Brenda's big adventure

One of our regular contributors was unusually silent last week, but we didn't mind because she was in Venice studying Italian and seeing the sights.

Here is Brenda Ware Jones' report:

"I had truly a great week with three great friends from my Monday-night Italian class.

Our hostess was Daniela, a former art-history professor who now teaches Italian language/cooking/culture classes, and lets her students come live in her house on the Lido island. The four of us had a wonderful time, learned more than we'll ever remember, and drank gallons of prosecco (the light sparkling wine made in Venice.)"

Daniela taught us many drop-dead-delicious Venetian recipes, hauled us around and gave us detailed insights on the artwork at the Correr, Accademia, and Palazzo Ducale, and...point of the whole trip...made us speak Italian for hours! A highlight was seeing the opera Il Barbiere di Seviglia at the grandly-restored Teatro La Fenice.

Thanks for that contribution, Brenda; take us with you next time!

Happy Birthday to two of our contributors

A very happy birthday to two of this blog's most treasured contributors/commenters.

In Detroit, we have Elizabeth Kaplan Applebaum:

And in Jackson, Mississippi, we have Brenda Ware Jones:

Don't they look YOUNG?? Happy Birthday you two!

A different kind of grief?

My mother knew how much my friend Brenda Ware Jones loved her horse Buffy. Brenda has sent me what she wrote when Buffy died. If anyone will understand the depth of feeling Brenda had about her horse, it will be Ellen Walther Sousa, who contributed an anecdote about her horses earlier in this blog. Pic above is of Brenda (in front) and me riding in Hyde Park a few years ago.

Brenda writes:

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince/ and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." Hamlet, V.ii. 370-371)

Today my beloved sorrel Quarter horse, Buffy, is being euthanized, by my order. It is time. He is old and arthritic, and far past his jumping and galloping days. He cannot always get himself up when he lies down. I have cried, but I can have no real hesitation; his comfort and end of suffering must trump my selfish desire to keep him alive forever.

I bought him for my daughter Elizabeth, as her eighth birthday present, in 1992. (Who was I trying to kid? He was my eighth birthday present, 26 years late!) His AQHA registry papers say "Bonanza Buff", and it never occurred to us to change his name. "Buffy" just seemed to suit him; he was certainly no vampire -slayer, but he served as a "buffer" between us and our fears. If we were timid about jumping a higher jump, he'd take us over it nimbly (unless he judged it too high, whereupon he’d simply stop politely in front of it.) Maybe he didn’t jump gracefully enough to win a ribbon every time, but always safely, and afterwards he'd snort softly and look back, as if to say, "Was that okay? Can we quit now? Got any carrots on you?"

He was a big horse, but never a very bold one. Any pasture-mate, even the smallest Shetland pony, could easily steal his feed. Buffy would back away, content to starve, rather than fight for what was his simple due. He was not an "alpha male," by any means.

But, oh, how we loved our boy! I certainly had no business buying him on impulse, fourteen years ago. But the minute I locked eyes with that lovely fellow, the minute I sat on his long, strong back, I knew that we belonged together. We still do. If there's any kind of Heaven, Lizzy and I will see him there one day. We'll throw our legs over him, bareback, grab hold of his beautiful honey-hued mane, and canter over the hills and far away, over field, hedge, fence, and stream. We’ll have no fear. And he’ll have no pain.

I'll be with him when the sodium pentobarbitol relaxes him into easeful Death, I think. If I can remember to, I’ll quote from Isaiah as I lie upon his sweaty , sweet smelling shoulder, waiting for his honest heart to stop:

"They...shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

By the time you read this, Buffy will be gone. And I'll be so very blue. But so, so thankful for the happy time I got to spend with a truly fine, truly kind horse. Thank you all for enduring my bathetic ramblings. One last thought, from A.E. Housman:

"With rue my heart is laden/For golden friends I had"

Never take the first item or put your fingers in cookie dough

My childhood friend Brenda Ware Jones just sent me this anecdote about my mother. I didn't even realize this was unusual behaviour until now because I always assumed that no one in the world would ever take the first item on the grocery shelf, but the one behind it. I taught my daughter this from a young age, and she never takes the first item. I am assuming she will also teach my future grandchildren this important lesson as well.

Brenda writes:

"I was just talking to my daughter, and she said to tell you she's so sorry. She just barely remembers Laura, but she does remember a funny story you told her one time. She said you said that your mom always taught you to NEVER get the first box of cereal or first can of soup, etc., on the grocery shelf because some dirty people(or bad men) might have handled it, and you'd get their germs. That is SUCH A MEEMERS thing! No wonder she was horrified when she saw me put my fingers in the cookie dough when we used to bake cookies after school."

When my mother saw Brenda put her fingers in cookie dough, she told her what a bad habit this was and led to germ spreading then monitored Brenda for years afterwards. "Have you put your fingers in the dough?" she would ask suspiciously before biting into a cookie we'd baked.

"Of course not," Brenda would lie.

Thirty years later and Mom was completely bedridden in a nursing home but whenever I'd go to see her, she'd ask about all my old school friends then wonder whether Brenda still put her fingers in cookie dough.