Ailantha - Blog

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

SEEING THE OCEANSIDE SIGHTS

...Continued from previous post:
On Thursday, November 17, Tom and I drove an hour and a half south of Los Angeles to Oceanside, California,

...for a few days' visit with my sister Romaine and her partner Stanley.

They were staying at a cute Airbnb near the beach,

...with a lovely yard.

Tom and I slept in the guest room, which opened out to the garden.

Tom and I arrived late in the afternoon and after we settled in we walked down to the beach,

...to watch the sunset.

On the walk back to the house we were treated to that phenomenon that my mother used to call "sky blue-pink."

For dinner Romaine and Stanley took us into downtown Oceanside to a restaurant called The Lab where the ceiling lights looked like molecules.

We sat on the patio.

The food was really good. We started with a charcuterie board to share.

Romaine had the Vegan Coconut and Curry Pasta,

...Stanley had the Steak and Mushroom Pie,

...Tom had the Lab Burger,

...and I had the Philly Cheese Steak.

After dinner we walked to a nearby hotel called The Seabird for some dessert.

We sat in the couch area, but as this opened out to the patio and the night air had turned brisk we were feeling chilly.

However the nice server brought us blankets, which were just the ticket.

After looking at the menu we realized that we were in the bar where no hot drinks were served. The friendly server directed us down the hall to the Piper,

...where we were able to procure some coffee, tea, and caramel bread pudding topped with ice cream.

The following morning we returned to downtown Oceanside,

...for breakfast at an eatery called High/Low.

After breakfast we walked for a bit by the shore.

After we returned to Romaine and Stanley's place Tom and I went for a stroll around the neighborhood.

Along the way we came across an interesting display of porch art,

...with a nice message.

That afternoon Stanley and Romaine took us to the nearby cute little town of Vista,

...where we spent the afternoon strolling the streets.

We passed along the way a love lock sculpture,

...upon which sweethearts symbolically locked in their love for each other.

That evening we once again headed to downtown Oceanside, where we had dinner at a steak and seafood restaurant across from the pier,

...called 333 Pacific,

...from where we had a lovely view of the sunset.

We started with appetizers of calamari (which happens not to be in my gustatory wheelhouse),

...and delicious hummus (which was more to my liking).

For our entrees Romaine had the home made cavatelli,

...Stanley had surf & turf,

...Tom had the meatloaf,

...and I had a burger.

After dinner we walked out onto the pier,

...then around the town for a bit.

Then we headed back home.

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Off To California, Then Hit The Ground Baking

11/27/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

OFF TO CALIFORNIA, THEN HIT THE GROUND BAKING

On Tuesday, November 15, my mate Tom and I flew from Ohio to California to visit our West Coast loved ones.
Our flight involved a layover in Chicago O'Hare airport,

...where we passed what we took to be a sign of the times.

Our first stop was Los Angeles, where we would spend the next day with our daughter, son-in-law, grand daughters and grand pets.

"Can we bake chocolate chip cookies for my school party tomorrow?" my elder granddaughter asked me shortly after I stepped into the house.
"Chocolate chip cookies for school tomorrow?" said I as I parked my suitcase. "Sure."
"And apple pie?" chimed in my younger granddaughter, "and pizza? And chicken on the bone?"
"Cookies tonight, apple pie, pizza, and chicken on the bone tomorrow," I replied.
However, before any of the baking could commence, a preliminary trip around the corner was required,

...to Ralph's, which is situated upon my favorite of all favorite supermarket parking lots,

...thanks to all the palm trees on the premises.
The parking lot looked especially charming in the twilight.

Our provisions acquired, my grand daughter and I set about the task of making the school cookies,

...with help from little sister.

The following day I made an apple pie,

...a couple of pizzas,

...and a pan of oven fried chicken, aka chicken on the bone.

The next day Tom and I left Los Angeles and drove down the California coast to spend a few days with my sister and her partner in Oceanside.

When I returned to L.A. a few days later there would be, by popular request, more pizza, more apple pie, hot rolls,

...and my special popcorn that's made by popping up a bag or two (two is better, it goes so fast) of kettle corn,

...melting white chocolate then drizzling it over the popcorn,

...then drizzling melted milk chocolate over the white chocolate,

...then crushing Oreos,

...and adding them to the popcorn mix.

It's nice to be able to bring along a useful life skill.

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Pass The Microbes

11/25/2022

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It's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm in the balmy South Bay area of Los Angeles, California, where it's seventy four degrees, the sunny skies are clear and cloudless, the sea is a sparkly cerulean blue,

...and I'm sick in bed, laid up, I'm guessing, with the same itinerant microbe that's been making the rounds through my daughter's house, where Tom and I are visiting with our daughter, son-in-law, and grand daughters,

... and where said microbe has been putting the kibosh on our Thanksgiving plans.
My daughter came down sick seven days ago. My husband caught the bug three days ago. And I woke up yesterday, Thanksgiving day, feeling funky, but only medium funky. It wasn't until today that I was hit full force: my head hurts, my face hurts, my teeth hurt, my nose is a running river - make that two running rivers - I'm coughing up a category 2 hurricane, and I'm laden down with that feeling of microbial malaise that drains one's physical will to be a useful, productive human being.
If the test kits we've been running through are to be trusted, it's not COVID, for which we're all grateful, in spite of how lousy we've felt. Frankly, I didn't feel this bad when I had COVID, but then I did take the Paxlovid treatment, which likely KO'd the COVID before it had a chance to get as bad as it might have gotten without the Paxlovid. The Paxlovid, however, made me plenty sick. (See post from 7/17/2022, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/my-corona-or-was-the-cure-worse-than-the-disease-or-paxlovid-mouth).
Still, no matter how how shoddy one feels, somehow it feels better to know it's not COVID.
In any case, this outbreak of not-COVID forced us to cancel Thanksgiving with my son-in-law's parents, who'd invited us to their house for dinner. Even though only half the household was sick so far, there was no use risking that the other half might be in the carrier stage, so we all stayed home.
We had also invited my sister, who's in the San Diego area for a few weeks,

...to come to my daughter's house today for a day-after-Thanksgiving turkey dinner. We had to cancel that dinner, too.
And yet the holiday was not a complete wash. On Thanksgiving morning my daughter assessed that she was feeling about 70% better than she'd been feeling for the past few days. Tom said he was at least 50% better. Me, I was still in the initial throes. My son-in-law and grand daughters felt fine. My daughter suggested that, since we were destined to miss out on our Thanksgiving dinners, we at least get up and schlepp our not-too-sick selves out for brunch at an outdoor venue.
And so we did. We went to nearby Hermosa Beach, which was crowded with folks strolling along the Strand,

...and playing on the beach.

Our destination was an eatery along the Strand called Good Stuff,

...where we had a brief wait for an outdoor table.

Along with the yummy food,

...another draw that makes Good Stuff a popular destination is that poochies are welcome and have their own menu.

After brunch Tom decided that he felt up to cooking the turkey that was going to be for our Friday dinner with my sister.

He also made an apple pie,

...while I rustled together a pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and rolls,

...and we all pitched in with the rest of the preparations.

And so we had our small Thanksgiving dinner,

...for which we were nonetheless exceedingly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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A Stranger In The Goldilocks Zone

11/19/2022

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The U.S. midterm elections are over, the significant results are in, and the significant dust has settled.
We know that the Democrats won the Senate, but by just one seat, or maybe it will be two after the Georgia race is re-run.

And we know that the Republicans won the house, but by just a few seats, though maybe they'll pick up a few more, or maybe the Democrats will, by the time all the final votes are counted.

And, with only the Republican state of Alaska left to call, the final outcome of the governors' races will probably be 24 Democratic governors in this country and 26 Republican governors.

Now, let's suppose that some stranger from a strange land were to suddenly arrive in our strange land and, having been spared the media monsoon of pre- and post-election commotion, commentary, analysis, assessment, judgement, inference, conclusion, and the endless typhoon swirl of chatter, were to look at the results of our midterms.
Supposing nobody told this stranger that the Republicans were the midterm losers because they didn't win big enough or that the Democrats were the midterm winners because they didn't lose big enough?
Suppose this stranger didn't hear any of that barrage of political bombast that we the people are subject to every day per omnia saecula saeculorum?
Supposing the stranger simply looked at the results of our midterm elections? What might they conclude?
They'd probably conclude that this country just had three elections that were so very close that the overall outcome can be deemed a decent compromise for the country: all the citizens who voted must be feeling some disappointment but some satisfaction as well, especially as neither political party crushed or greatly outnumbered the other in votes received. And, there being a fairly equal representation of both Democrats and Republicans in the mix, the stranger would surely conclude that it is now the duty of the elected officials to govern in a spirit of compromise, for here is a country truly in the Goldilocks Zone: not too Red, not too Blue, but just right.

And the stranger would be correct. Now if only our elected officials would get a clue.

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In Heaven THere Are No Hiking Trails

11/13/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

IN HEAVEN THERE ARE NO HIKING TRAILS

Aware that I'm well along the way in my mortal journey, once in a while I find myself pondering that classic existential ditty:
In heaven there is no beer;
That's why we drink it here.
And when we're gone from here
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.
Of course, being a non-drinker I have little interest in whether or not there's beer in heaven or who will be drinking it when I'm gone from here. And so for "beer" I might substitute Diet Coke,

...donuts,

...cherry pie,

...veggie wraps with a side of hot, crispy fries,

...movies,

...pianos,

...long morning walks,

...family vacations,

...Facetime calls,

... or any number of the earthly delights that give life - well, my life, at least - its fizzy effervescence.
In such a direction were my thoughts wandering a couple of weeks ago during a hike with my hubby Tom.

Tom was in training for taking his Boy Scout troop on a campout this weekend to Shawnee Forest in Southern Ohio where they'll have to negotiate several miles of rough, hilly terrain while toting backpacks filled with camping and cooking gear.
So Tom took a couple of practice hikes on local hiking trails, heavily laden,

...with me tagging along, only lightly laden.

Our first hike was on October 31 along a trail in a Columbus park not far from where we live, beautiful Blendon Woods,

...where we were treated to a glorious fall day,

...with occasional splashes of bright color.

It was a fairly easy hike with only a steep hill or two to tackle.

We did our second hike a few days later at Clear Creek Park in Hocking Hills about an hour southeast of Columbus.

The trail we took here was considerably more challenging than Blendon Woods had been.

(That is, at least for me it was challenging. But in the parking lot we met a couple of fit-looking ladies dressed in running gear who informed us that they ran the Fern Trail once a week. They were young enough to be my daughters).
The trail was often steep and sloping and rocky and crossed with tree roots, with the rocks and roots treacherously camouflaged by leaves.

Still, it was a beautiful path.

We did two two loops and a little more, about three miles total. It took us several hours.

And it was at a moment when I was huffing and puffing up some steep slope and kvetching about the rocks and roots underfoot that the "In Heaven" song once again popped into my brain, admonishing me to quit moaning, but to enjoy this trail and every other one I might yet be lucky enough to walk in this life.
It also reminded me of of the card stuck on my refrigerator that my grandmother gave to my mother and my mother to me:

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What I Saw At The Movies

11/9/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

WHAT I SAW AT THE MOVIES

Over the weekend my mate and I went to the movies to see the new Julia Roberts/George Clooney romp.

Despite the gorgeous Bali setting (or faux-Bali setting, as the flick was apparently filmed in Australia),

...not to mention the gorgeous cast members,

...I found "Ticket to Paradise" to be kind of stanky and very inane. It did nada for me, less than nada, provoking not the slightest blip in the thinking part of my brain.
However, what played prior to the movie was a different story.
As always, there was a barrage of ads and promos zipping across the screen before the house lights went down.
There was Maria Menudos, host of the pre-movie show Noovie,

...interviewing an LGBTQ influencer,

...before turning the screen over to a couple of guys commentating on the upcoming release of the new superhero movie "Wakanda Forever."

Noovie was followed by commercials for cars,

....Coca Cola,

...more cars,

...and a variety of goods and services that we, the theater audience, were enticed to buy or buy into by images of attractive, happy-looking folks for whom life seemed good.

After watching a couple of these advertisements - there must have been at least a dozen - I found myself focusing not on the products that were being peddled, but on the magical celluloid world in which the ads were set.
It was a world of racial and ethnic diversity, of people of various skin tones,

...cultures,

...and gender orientations,

...working,

...hanging out,

...and getting along just as natural as can be.

And I thought, I feel no need for any of the stuff they're trying to sell me on the movie screen, but I definitely want to live in the world they're showing me.

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Bye-Bye, Birdie

11/6/2022

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To my readers who follow "Ailantha" on Twitter, I apologize from my heart, but this will be my last blog post on that platform. You can still follow "Ailantha" by going to the website, www.ailantha.com, or you can always find my posts on my Facebook page. Again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
But I'm quitting Twitter. And not because Elon Musk took over, per se,

...but because he no sooner acquired this ubiquitous social media platform than he used it to circulate a mean lie about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
A little over a week ago an unhinged QAnon extremist broke into Pelosi's San Francisco home in the middle of the night looking for Speaker Pelosi to, in his own words, "seriously harm her." He found instead her husband Paul, whose skull he fractured with a hammer.
Right away a lie was made up and posted by a right-wing website, the Santa Monica Observer, which is known for pushing various fabrications and false conspiracy theories. The lie was that 82-year-old Paul Pelosi came home drunk from a gay bar with a male prostitute and was later injured when the two got into a half-naked spat.
But it was Elon Musk who spread that lie along with a link to the website of its origin in a tweet that went viral.

Of course, after his repulsive tweet drew public outrage, Elon Musk, in typical Elon Musk style, deleted the tweet, but only after it had taken wing and flown around the world, was shared and re-tweeted a million times over and reveled in by the likes of Donald Trump Jr.,

...who tweeted a photo of underwear and a hammer with the caption, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”
I honestly don't understand such hard-heartedness in people. If the elderly spouse of a politician I didn't like was attacked and terrorized and had their bones broken with a hammer I wouldn't think it was funny. I'd be horrified. I'd feel sympathy for them and their suffering family.
And yet here's Elon Musk spreading a demeaning lie about Paul Pelosi while the man was undergoing surgery to repair his shattered skull. There's Donald Trump Jr. mocking Mr. Pelosi. Here's the Republican candidate for Governor of Arizona Kari Lake quipping at a campaign rally that, “Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection."

And there's Republican Governor of Virginia Glen Youngkin bantering to a crowd that, “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s husband had a break-in last night in their house, and he was assaulted. There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re gonna send her back to be with him in California. That’s what we’re going to go do.”

I don't understand people like that. Such callousness towards the suffering of others. Such cruelty.
Well, there's nothing I can do about the minds and hearts of those people. But I can quit Twitter.
True, I'm only one of 450 million people who use Twitter, and subtracting one-450-millionth from the sum total may not amount to much difference. But, then again, who knows? In any case, we all do what we can.
Good-bye, Twitter.

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Halloween In The 'Hood

11/1/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

HALLOWEEN IN THE 'HOOD

Halloween festivities in our neighborhood began on the night of Saturday, October 29, with a party hosted by one of our wonderful neighbors to which everybody on the block - that is, every grown-up body on the block - was invited.

It had been decades since I'd been to a Halloween party. I believe that last one I was at was one I threw for my children and their friends.

And so I was quite looking forward to this one.
For my costume I figured that I could get away with wearing one of my old piano recital dresses from back in the day when I used to do piano recitals,

...with a witch's hat.
But as I dragged my feet on seeking out a witch’s hat until Saturday morning – the day of the party and two days before Halloween – the Halloween section at Meijer’s was totally grazed over with only a few straggly items left on clearance, among them not a witch’s hat.
I did manage to find a sheriff’s hat, which I thought would make an oh-so-apropos costume for the Lieutenant Colonel (aka my mate Tom) to wear.

So I decided to top off my recital dress with a colorful scarf and call myself a sorceress.
(I realized, when I saw this picture that was taken of Tom and me, that I didn’t end up looking like a sorceress, but rather like a lady in black with a polka-dot headscarf. Tom, however, made a rather dashing sheriff, I thought).

My costume fail did not, however, keep our neighbors’ Halloween party from being a great success,

…with lots of yummy food provided by our hosts and potluck dishes brought by the guests.

I brought a tray of fresh-from-the oven ham and cheese rolls,

…and a batch of Rice Krispie treats that were supposed to be pumpkins with upside-down mini-Reeses cups for the stems.

My Rice Krispie treats looked as much like pumpkins as I looked like a sorceress.
The party was much enjoyed by all the neighbors and friends who came, many in terrific costumes.

And, though Tom and I left after a couple of hours, we heard the following day that the fun went on until 3 am.

Two nights later Halloween once again brought our neighborhood to life, this time with children.

Mayhaps because our street is the long artery through the heart of a dense housing subdivision off a busy thoroughfare, on Halloween night our street is always parked up with cars that come in from other places for, I suppose, the greener trick-or-treat pastures of our locality.

And in our neighborhood we were ready for our trick-or-treating visitors and welcomed them with open candy baskets.

‘Cause in our neighborhood, that’s the way we roll on Halloween.

Hope everyone’s Halloween was happy!

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Call Jane

10/30/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

CALL JANE

This past Friday I went to see the newly released movie, "Call Jane." Here's my one-sentence review: "Call Jane" is a must-see; go see it.
The thing is, had this terrific movie come out a year or two ago it would have been a compelling period piece. But today its story is not only part of our nation's past, but may be our future, as well.
"Call Jane" is a fictionalized account of a real group of women in Chicago called The Janes - or collectively, Jane - who, from the late 1960's until 1973, ran a sort of underground railroad to bring women in need of an abortion to a safe, competent provider, as opposed to the back-alley butchers, extortionists and sexual predators who had the abortion market cornered before Roe v. Wade.
Elizabeth Banks plays the role of Joy, a perky, affluent 1968 Chicago housewife married to a lawyer and the mother of a teenage daughter.

Though she looks to be well on the other side of forty, Joy is happily pregnant until she has a fainting spell and is diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a life-threatening heart disease brought on by the pregnancy which will worsen as her pregnancy progresses.
However, abortion is illegal in Illinois, and though Joy makes the rounds seeking help to have her case ruled an exception that would allow for the termination of her pregnancy, all the doctors she meets with - all of them men - are either helpless to do anything or unsympathetic: after all, the baby has a good fifty percent chance of survival, even if the statistics are murkier on the the mother's chances.
And so Joy timorously descends into the grimy, dangerous, terrifying underworld of illegal back alley abortions. But along the way she discovers a phone number for someone named "Jane,"

...which turns out to be not one woman, but a group of women, a diverse mix of volunteers, younger, older, some mothers themselves, who secretly shepherd women in need to a safe provider.

But in carrying out their mission the Janes must also dance with the devil. In pre-Roe days the illegal abortion business in Chicago is in the grip of the Mob and anyone involved in that business must pay their due. The Janes also have the heart-wrenching task of dictating, with minimal staff and resources, who they can help and who they have to turn away. There were a number of heart-tugging, tear-inducing scenes in the movie.
But the film was also thought-provoking and revelatory. For me the most eye-opening scenes were those scenes that showed the abortion procedure step-by-step - well, only two steps, actually, dilation and curettage. With a preliminary shot of Novocaine. I couldn't believe how simple the procedure was, twenty minutes from start to finish. It became clear how, back in those days when women were denied abortions in a safe, sterile hospital setting at the hand of a reputable doctor, there were so many opportunists who saw selling and performing amateur abortions as an easy way to make an obscene amount of money from desperate women.
It seemed hard to believe, as "Call Jane" purported, that so many women sought abortions back in the day when they were illegal and frequently deadly. But it's true. After I saw the movie I researched the subject of the Janes and learned that in the years from 1969 to I973 the Janes helped over 11,000 women procure safe abortions. I also learned that, pre-Roe, every large hospital had an abortion sepsis ward to treat botched abortions where women often died.
I expect with abortion now banned in so many states the sepsis wards will be back in business.

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My Fried Green Tomatoes

10/28/2022

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This year my hubby Tom's garden gifted us with oodles of produce. Over the summer and into fall we feasted on home-grown blueberries, corn, green beans, peppers and tomatoes. In fact, Farmer Tom picked the final crop of peppers and tomatoes a few days ago, just ahead of the predicted first frost.
Among the tomatoes were a batch that didn't quite make it to the finish line before the frost. They were still green, but Tom picked them anyway.

Which now left a question to be begged: What does one do with a bowlful of green tomatoes?
I'd heard of such a thing as fried green tomatoes. Or, that is to say, I'd head of a movie called "Fried Green Tomatoes,"

...which, though it may well have been a worthwhile flick, I made a point of not seeing as it looked to me like a down-home schmaltz overdose.
But anyway, as I sat gazing at this bowl of green tomatoes,

...I found myself thinking of that film, the title of which suggested that fried green tomatoes must be an actual thing.
So I looked online and, yep, sure enough, turns out that FGT is an actual thing.

However, the recipes tended to call for smothering the tomatoes in a heavy blanket of flour and breadcrumbs then giving them a hot grease bath.

No thank you, thought I. If I'm going to blow out my cholesterol it's going to have to be for something more worthwhile.

I scrolled around for something to do with green tomatoes that didn't involve deep-frying them. I found green tomato salsa, green tomato relish, green tomato chutney, all of which looked healthy enough. The only problem was, when would we ever eat that stuff? Then I came up with an idea of my own.
I have an terrific recipe for oven-fried eggplant. It's so good, the eggplant slices come out crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, not a bit greasy or mushy, and so tasty that, though one can serve the slices with a side of tomato sauce, they can even stand on their own, unsauced.
(My son Tommy, pictured here with his bride Emily,

... can gobble up a whole plateful of my oven-fried eggplant, just picking up the slices from the plate unadorned and munching on them potato chip-style).

Here's my simply super oven-fried eggplant recipe:

Simply Super Oven-fried Eggplant

Ingredients:
A couple of eggplants
Two eggs beaten with a little water
Bread Crumbs
Olive oil spray
Salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil spray. (Cover the cookie sheet first with aluminum foil if desired for easy clean-up).
Slice the eggplant -unpeeled - into rounds about 3/4" thick. Dip each round into the beaten egg then dredge through the bread crumbs. Place eggplant slices in a single layer on the sprayed cookie sheet. Spray the egg plant with the olive oil spray then sprinkle with salt. Turn each slice over and spray and salt the other side. Place the eggplant in the oven and bake for ten minutes, then flip each slice and bake for another ten minutes. Serve with sauce and a side of spaghetti or eat them Tommy- style.

(That is, just pick them up off the plate and eat them).
Anyway, I decided to try my oven-fried eggplant recipe on the green tomatoes. Thinking that the tomatoes might need a little extra flavor boost, I substituted Lawry's Garlic Salt and onion powder for the salt.

First I sliced the tomatoes.

I tasted one of the tomatoes. It tasted like nothing. Not good, not bad, just...nothing. It occurred to me that it might help to marinate the tomatoes before breading them, just to give them some flavor to start with. I found a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette dressing in the fridge, so I used that.