Always on Watch - Canine Edition

It's Sunday, no UPS man, too cold for squirrels. Maybe Mrs. Og will stop by and I can take out her other kneecap with my tail

Wait - I detect movement.

Someone's in the kitchen

Dad's getting Mom's pancake griddle off the shelf!

Uh, did you forget something?

The pancake was good - how is this look to get a piece of bacon too?

Leading Edges

Off to the East were lofty mountains hung with mourning garments of dark clouds. Fog has rolled in off the ocean in the early morning seeking the lofty foothills of the mountains and not winning, the sun, as sailors would say, waiting to eat it up.  The few stars remaining above flicker feebly, soon to lose their dominion over the sky as the sky, land, and sea are inevitably conquered by the sun's arrival. The leading of a cold front was but a whisper of warning on the sky last night, hopefully not to arrive until I was safely back home today.

The hangar is dark, of course, the aircraft I am scheduled to fly is all the way in the back, which requires getting the tug and moving 6 other airplanes first, then putting them back, all without damage.  Easier said than done on 5 hours of sleep. There are no lights on, the hangar, windowless, as dark as a cavern.  Even the eye of God, were He awake this early could not likely see what would be going on in the next 20 minutes, probably for the best given some of the language that came with impunity as wingtips barely cleared one another, million-dollar toys vying for my termination in one form or another. 

My aircraft is not quite so luxurious, it's a small single engine bird used to go pick up parts from another company owned facility in another city to be in the mechanics hands when the shift started.  From the outside it looked nice, but it had a fuel selector on the floor that would occasionally squirt fuel on your shoe on long flights, and on landing on such days you prayed the line service technician didn't light a match near you. Of course, if you wrote it up for maintenance it wouldn't do it again, until you were alone with it.  But I was entrusted with it, and at that age I was still a bit proud of that.  This was not a tycoon's transport; this was a workhorse. Aircraft, like ships, are often referred to as being of the female gender. I however, named this particular craft "Elmer" as if he was an actual horse, he would have been headed for the glue factory.  His mission was to get from point a to point b, coming as close to towering ugly rocks as possible, seeking as if he had a nose, what particular route would have the most turbulence in an otherwise clear sky

 But so far, Elmer had never failed to deliver that pallet of magnetos, brake parts and future burnt offerings, never got lost, and hadn't set me on fire yet.  Starting was optional depending on the temperature and the aircraft's mood.

This morning was no exception. After pulling it out to the flight line Elmer just sat there as if waiting, the door discretely but suspiciously ajar. I hope the last pilot left the charts in there, otherwise I was going to be late.  Nope, no surprises, flight kit was on the floor, minus anything edible that may have been in there and I was off, hopefully. Some proper priming, a mental roll of the dice, a turn of the key, and . . sound of crickets.  Literally, the only thing out in this remote place other than myself and the occasional coyote I tried fixing the instrument panel with a stern glare that carried with it some threat of heinous menace, but the aircraft, like most of the world, just saw red hair in a little ponytail and countered with unfathomable indifference. OK, Try it again, being careful not to flood the carburetor.  Finally, the engine roared with triumphant sound, like a polished military band in some war torn South American country, playing between Revolutions.

Such was a life of a young pilot trying to build hours to get that airline interview. There was no time for anything but university and school, working full time while going to school at night, cut into the free time, to say the least.  I remember waking up in my little studio apartment, cold, and on rough sheets, knowing that watered down big box mart coffee that was probably grown in New Jersey was NOT going to be enough to get my excited about my day. There was no TV, I couldn't afford one, and my car once got a ticket (in jest) from the campus police for "impersonating a motor vehicle".   But I had a goal, and during an occasional rare hour off when I could just sit at the airport and talk to other pilots, it spoke to me 

It spoke in the eyes of a retired Flying Tigers pilot, whose eyes were old, but were as sharp as an eagle, in the animated talk of others who had taken my path, working a multitude of jobs, instructing, flying cancelled bank checks, freight, the best years those of the long summer, when the warmth stayed longer and the cold kept at bay until well into November.  Those were good memories, of stories shared from a sky steeped with stillness or frothed with storms, of lukewarm sandwiches and burning dreams, of sweat and occasional tears.

Now I sit in the warmth of the house, nearly 20,000 hours of flight time in my logbook, three engine failures (one right at rotation in a T-39), two fires, and countless really bad airline crew meals and I don't think about the airline flights, the exotic destinations, the kids who would salute me when they saw me in uniform, back in the day when pilots were not viewed as overpaid bus drivers. No, I think to those early morning flights in that little plane, the chatter of air traffic and periods of seamless silence, climbing up over the coastal mountains; the clear air steeped in a clear stillness of liquid that hushed all sound but for that of the engine and the inaudible sonnet sung by a sunrise.

I think back to that morning, the engine suddenly snorting like a horse (OK, carburetor heat - PULL), the mental image of the tramping of hooves on an open landscape, the horizon wide open as we galloped towards our destination. My trusty stead and I had strengths as elementally different as fire and water, but working together, a cadence of hands and eyes, pistons and pressures, our horizon was limitless. Those flights were brief but the memories, though hazy, remain, like the smoke from a farm field being burned, rising weightless into the bright air, a V-formation of geese providing punctuation to unformed letters of distant contrails. -  Brigid

Today's Range Report - "Cooking with Decaf"

Why I should not cook before caffeinating,  While trying to get the waffle out of the maker (I forgot the non-stick spray), the fork pried it loose, only to have it launch itself with force across the room just as Partner in Grime entered.

EJ: "What just flew past me?!" 

Me: "Luftwaffle."

Men of Letters

It seems as if no one is teaching cursive writing anymore. I look at the letters my Dad sent to me, even more precious now that he's gone. The writing got a little more shaky as he aged. Still, there was the unmistakable detail in the forming of each word, two "o's" that loop like little Slinkies, a "b" that was as bold as the word it formed. In failing to teach that, we will lose something, one more remnant of civilization, of creativity, scrapped in favor of a world of electronic messages.

I rarely text. Perhaps a simple "I'm home" if I don't wish to interrupt Partner in Grime with a phone call at work, but that's pretty much it. When I eat out with friends, they may look up something on the magic elf box or take a picture or two, but we mostly talk; simple and animated human interaction is much missed when we're apart. I watch young people out dining together, and everyone has their heads down constantly texting or surfing the Internet with a look of bovine interest, no one looks at each other, no one talks. They're friends only in that they share a table, eating food they don't fully taste as they type in words discarded with a press of a button.

In the attic at my parent's home was a locker in which were Dad's WWII uniforms, photos, and remembrances.  My brother and I were adopted when Mom and Dad were well into Middle Age. They had a history that went so far before us, yet it was one we wished to learn of as soon as we were old enough to comprehend.

So he and I carefully, and with Dad's permission, went through that locker.  There are so many photos of the Liberator, flying among flack as thick as snowflakes, flying desolate above land whorled with the unreasoned, the craft solitary about the destruction that it would rain. There, underneath the photos, a stack of letters he and my Mom wrote to one another while he was gone for four years, not returning Stateside once in that time. Reading them is almost like eavesdropping, as you can almost hear the words as they formed, heartfelt, intimate. I open one, and there is just that one single page and the thought of the way the day stopped at the brink of it.

There was talk of how much they missed one another, how their families were faring, of good coffee and how Dad missed vegetables from the farm, of burning heat and a cold on the field that would murmur to your very bones. They had been inseparable since sixth grade.  There was playful affection, there was unstated passion and stated promise. Some were in Mom's flowery script, the rest in Dad's meticulous, indomitable hand. "Is everyone there well?" Mom would ask, and Dad would reply they were (though some were now only well beyond Lamentations). "How is the homestead? he would ask, and Mom would reply, "Fine," not telling him that they were occasionally going hungry.

They speak of the future, of their past. They do not speak of the B29's that limped back to England only to crash on approach, their violent end felt through the ground like a vibration rather than heard. They do not speak of her working two jobs after her Dad's death while logging to support two younger brothers and her Mom. So much spoken and unspoken, two mourning doves calling back and forth across an endless summer, all now just held together by a blue silk ribbon.

Not all missives that went back and forth the seas were good news. Just up the road from Mom's, the week after Pearl Harbor, a neighbor stands by the mailbox with a piece of paper not even big enough to start a fire with, the envelop fallen to the ground as bland words exploded one by one, and that families grieving began. There was only the notice; there was nothing to bury, though you don't need a wooden box to capture the form of courage and sacrifice.

How many millions of messages like that went out in old wars, not taking long to read, as there was no real time in it, not in that demarcation between the hope that someone lived and that place where you knew that was no longer true,  that you wished that this moment existed only outside of time. There were only moments in which a written word hung in the air as if hopeful silence had been so long undisturbed it had forgotten its purpose.

I look again at those letters my Dad kept. The actual forming of the letters is uniform, flowing, like words pent up too long; the letters were sixty years old, powdery, and delicate in my hand. But sixty years was just a moment ago for my Dad; something so fierce and encompassing as war always stood out in his memory, no matter how many years distanced him from battle.

In his last years, I got fewer letters from Dad, perhaps one every few months. I've kept them all, some faded with time, a bit frayed around the edges, the words upon them written with clear, flowing script, the stamps carefully placed, the envelopes addressed with precision.

They began when I first moved away from home. No one really had computers then for personal use at college; the phone was the most common source of connection for family. But as computers became second nature, my father continued to write me letters, refusing to learn to use a computer for such a purpose.
Simple letters, simple words.

The letters themselves are not full of particularly sage wisdom or things that might be considered of great depth. They are simply the doings of his day and the memories of his heart. What he planted in the garden, where he went out for lunch after church. A bird he saw on a long drive, a story of that steelhead trout he finally caught under the covered bridge at Grey's River. He wrote to me after he buried someone he loved more than life, words flattened out on paper, like rain, but not lost like rain, streaming out to a valueless torrent of dissolution. His words, though heart-rending, uplifted me, a love not lost through life's unravelings. When I held on to him at her grave while taps played in the distance, his words were engraved on my heart.

They were words that didn't teach, lecture, or portend but words that, on their reading, mattered. For they filled me with elation that in their capturing, those moments would never be lost. Even when my Dad was gone, leaving a few days after his 101st birthday celebration, there would be stories of meals, of moments, of caring and service.

Is that a testament to the power of the word or simply the power of the habit of writing? That which, however mundane, comes to our mind each day. Small, succinct phrases of thought that capture the dots of our lives, connecting us, transcending time or moment. What was in the past is here in my hand now, as if it transcends time, and for just a moment, we are free of the confines of past tense.

He is here with me now in one such letter, with his story of that fine day that could have been seven years ago, or seventy, in words caught and released, a brilliant day, a fighting salmon. A trip to the store or a small prayer over his breakfast shared with me here as if the paper had caught it in time. Our lives are in these moments, gone too quickly, rushing water over our days.
Each of us lives in the present, yet we contain our past, and we can not put our future into words until it, too, becomes our past. Time is an illusion, and death is a transient bend in a long journey that will take its own time. Past, present, future, I'll retain my Dad's stories, his laughter splayed across a small white page as if part of the paper. As I fold it up and place it carefully in my desk drawer to perhaps be opened up again one day, a thought comes unbidden. I realize that what is here, be it thought, emotion or the trivial events of our day that we share, for someone, somewhere, will be the most precious of memory.

I take out an envelope and a small piece of paper, and on it scribe some words. You are the best of men. I love you. I can no longer mail it to him,  but I put it in the envelope and seal it with a small kiss from my lips, the paper resting for a moment like a wafer on my tongue, confession, redemption,

When the generation of texters has departed the earth, who will there be to inherit all those messages, the loves, and losses spelled out there in the abbreviated script that aren't published for the world, intimate moments and messages that were simply sent and discarded?  Will anyone chronicle, the building up of hope or the cold dismissal of it, there upon a word. What remains of them, those words, short scratchings, almost depthless there against old, transparent glass? So many words, so many thoughts floating around the ether, impossible to capture with a faded blue silk ribbon.

How sad to me that there will be no one to physically inherit those stories, and perhaps a story of that one great love, all those words have gone silent as ghosts, vanished into a chill emptiness of electronic space, like sparks of ice.

- Brigid

Snow Bound Breakfast - Sourdough Aebelskivers

 Woke to the first real snow of the season. A good day for aebleskiver (Danish Pancakes). I don't make them often but since Partner in Grime shoveled our walkways and the elderly neighbors', I wanted to surprise him. This is the first time I've made them with sourdough and they turned out better than I had hoped for. But first, a ride in the doggie elevator out to the back yard for some playtime.

If you can find a cast iron aebleskiver pan, get one.

.

Sourdough Aebleskiver (low sodium and regular instructions provided)
In large bowl blend
1 cup milk, replacing 1 teaspoon of milk with apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and let set at room temperature 5 minutes.
1 cup active sourdough starter (mine today was made with whole wheat pastry flour from Bob's Red Mill)
2 eggs (beaten before adding)
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 stick unsalted butter melted and cooled for a couple of minutes before adding.

In another bowl mix:
180 grams unbleached flour (1 ½ cups)
3/4 teaspoon reduced sodium Himalayan Pink Salt
1 Tablespoon Hain Sodium Free Baking powder (or 2 tsp regular b.p.)
3/4 teaspoon EnerG Sodium Free Baking Soda Replacement (or ½ tsp regular baking soda)
Pinch of cardamom

Blend wet and dry ingredients just until mixed, (may be some small lumps).  Heat the Aebleskiver pan until hot (about 10-12 minutes - a drop of water on it should sizzle) and give it a quick spray with non-stick spray (I use an organic Olive Oil one) or brush with a pastry brush with melted butter. Then using a teaspoon, fill the depression to no more than 1/8 inch below the rim.  As soon as the Aebleskivers begin to bubble around the edges, use a wooden skewer, knitting needle, or sharp edge of a knife to flip them over half way, letting the batter slide around to fill in the bottom of the cup. Continue cooking, turning the Aebleskiver again to let the batter fill in the remainder of the sphere and continuing to turn until golden brown all the way around and cooked through.

NOTE: plan on totally murdering two or three before you get it right, have small bucket handy to remove the remains. 

As far as temp, my 80-year-old gas stove has two settings, not warm enough and surface of the sun hot, so I have learned to just adjust between those settings.  For those of you with a modern stove, aim for medium heat, around 325 degrees.    Place in a clean town in a bowl and keep covered to remain warm as you cook the rest.  These freeze well. 

 Serve with powdered sugar, butter, and lingonberries. Or do what my Scandinavian Mom did and put a little piece of apple in the center as it cooks.

Makes about 3 and a half dozen with the pan I have; they freeze really well if placed in a sealed container after cooling completely.

Colt Magnum Carry - A Range Report

Many folks new to handguns consider revolvers "old fashioned" or even not worth looking into.  This may be due to their relativity low ammo capacity and a design that says more Maltese Falcon than The Matrix (like that's a bad thing).  But revolvers were used for serious defensive shooting, chosen above other firearms for a good reason. Back then, the average revolver was more reliable than a standard auto pistol.

Design had changed greatly over the years with respect to autopistols  and their reliability can be as good as the care you give them and the ammo you feed them.  But I can say one thing for a fact.  Even with the best of care, even with the best of ammo, and no "noodle wristing" allowed,  I've had a misfeed in an auto.

So that is something I think of whenver I tuck a revolver in my holster for defense carry.  I've never had a misfeed in a cleaned and cared for revolver. Ever. I wish I had a bigger budget to own more, for they fascinate me, from a function standpoint, from a historical standpoint.  

The Colt Magnum Carry.  It's a model of the Colt  that was only manufactured for one year, through the year 1999. This wasn't too long after Colt discontinued the last of the old "D" frame revolvers with plans to  build on the series.  The planned replacement for the "D" frame, was to be a series of small frame revolvers to replace the old Detective Special and Diamondback types.  Many of you reading here, I'm sure, are familiar with the Detective Special. Detective Specials were a snub nose revolver manufactured by the Colt Company starting in the late 1920's with a shortened barrel and compact frame, typically used by undercover policemen, which explains the name. The guns have been portrayed in many movies, one of my favorites "Reservoir Dogs" and "The Godfather" and on TV shows like "Dragnet" and "The "A-Team.."

And yes, for the Range Report, I wore too much bling,  assumed a modified Weaver, scowled and said "Pity the Fool" as a water (milk?) jug was slain.

The first in the series was the Colt SF-VI or Colt "Small Frame, Six Shot" (a .38 special revolver).  The name was to prevent confusion with the last of the Colt Detective Specials as they were still in the distribution pipeline.  The Colt SF frame was a stainless steel revolver that was essentially a small Colt King Cobra action with the King Cobra's transfer bar safety/ignition system. It was also essentially the same, dimension wise, as the D frame though.  Once all those were through distribution and to their new homes, Colt changed the name to the Cold DS-II, which many revolver buffs called the Detective Special Two.  That was never it's official name, which was simply DS-II.

Along came the  Colt Magnum Carry. This was the SF-VI/DS-II with a somewhat  thicker top strap and chambered in the .357 magnum. The first batch even carried the roll stamp "2nd Edition" on the barrel next to the words "Magnum Carry". Packaging was in a Colt Custom Shop's Box and Serial numbers start with the prefix SYxxxx. It featured fixed sights with frame notch rear, a serrated hammer, a nicely smooth trigger, fluted cylinder for six rounds and a factory Hogue black textured wraparound three finger groove grip that feels like home when you place that hand around it.

One year, just one year, it was available, to be discontinued in 2000 when Colt dropped most of their double action revolvers and .380 autos.

As the design evolved all of the guns were unique  with some similarities, and some differences.  The SF-VI and DS-II have a Colt contracted copy of the Pachmayr "Compac" grip.  (they look like the Pachmayr but don't have the steel liner inside and were made by Vintage Industries for Colt, not the Hogue grip of the Magnum carry.

None of them were big guns but they weren't the firearm equivalent of a Paris Hilton Purse Chihuahua either.. The standard barrel length for all three models was 2 1/8", but there some 3 inch ones floating around, I've heard.  

Range Report. 

Ammo - .357.  Need I say more?  .357 is rightly known for its power and is used in many other Colt revolvers, like my favorite, the Python and Anaconda models.  Like the other Detective models it holds six cartridges unlike the J frames which I believe typically held 5.

The Colt Magnum Carry instruction manual states that the gun can use regular .38 Special ammunition, as well as .38 Special +P and .38 Special +P+ ammunition, (high-velocity cartridges typically only used by law enforcement.) The Colt Magnum Carry may also fire .357 Magnum cartridges. Both were tried, both are dependable.  This firearm is a double-action revolver, so that when you press the trigger, it both cocks and releases the hammer, so you don't have to manually cock the hammer in order to fire.  Nice!

Finish and Frame:  The original Detective Special models had a dull black carbon finish. the Colt Magnum has a bright stainless steel finish with a black rubber grip and three finger mounts. It carried a frame-mounted rebound firing pin and transfer bar as well.  Frankly, this, to me, is just a beautiful firearm, in looks and function.  

Weight:  It's light, stated as 1.31 lb (0.595 kg). That's lighter than the Lawman which leads me to. .

Trigger - Heavy but pretty smooth.  I'd almost bet this one has had a trigger job.  There aren't a lot of gunsmiths that can do a really bang up job on a revolver trigger but they ARE out there and further down, I have included a link for one of them.

Recoil:  Think the slightly heavier Lawman packs some recoil? With .357 it's batten down your bustle and plant your feet in firmly, this baby is going to let you know it means business.  With .38 though,  it's about comparable to the Lawman though and it IS less than the Smith and Wesson Airweight.

Sight - Whoever designed the front sight was a 22 year old with 20/20 vision.  It's a smooth stainless steel blade with not as much contrast as these eyes needed but it was manageable close in. 

Concealed Carry:  The Magnum Carry is easy to conceal, it's not a big gun considering the power. It's sort of a modified "round butt". I was told long ago that rounding increases concealability but to me, it just seems like you'd lose some of the grip dimension you need for solid control of the firearm during rapid fire situations. Still, with just some basic shooting from low ready and defense shots, it was imminently controllable.  It tucked smoothly into a holster as well.

Sight Picture - One thing with snubbies is that when they feel natural in my hand, they shoot just a tad too high. When you get it where you are getting the shot placement you want, it will initially feel like you are "pointed down".  Just something to be aware of.

Overall, I was impressed when I first fired it. This is not a gun for the meek or the broke, but it's an excellent carry gun if you can find one. They are somewhat scarce and prized by some as a "must add" to a well rounded collection.  If you can find one, I'd seriously consider it.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go adjust my bustle.

Steel Plate Magnolias

• I spent the first 20 or so years of my life in the West among cowboys and lumberjacks (and yes, I DO know all the words to the lumberjack song). But after that I ended up living in the South.  I had not planned on it - it just sort of happened when certain events just careened out of control.  I made the best of it as I learned to adapt to an area that was so different, in both culture and landscape, of how I grew up.

The blending of the background of my acquired Scandinavian language patterns of my upbringing was a bit rough ("would y'all like seconds, you betha") but I soon found my niche, mostly through my cooking. For just as Southern women know their elegant gentlemen:

Men in uniform
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler
They also know the three deadly sins.

Having an unkempt home
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food

But even after 10 years there, I never quite became a Southern gal. I never could get the exact GPS coordinates of "yonder" and didn't get a handle on exactly how much catfish, peas and beans made up a "mess of". My gal friends even tried dragging me off to a "beauty salon" ("I thought you said Saloon!!") and forcing me into big hair to have one of those dreaded "glamor shots" portraits taken. (requires enough hairspray to reflect bullets).


Still, although I picked up a slight accent over time, I was a "Northerner", favoring a six shooter and going west to play weekend warrior for my employer. I didn't do my nails, and after "BigHairGate" I got my hair done where I was based as a pilot. Plus, I never could sit all the way through that classic Southern Chick Flick "Steel Magnolias". There's just not any good action in it. Maybe if I rewrote the script.

Shelby: Truvy, you know what you need in here? You need a radio, takes the pressure off of everyone feeling they have to talk so much.

Truvy: I had one once, but we took it out back to blow it up with some with C4. (KABOOM!!!) OK, time's up, time to take those perm rods out.

That's why I don't get to write scripts.

But the cooking skills and recipes I gained down south are some I treasure. Many of the dishes I'd never had growing up. Grits, Frito chili pie, biscuits and gravy, sweet potato pie and the growing lust for a small piece of fried dough known as the Beignet - which, in Home on the Range speak, is "happiness squared." I had it for the first time on a trip to Louisiana, and I never looked at a plain old donut in the same way again.


The word beignet (pronounced beyn-YAY) comes from the early Celtic word bigne meaning "to raise." In French it means "fried dough". They are a distinct New Orleans speciality, a fried, sweet dough, often cooked in cottonseed oil and usually dusted with powdered sugar.

They're sort of the early ancestor of the raised donut and when you hear people in New Orleans say "Goin' fo' coffee an'doughnuts", what they really mean is that they're going out for coffee and a little plate of beignets.


The coffee traditionally paired with them is café au lait. In New Orleans, that is strong dark roast coffee and chicory, served with equal part hot milk. Chicory was originally added to the coffee to stretch short supplies, but it was found to create a richer, smooth brew that is good on its own and works wonderfully with the milk.

I don't know anywhere around here that sells them, so I fry up my own.

click to enlarge

They're a perfect pairing with that morning cup of coffee before a Steel Plate Shoot to give you a little energy. Because this "almost Southern gal" does know the fourth deadly sin.

A really bad grouping.

Merry Christmas from the Johnson Household

To all of you have been here through the last 14 years, watched me mourn the death of my Stepmom, my Dad, my brother and stepbrother, and Barkley - bless you for caring.  For those who have met him and embraced him as family, my husband "Partner in Grime" seldom pictured here, but always around.  A gifted violinist and singer, he graces a local church each Christmas with his music.    

I'm blessed to have him in my life, and when you rinse off all the Hoppes and engineer glitter he cleans up pretty good :-)  Merry Christmas - Love, Brigid

Christmas Memories - Broken Glass

"One day some people came to the master and asked 'How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness, and death?' The master held up a glass and said 'Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'" - Achaan Chah Subato - Theravadan meditation master

 As children, we view the world as if it will always be as it is that day. Mom and Dad will always be there; the dog will live forever. There is little that cannot be fixed by glue, a bandage and Mom's chocolate chip cookies. As we get older, those perceptions sometimes still remain, that we will live happily ever after; we will have children, who will have children, who will have children, the family living forever, in defined order of aging and passing. We go into adulthood believing what is useful for us to believe, or rather what is intolerable for us not to believe.

 After the death of Barkley, we went out to see my Dad, to laugh and remember, much more than the life of a dog. While I was there, I took Dad and my new husband one day up to the cemetery on top of a hill, where we could watch our shadows upon two small graves. My brother did not go; still weary from both chemo and radiation, but helping us prepare flowers to take to those graves. I remember standing there, shafts of sun hitting that small stone, listening to the short song of a bird hidden, who sang four short notes then ceased, as from a distance came the incurious, calm sound of bells.

As my Dad did, I realized long ago, that one must sometimes don that shirt of flame, which we do not have the power to remove but only to bear, without being devoured by the blaze. There is no perfect order, there is no guarantee, but there still is, and always will be beauty. If we didn't learn that, we'd only move without living and grieve without weeping, neither worth the toll they take on that which remains. For myself, I chose now to weep, and, with that, remember. I think again to those beliefs peculiar to childhood, namely those things we believe, simply because we are yet too young not to believe.

The first was Santa Claus. I had my doubts that first year I sat on Santa's lap at the hardware store and he had on black geek glasses. Santa should look like Santa, not a 30-year-old CPA. Still, I kept it quiet, buying Mom's explanation that he was just Santa's stunt double, Santa being busy that day. Certainly, Santa was real, he had to be real. Then there was the Tooth Fairy. Dad still has this little note, written in my handwriting, an affidavit to the Tooth Fairy attesting that indeed I did lose my tooth, but I swallowed it with the piece of apple that pried it loose. It's wrapped around a little plastic box filled with baby teeth. My big brother was a little less subtle. One night, long after I was asleep, Dad was alerted from the bathroom where he was preparing for bed with a "Dad, I caught the Tooth Fairy," and he had Mom by the arm and was tickling her and they were both laughing.

The Easter bunny had just a slight role at Easter, being a tradition to bring sweets to celebrate the gift and the Sacrifice of Jesus, rather than being the reason for the whole holiday. Still, before church, we loved to find the little baskets outside the door, with candy eggs and a chocolate bunny. Until one day, when we got up, and there was no basket. Mom and Dad announced we were too old for the Easter Bunny. Instead, they were taking us on an outing tomorrow! To the State Capital! Yes, children getting to visit a government building instead of a basket of candy! You can only imagine our excitement. On the drive there, we whispered intricate conspiracies from the back seat to get out of this, to no avail, not wanting to hurt our Mom's feelings. So we learned what a rotunda was. Dad finagled a tour at a local brewery on the way back, likely needing a drink after watching our tax dollars in action. Watching the cans getting processed was a whole lot more fun than politicians in suits, and as we drove home, Mom did stop and get us some ice cream, realizing the day hadn't gone as she'd hoped but appreciating that we at least tried.

I think deep down we had known for some time the Easter Bunny was our Mom and Dad. But we were not yet openly willing to admit to another fractured fairy tale. Still, though, our parents let us hold on to the perception that the world was unbroken as long as they could. Some things, though, could not wait until adulthood. One was finding out we were adopted. So many people, then, and even now, ask me about biological parents, and I have no answers for them. But for the reason of the severing of that tie, which is not the concern of the world, neither of us sought to find them, outside the scope of our hurt or their harm, even if we refused to pass judgment for the reasons we ended up where we did. Or perhaps we did pass judgment but were simply unwilling to pronounce sentence.

All I can truly say is my brother and I came into the best possible family. Disciplined, loving, hard-working people that came from nothing by way of material means or privilege and still crafted a life of learning and beauty. Our clothes were handed down, or handmade, our food from the garden, pasture or forest behind the house, our bikes used. But we had everything that was truly important, and that was a deep appreciation for every day, even those marked with illness or imperfection, easily forgotten when we were greeted upon returning home by our Mother's smile and the joyous bark of a dog.

This was the beauty of family, simultaneously fragmented and undefeated, emboldened and afraid, yet still seeing the good in the world around us. So we carry on, my brother and I, as we tell our stories. "Remember when Dad was told to give me the ‘birds and the bees, boys, and girls are different talk’ because Mom was sick? It consisted of a photo of a boy from the Sears catalog in his underwear, a finger pointed to a critical area and the admonishment ‘Don't kick your brother there!’" He would then laugh and remind me of something silly I had done in school, memories that shone in the sunlight on the telling, his laughter still ringing like a touch on glass.

In our stories, we are children and our favorite dog is always with us. We are not just immortal; we are invincible. We will run and run until our bones turn to water, and we fall in a puddle of arms and legs and barking dog, forever joyful. On the wall of the family room is a family tree that my aunt drew out with careful calligraphy, giving us each a copy. I note many branches, some ending abruptly as some died young, some were widowed, some childless, a lifelong bachelor or spinster among them. Now on a branch, which had ended abruptly, is a name, next to mine, something I owe in part to a dog named Barkley.

For Barkley was indeed my family, his story, joining these others, each entwined into a family history of black sheep, white knights, the victors, the vanquished, each carrying with them loves and burdens and more than one four-legged companion with which they shared the journey. Each name, name by name and page by page, will be laid down until inevitably, only one name will remain, for that glass is indeed, inevitably broken. That person will, I hope, capture the names, and whisper the stories that haunt the winds, even if no one is left to hear, but ghosts on the page, with no earthly house in which they wait for us. As I start to weep my brother touches my face, in benediction, in blessing. That is the true beauty which sustains us; that His sacrifice through which the world was saved is re-enacted here in this world every day, in the saving grace of a small imperfect family and the memory of a dog. - Brigid

Looking Back

Our wounds, we wear like temporary garments until they are forgotten, 

but our stories, we don them as forever.

The Book of Barkley

Just What you Need for the Holidays - The Porkinator

Looking for something fairly easy to make during the holiday season of shopping, traffic, and endless advertisements for things you don't need?  The "Porkinator" - Sausage Lasagna in a bun (easily cuts in half or doubles)

Lasagna ingredients (minus pasta you have to cook) in a bun. This was a HUGE hit with my husband, though people will sort of look at it initially and go. . .

What???

But after they taste it. . .

"MMMM   Pork Foodables"

You will need:

1/3 of a jar of store-bought pasta sauce (roughly 1 and 1/4 cups of sauce))
1/2 of a roll of Jimmy Deans SPICY breakfast sausage (sage flavor would also work)
1 heaping teaspoon chopped garlic (fill that puppy up)
4-5 slices (ahem) of chopped bacon

Mmmm. Bacon. 

Cook meat and drain fat:

Stir into sauce and add:
1/2 tsp oregano
3 dashes of Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt (or your favorite mixed salt, I like Jane's as it's low sodium due to the addition of lots of herbs)

Simmer just until it's bubbling.

While the sauce heats up, in a bowl mix:
1 cup grated mozzarella
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan

Set aside about 1/2 cup of that mixture

To remaining shredded cheese add:
1 cup of ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon of egg (white and yolk mixed up and measured out, save rest for breakfast)
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
a pinch of cayenne
Mix well.

Get 4-6 bratwurst rolls or other larger sized sturdy sandwich rolls and scoop out the middle third (save that for meatloaf later), leaving enough at the bottom so that it holds together, like a sub-shaped bread bowl.

Place a big spoonful of meat sauce inside, top with a couple spoonful's of the cheese mixture, leaving a little open space for the sauce to bubble up through. Place in a cooking pan or tray that you've lightly sprayed with non-stick spray.

Cook in preheated 350 F. oven, covered lightly with foil for 20 minutes.

Remove foil, sprinkle with cheese you set aside and bake another 4-6 minutes until cheese on top melts.