yoooooou.


What a hoot! 

I remember vividly the first time I heard Dixieland (or, as I prefer to call it, Classic Jazz.  I was about 10 years old.  My Mother, Dad and I were sitting around the kitchen table with watercolor paints and brushes, adding color to a stack of Christmas cards my Dad had just printed after carving the image into a linoleum block.  (This was one of the few times that Pappy roped me into one of his projects that I was tickled pink to cooperate.)  As was usual in those days, the radio was on and it began to broadcast a show that was entitled "The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street."  The host was Milton Cross, a very respected announcer and commentator of the weekly broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera House.  The program started out very seriously as a spoof of a classical music concert and then the music began and it was glorious jazz with a fantastic little band of consummate musicians and a vocalist who was just getting started named Dinah Shore.

At the first driving phrase my heart pounded, I couldn't breathe and then I couldn't keep my feet from tapping......I was in love.  It was a love affair I never got over.  Almost 40 years later, after I had met Pete, I had the incredible joy of meeting one of the same musicians who had been a regular on that show. His name was Henry "Hot Lips" Levine, by then in his 70's or maybe 80's,  and he was playing with his great little 5 or 6 piece band in a lounge in one of the big hotels in Las Vegas.  Of course he knew Pete and was tickled to see him after many years  so I got a hug and a kiss from this idol of my childhood and had the chance to sit and eavesdrop while they schmoozed about the good old days.  What a double hoot.

I must be honest and confess that, even though I am faily well adjusted to this technological age, every now and then I wish for the days when you could turn on your radio and listen to the The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Fibber McGee and Molly and......Basin Street Chamber Music.

The drawing above is barely related to anything else on this page, but what  the hell.........it is sort of related to music.  It comes from my previous life as an Artist and while I often still do these scribbles for my own amusement or to celebrate some occasion in a friend's life I do not do it often enough. Perhaps the Blog will get me back to my roots and I can begin leading a double life for your entertainment.

Random Images - a cheating Blog...more pictures than words....

This is one of my favorite roses a gorgeous thing called Sonrisa,,,,,the gang at Disney sent it to me when Pete died because they knew my heart would heal at the sight of a beautiful rose.  That was 24 years ago and this magnificent bush has been pampering my heart ever since with profuse buds of love.

Below is a photo of my two precious Russian Blues....Minnie and Moe.....no longer with me but never forgotten.  When the litter was born I threatened to name them Eeny, Meeny, Minnie and Moe and I carried through on the last part of the threat.

                                                                 

(Oh, I wish I knew how to control the placing of this text around photos.)     To the left is a poor shot of my beloved Gussie, Senior Cat and affectionately referred as Gabby...(sometimes called "Oh,  shut up will you, for the love of God.")  It is Gussie for whom I immerse my hands up to the elbows  in bloody beef liver each week as I apportion out the 3 pounds just purchased into daily rations for freezing and strip the skin the butchers so unkindly leave on the product when they cut it up for sale.  While doing this I never fail to think of the many bloggers whom I follow who have delicate stomachs and are constantly going "eeeeewwwh" and "yuk" and "ugh" in response to things which I may have once considered a bit icky, but which no longer have the power to faze me. 

And last but not least is a shot of my garden with a smidgeon of my glorious swimming pool and two of my dear mourning doves who come daily for their ration of birdseed and chatting with their friends.  Please forgive the evidence of bird seed shells along the tile coping.  When I tell people that I am fortunate beyond belief to live in paradise they sometimes look askance at me, but, believe me, my darlings, I have been around and I know what's what and I am telling you ................if this ain't heaven it'll have to do....

until the real thing comes along. 

 (apologies to the song of similar lyrics)

Blogger Guilt....Big Expose...Bloggers Cheat

Oh, hell........it is tax time and I must get my fanny over to the dining room table, spread out my graph paper, check book and spread sheets and begin the wretched process of discovering how expensive it is to keep this old carcase going.

That means I probably will not have a chance to publish a blog today and I am ashamed and riddled with guilt.....also dreadfully deprived because I have become addicted to pouring out huge hunks of my inner self for your amusement and edification).  I am ashamed because I feel that any well organized (ha....that's not me) and well meaning  (that's  me) blogger should be able to have a few blogs in the frig waiting to be thrown into a gap like this.  And I don't.  Oh, yes, I have a few drafts in process and a few filed away with just fragments of ideas that I intend to blog about but nothing I can simply toss into the breach to feed the growing (thank you God) multitude of my precious blog-hungry followers.

So I got this here idea while catching up on some of the wonderful blogs I follow....the realization that Bloggers can be Cheaters.  I come across many of my favorite  blogs with only a photo or a paragraph as the offering of the day.  I guess there is no written Blog-Rule that says "Entry must be 200 words or more, preferably punctuated with photos and containing a minimum of two (2) LOL's.  That is my own conscience and Jewish Guilt talking.

So without another word of apology, this is my Blog for the day. Before you judge me harshly think of this poor little'ol' white haired lady, hunched over a rat's nest of crumpled, tear stained papers, scratching out numbers in columns and having to add at least 38,570 individual entries to come up with her medical deductions for the year 2009.  No, I am not  that infirm....that is what it takes to KEEP me from being that infirm.

I promise I will be back as soon as possible, and I will toss in some kind of abbreviated Cheating entry each day till my ordeal is over.  Meanwhile, sate your appetite and slake your thirst by visiting some of my blogger buddies.......their stuff is actually better than mine.....some days anyway.

I luv you all.

Wench, Back to the Kitchen....

OK...enough immersion in the Family history for a bit.....I suspect our appetites for more Blumenthal mishigoss are sated for the moment so I will return to another subject nearly as close to my heart.....Food, Glorious Food.

I just finished cooking up the most delectable corned beef, not so much for St Patrick's Day as in loving memory of my late husband, Jazz Cornetist Pete Daily.  Pete was very damned Irish....born Thaman Pierce Daily.....with a devilish Irish grin, deep set eyes like black olives and a black forelock that fell adorably over his forehead not to mention a ton of the proverbial Irish charm.  How he ended up with this plump Jewish Mother type is a long story and one so amazing as to be hard to believe, but that is for another blog.  For now, back to corned beef.

Pete and I were an unlikely pair in many ways, but one of the things we had in common, besides  a passionate devotion to Chicago jazz, was a love of sports so we often had our dinner by the dim light of the TV watching baseball (Pete's favorite...he had been a fantastic young pitcher and was on his way to join the St. Louis Cardinals Farm team when the train stopped at a place where the circus was in town ..... Pete wandered over to listen to the circus band and ended up giving up his baseball career to join the circus band.....typical hard nosed business acumen).  We watched any sport available (not hockey, thank heaven...can't tolerate hockey) Basketball, football even Soccer sometimes, but I digress.

Getting back to corned beef.....sort of.......there is no use trying to sugarcoat a bitter pill......the truth is that Pete was an Alcoholic.  During the time that we were together he was on the wagon for much of the time except for certain relapses, and the first time corned beef entered our lives was during one of these dismal backslides.  I was working at Capitol Records at the time and Pete was home recovering from a broken hip.  He could get around fairly well with either his walker or crutches so I gave him a task one St. Patrick's Day.  I had bought a gorgeous corned beef and I put it in the pot with some cabbage, all the lovely pickling spices and a prodigous amount of water.  "All you have to do", I told him before I left for work,"is turn on the burner at 4 pm and when it boils up turn it down to a simmer and put on the lid.  It should be perfect when I get home at 6".  And off I went went innocent as a babe. 

When I arrived home at 6 and opened the front door my heart sank into my boots and I galloped into the kitchen to see if it was still there.....the kitchen that is.  The upper 6 inches of the house was already swirling with black smoke so I grabbed all the potholders I owned and pulled the pot off of the stove and into the sink.  After numerous cold water baths I was able to lift the lid and upon peering into the pot saw our dinner, a four by four inch lump of charcoal.  There was absolutely no sign of the cabbage.   I checked through the house for Pete but he was noticeably not there and I guessed that Demon Rum had somehow tempted him out between the lighting of the fire under the pot and my fortunate arrival. Sigh.  Never mind......only the corned beef and cabbage died so no use getting your knickers in a twist, as they say.

The following St. Pat's Day I was home, having taken a leave of absence from work to nurse Pete back to health after surgery to remove the pins from his broken hip and I was determined there would be no more charcoal on the menu.  I was going to handle this myself....no more fuck-ups, thank you.  Into the cauldron went the gorgeous slab of corned beef, the pickling spices, bounteous amounts of water and then I went to the frig for the cabbage.  Hell and damnation.......all I had was a head of red cabbage....no white.  Well, why should that matter I thought....red cabbage tastes just like white cabbage to me.......pink corned beef and red cabbage......why not be flamboyant and use it. Into the pot it went in neat quarters and the burner was flipped on.  We would have our feast watching basketball or something athletic.  When the water boiled I turned it down to a simmer, popped on the lid and occupied myself with something else till the alarm went off telling me it was time to dish up the delectables.  I lifted the lid of the pot and ......merciful heavens, faith and begorrah, fuck, piss, shit (thank you Dorothy) what the hell was that in the pot?  I had put in beautiful pink corned beef and lovely red cabbage.  While my back was turned someone had sneaked in and substituted a pot full of bright royal blue meat of some unknown variety and a similar colored ugly vegetable never before seen by human eyes.  It slowly dawned on me that boiled red cabbage must be what the Persians use to dye their yarn royal blue for their oriental carpets........Who knew?

When my wildly beating heart settled down to a small roar I gingerly shaved of a slice of meat and a bit of cabbage and decided to sacrifice myself for the good of science.  After nibbling fearfully I found that if I kept my eyes shut it tasted pretty damned good....almost like the real thing.....and I was really hungry......and a tightwad like me couldn't even contemplate wasting perfectly edible (?) food, could I?  So, I bravely dished up two brimming platefuls, carried them into the TV room, turned out all the lights and Pete and I watched some game or other and devoured our blue corned beef and cabbage with as much gusto as if it had been real food, never daring to allow our eyes to stray to the contents of the plates till not a morsel of blue remained. 

Afterward all Pete and I could talk about was what kind of veggie I could I have used to turn the potful a more appropriate bright Kelly Green.  I decided it wasn't worth it to try.

More Family Memories- Uncle Harry

These photos are of Uncle Harry Bloomingdale (Blumenthal) the second oldest son of the family.  One shows him with the patriarch, Louis, his father. (at least I think that is Harry...hope I am right cause there is no one to correct me if I am wrong.) (If I am wrong, it might be Uncle Barney.....I don't think it looks like Uncle William who was not as handsome and whose facial bone structure was quite different. )     

I don't know if you can tell that I am going crazy trying to fit this text properly around the photos......I  have never yet gotten the hang of doing this right, dammit, so please forgive these weird page arrangements.                                                                                                                  

The lovely lady is his wife, Essie.   As I have mentioned before, in an earlier blog, when Uncle Harry went north to New Bedford, Mass. he changed his name from Blumenthal to Bloomingdale.  I must assume that it wasn't anti-semitism on his part as much as a fear of possible negative sentiment up in New England, and in order to make his way more comfortably in the commercial world he made the switch. In the same vein he also married

Essie, a Gentile, (yes, a Goy) but no shame to him......she was a wonderful woman and a fine addition to the family. 

They never had children, but their household was enhanced by a niece of Essie's named Flora Pearce who lived with them to the end of their long lives.  Flora was a gentle soul who loved birds and nature and, late in life was active in the New Bedford Community in those areas,  I corresponded with Flora for years after Harry and Esie were gone and I seem to recall that she told me that a Nature Walk in the area had been named after her.  When they came to visit she was always with them....they treated her like their daughter and so did we.

Uncle Harry opened a very successful Department Store in New Bedford called Bloomingdales.  I do not think that the current "Bloomie's" came from that store, but who knows.  He may have been the most successful of the brothers and was quite wealthy, enough so that he was able to buy or build a vacation home on Horseneck Bay which was his pride and joy.  Sadly, an enormous hurricane in the 30's or 40's totally destroyed the house and nearly did Uncle Harry in too.  No, he wasn't there when it happened, but the loss of Horseneck broke his heart and he was never quite the same afterward.  I have many photos of Aunt Jen, Mamie and my Mother which were shot, I believe,when they visited him and were taken to Horseneck.  I will try to locate them and publish a few because they were so evocative of the romantic style of the period.  Uncle Harry was also quite a photographer and had a darkroom and did all kinds of inventive things with his photos.

However, the most awesome story involving Uncle Harry, Essie and Flora came from much later when Harry was in his 80's and very ill and infirm and his wonderful women not only rose to the occasion, but almost surpassed the Blumenthal quality of sacrificing for Love.  At this point in time all of Harry's wealth was gone.  The three of them lived in the same house/mansion in New Bedford that they had occupied for most of their lives, but it was a very meager existence.  Harry, at this point, was quite portly, but could not walk. The only bathroom in the large house was up a long flight of stairs on the 2nd floor where the bedrooms were so there was little use in relocating him to a bed or couch on the first floor.  Consequently, each day the two women would somehow carry him on their backs, up the stairs to the bedroom and back down next morning so he could spend the day with them.  I  have no idea how they managed this incredible feat since both of them were very spare and had never done manual labor, but manage they did for I don't know how many years till Harry died.  Wow.

After that they kept each other company, both incredibly hunched over from their labors, till Essie was well into her 90's I believe.  And remained remarkable, resourceful and awe-inspiring.  I remember calling one winter and talking to Flora who told me that Aunt Essie couldn't come to the phone right now as she was up on the ladder hanging the winter drapes to keep the house warmer, or outside shovelling the snow off the walkway or something extreme.

I visited them once in the 60's when I was sent to a seminar  in Boston from one of my Computer jobs, and I had the time on the weekend to catch a bus to New Bedford.  For years I had heard about the grand old house from my Mother and knew some of it from old photographs and I was thrilled to have the chance to see it.  It did not disappoint except to break my heart at the signs of poverty where there had once been opulence.  I took them a new little table radio because I had heaard that their had recently died and that they missed it.  They, in turn, treated me to a wonderful lunch from Kentucky Fried Chicken and we had the most wonderful visit.  I still tear up and get a lump when I remember Aunt Essie saying wistfully, " Oh, Edna." and when I gently said, "No, I am Lois." she was miffed and said, "Oh, I know that, I was just remembering your wonderful Mother."   Sob, sniffle.

Sigh!   What a family!


                                                                   

The Family Saga Continues....the Kapnek Branch

Of all my Grandma's brothers and sisters the most memorable was Aunt Jenny partly because she was so constantly There and partly because she was such an incredibly amazing person........strong, brave, dependable, loving and giving beyond descrription.  When my Great Grandparents, Louis and Sarah were aging and fading she took it upon herself to steer the family ship and even row the boat herself if necessary. 

 I think she was already married to Uncle Bill and had one son, Bud ,when it became necessary for her (or someone) to step into the role of Family Guardian and Benefactor.  Out of the seven children she was the only one willing to make the effort and the sacrifice.  In fact, she had already made another sacrifice prior to her marriage.  It is no secret that there were two Kapnek brothers who courted her......one was the elder, Jimmy, who had gone off to South Africa to make his fortune and had, indeed, done just that.  He was the first to make his proposal but she realized that accepting Jimmy would mean  abandoning the family and relocating to South Africa.  I do not know if she was tempted by the new vista or horrified by it, but the idea of leaving the family was out of the question so she turned down the chance for riches and adventure and opened the way for Bill to make his case, and so they married and Jimmy retreated back to his diamond  mines and plantations or whatever.   Uncle Bill was an entrepreneur who never quite hit the big time and though relatively comfortable Aunt Jen never had the experience of being filthy rich and it was probably just as well....she was much too down-to-earth to have played the other role successfully.  Her true calling was as Earth Mother and Caregiver and that she did superbly, not just for the needy parents but for all the members of the family.  She was the mighty oak under which everyone sought and found protection and comfort and, sadly, she received little visible thanks for it.  I think the older folks, though grateful, came to take her for granted and the younger members chided her for being a martyr and  were critical of her constant self-sacrifice.  I started a blog some time ago about her and the situation in which she found herself and one day soon I hope to finish it and publish it.  I call it "In Defense of Martyrs" and I not only defend my dear Aunt Jen, but my sainted Mamma as well.  The fact is, the world needs martyrs like them if martyrs they were.  My contention is that, finding themselves boxed into  relatively unfulfilling situations, they made the best of things by deriving their pleasure from helping the people they loved.....that will be developed and expanded at a later date.

For now, to round off my Kapnek expose I will publish a bunch of photos.......I do not have too many but what I have will have to do.  Sorry kids.

The pic on the left is Uncle Bill and oldest son, Bertram (Buddy) at that same fake beach we all know.  I love this picture...Bud looks like he is about to be eaten by a lion, at the very least. 





The pic on the right shows Bud and Lew all grown up, and Lew's wife, Barrie with Uncle Bill and Aunt Jen.

.

This next one is of the expanded family including my Grandma and Aunt Mary. Left to right back row, Uncle Bill, Bud holding daughter, Debra, Aunt Mary, Aunt Jen. Front row, Lew's wife, Barrie, my Grandma Mamie, Bud's wife, Bibbie (Betty) holding oldest son, Bobbie (Rob) and middle son, Bruce in the foreground.

Below we have the Bud and Bib Kapnek youngsters......Rob, the eldest, Bruce,  and Debra the baby.  To the right are Bruce and Bobby.  In a lower shot Bib is holding Rob (I think) and  Bud is definitely holding Rob....Bud was one of the "lucky"  (?) guys to be drafted first in the 2nd World War but he was really lucky in being sent to a base in northern California for the entire duration.  The photo shows him in uniform with Rob...who was still "Bobby" then.                 

   

  

So there you have it.....my beloved Aunt Jenny and her precious bunch. To say I love them madly would be silly...mere words are not powerful enough.

                                                                              

Lois Submerged - Waterlogged But Alive

OK, OK, I know..... in my previous blogs about my adventures in Panama I promised to tell the tale of how my Father attempted to teach me to swim and I always try to keep my promises.  Sadly, I have been unable to find a single photo of the episode of my life as a fish, but I will try to draw an accurate picture with words alone.  However, before I launch into my expose I really must explain a bit about the personal dynamics between my Father and me lest I come off as being the world's worst wimp or, worse yet, the world's most monstrous masochist.

As I have mentioned before, my Father was a brilliant, talented  but very immature and unstable person and I think I knew it even before I emerged from the womb.  Consequently while other infants were busy filling their days with guzzling milk and pooping and testing out various screams, roars and bellows to find out how to best get their way I was wrestling with the problem of how to deal with Pappy without becoming the first infanticide victim on Christian Street.  My Father had no time for children in general (they couldn't pay their way, they couldn't held an intelligent conversation, were totally useless at Bridge and the worst part was that this infant that had moved into the house and threatened to trap him in a boring middle class existence was not even a BOY.)  

I think I always knew that my prime mission in life was to NOT irritate Pappy.  I am sure I did my share of bellowing and screaming initially, but I am told I was really quite restrained for the first few years.  Then when I was about 2 there was the defining incident when Pappy told me to do something which was, to me, totally unacceptable and I remember vividly that I drew myself up, stamped my little foot and shouted, "NO".  There suddenly appeared at my eye level an enraged purple face with veins throbbing at the temples and eyes bulging from their sockets, and a strangled voice hissed,  " If you ever say no to me again  I will kill you."    And  I knew then and there that I had to adjust my approach.  After all, my Mother, with all the good intentions in the world, try as she might,  could not be expected to protect me every moment of the day and nite.  Obviously the wise path would be to never intentionally irritate this dangerous madman again. And you must remember that we lived with my grandparents so the welfare of 3 other people was also contingent on my executing flawlessly my effort to become invisible and non-irritating.  This worked fairly well for the next 14 or so years (until I learned to type and suddenly was seen as a useful commodity).  Unfortunately, the plan had a huge flaw in that one could not always tell what in the hell would set the wild guy off and consequently there would be unexpected explosions, fireworks and demolitions which would cause us to rush madly through the rubble for cover and send me  back to the drawing board to try to refine the methodology of Not Irritating Pappy.

So......when we confronted this gorgeous Olympic size free swimming pool in the Clubhouse in the Canal Zone and my Father proclaimed that he would teach me to swim I groaned inwardly but knew that I would have to cooperate while finding some way to avoid ending up stretched out lifeless and blue at the side of the pool with everyone gathered around staring down at my waterlogged corpse.  I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this, but I was brave and confident in my ingenuity and my ability to absorb an enormous amout of psychological  punishment before giving up the ghost.

My Father and I  proceeded into the shallow end of the pool , my Mother, (who could not swim) with a watchful eye and some uneasiness took a seat in the stands.  For about 2 minutes my Father demonstrated the art of holding on to the side of the pool and kicking one's legs forcefully and suggested I copy his actions, which I did with great vigor and many misgivings.  Then he showed me the proper method of stroking with one's arms as he paddled across the shallows.  Next he seized me by the waist and ordered me to put the 2 lessons together while he supported my body horizontally in the water.  I managed that part fairly well considering I was stiff with terror already. 

Next, feeling that I had had sufficient instruction and practice he ordered me to swim whereupon I naturally sank like a stone and rebounded off the bottom spluttering.  My father was frowning, but it was not a dangerous frown...yet....it was the ruminating frown.  "This is not working", he muttered.  I have another idea......I will teach you to dive and you will learn to swim in the process."  Whereupon we adjourned to the side of the pool at about the 4 foot depth level and I was told to bend at the waist, arms outstretched, and to fall gently into the water.  Yeah, sure.  There is no "gently" in a belly flop and that was all I could manage.  This process continued for 10 or 15 minutes with me totally unable to "relax and fall gently"  into the pool but at least I could touch bottom with my feet and climb the ladder to the take off point each time.....tummy smarting a bit from all the flops but still breathing  on my own.  Finally, I bgan to get a bit tired and unknowingly relaxed and accidentally did it right.  And promptly went straight to the bottom head first in a perfect dive and bonked my head on the floor of the pool with a dreadful thunk.

 "Aha", he exulted, "you've got it.....but this is too dangerous in the shallow end.....let's have you dive off the diving board in deeper water."   "But", I protested feebly,  "I can't swim".  "Never mind that", he responded.  "You will probably learn along the way and in the meantime I will be there waiting and will grab you  by the bathing suit straps and pull you up if you don't pop up on your own."   I was still seeing stars, but dutifully shlepped to the diving board, leaned over, stretched out the arms, said  desperate prayer and fell in with the most exquisite of belly flops ever executed.   True to his word, as I flailed around under water Pappy found me and pulled me up to the surface.  "Let's try that again" he said......."I think we are getting somewhere."

I will not prolong the agony for you and force you to experience with me the subsequent 4, 327 belly flops from the diving board as the afternoon continued without success.  At this point I was praying a different prayer.  "Oh, Lord, please take me now !"  There were still a few hours of daylight and I was really, really tired and smarting mightily.  Then a miracle happened.  No, I did not properly execute a dive off the diving board.........this ain't the movies.  My Father got bored.  "That's enough for today", he said brightly.  "We'll try this again next weekend." 

Ah, reprieved !  I would live to see another day and so on the following blessed day I signed up with the swimming coach, Mr. Greiser, for his class on learning to swim.  By Wednesday I was graduating from the class with honors, leaping into the deep end of the pool and swimming across and back, arms flailing and feet kicking...not the prettiest stroke in the world, but no longer sinking like  a stone......By George, I could swim!
Nothing could stop me now.