A Cautionary Tale by Jane

The Western Shore, a Cautionary Tale
by Jane



Once upon a time, there was a man who discovered a beautiful beach.

He decided to walk along the shore and enjoy nature's beauty.
He removed his shoes, the better to traverse the sandy water's edge.

And at first, all went well. The soft sand felt warm on his toes.

Which way shall I go? he wondered. Finally he struck a northerly path.

He noticed many others happily playing on the shore.

The waves lap...lap...lapped on the sand.

It was lovely and peaceful.




The man walked far. The sun lowered on the horizon.

He decided it was time to retrace his steps.
He paused to take one last look over the vast expanse of water,
and then...

and then...

he heard a faint sucking noise.

He tried to turn and flee from the noise, but it held him in
its grip, paralyzing his efforts...

Frantic, he looked down...

down...

down...

down to his feet.

But they were gone!!

No matter how he struggled, how valiantly he fought, he could not get free
of the warm and sucking sand.

Soon his right foot disappeared from sight.

And the man was left with just his left foot. (And a stump.)

Being a positive person he reckoned, This is not too bad. I can always hop.


But even as these thoughts were being thought, The Cannibal Sands
claimed his right foot as well.


And that's the story of the man they call Stumpy.

And the tide goes relentlessly on, seeking new victims.

Please share this story as a warning to others.

You never know who might be next.

The Summer of Our Content

I'm writing this from the Library Lounge in the Renaissance Syracuse Hotel
in New York.

How did you happen to be there, you ask as you scratch your head.
You live in Michigan, Happyville to be precise. How came you to be so far from
hearth and home?

I had the great good fortune to fall in love with, and subsequently marry a man whose career
involves a certain amount of travel during the warmer months. This is one of those trips. And I was invited along. It meant six days and five nights of peace and escapism.

I'm big on escapism. And so here I am in New York.

I am surrounded by opulence of a sort, if you're impressed by over-sized club chairs
that gather you in their soft leatheriness and whisper relaxing nothings in your ear; and plush earth-toned carpet lined with bookshelves. Who wouldn't want to write in this place?

One other patron slaving away on a laptop--otherwise, it's just me and a discreetly hovering
bartender, watching but not watching, in case I should suddenly find my muse
dried up and in need of that next vodka and cranberry.

No household tasks, no children, no worries, no cares,
NO TELEPHONE.

As a teenaged American girl, our rotary dial phone was practically an
appendage. I had that thing sticking up against the side of my head constantly.
I'm not sure why or when it changed, but I despise the thing now.
I cannot stand talking on the phone. What a time-waster. I could be perfecting my Solitaire skills or winning copious amounts of make-belive cash in online Jeopardy, where my every answer is applauded by a studio audience.

I'd much rather e-mail or drive the distance it takes to have a conversation in person.
Of course, the phone, especially the cell type, is very, very practical and useful.
But...once I'm at home for the evening, I tend to guard my time jealously, and I
hate to share it with some little appliance, as if it's the boss of me or something.

At their advanced ages, my kids still fly toward the land line when it shrills, but I
refuse to be its slave. When I keep sitting and let it just ring repeatedly, they look at
me as if I've taken one too many punches to the head.

I guess I've learned that short of a national emergency in which President Obama
desperately needs my unique and skewed point of view on the nation's current problems
(one of my current fantasies, btw) it'll keep.

We have an answering machine, after all.
I fully doubt that any incoming call could be that important that it couldn't keep until
morning, or whenever I feel like checking the voice mail.

This, however, is a long way away from Syracuse. We arrived Wednesday and will
be leaving on Sunday, breaking our journey in Pennsylvania somewhere.

But until then, I have almost every day free to...well, do anything I please.
True, I have no transportation, but I am a resourceful person and don't need wheels
to amuse myself. There's a great little bistro within even my walking distance for
sustenance that I frequent so my nourishment is taken care of.
What else could any girl want?

Just give me free WiFi and I'm happy as a clam.

When's the last time you had several hours to surf, research, or just play on
your computer, with no distractions to pull you away?
See, to me that is heaven. That may not hold true for you. (If not, you're strange and I
don't understand you.)

And reading.

Accompanying me on this trip are many magazines, books, and
reams and reams of paper on which I printed out all those things that I didn't have time
to investigate further in my real world. This is vastly different from JaneWorld,
in which investigating further is a high priority and must be pursued right then and there.
In JaneWorld, reading rates bigger than baseball, the Pope's fractured wrist, and the disposition
of Michael Jackson's will.

(I see I'm terribly off-task, as they say of first-graders. Back to the subject, my girl.)

So I'm here in Syracuse. What I want to post about, however, is

How I Spent This July Fourth Holiday, by Jane.

My husband and I managed to eke out several days to travel to my favorite place
in the state of Michigan: the Leelanau Peninsula.
It borders Little Traverse Bay and is lush, hilly vineyard country.
We had been there last year over the Fourth, and were lucky enough to score


a room at a wonderful bed and breakfast this year that was so lovely that I don't know
how it's managed to escape attention of the Mongol hordes, but I fervently
hope it continues flying under the radar so we can keep it as our own secret.

I am posting a few pictures (I took millions over the weekend) but will not
tell you the name of the inn for obvious national security reasons. If you can recognize
the place by the photographs, you truly deserve to know about this nirvana,
and I will gladly alternate weekends with you.

But only if you enjoy many flower beds planted in the English cottage-style.
I couldn't do justice to the beautiful pinks and purples with my poor little Canon
and slowly emerging camera skills.
And if you don't like strange innkeepers depositing creative, fresh, and delicious hot breakfasts
outside your door, this place is not for you.

The picture at the beginning of this post is the view from the front lawn of the inn.
You can see Little Traverse Bay peeking through the trees at you. Very enticing.

We spent our few days lazily winding through the Leelanau area, up hill and down
dale, drinking in the beauty of the vineyards and orchards and hamlets
full of --dare I say it lest it sound too vapid?-- local charm.
Friendly people abound who are always glad to steer you toward the best little restaurants
(and ice cream places--Moomers, anyone?).

And of course we were in Traverse City for the Fourth. We shopped, ate, shopped, drank,
and ate some more before it was time to gather on the Bay for the spectacular
fireworks display. I have developed a serious addiction to The Cherry Republic's Boom Chugga
Lugga Cherry Cola. It's only distributed locally which is the pits (sorry) so I hauled
some of this nectar home with me. If you ever get the opportunity to get your hot little
hands on a bottle of this stuff, hang on with all your might and DO NOT SHARE.
You'll thank me later.

Not to change the subject but...

Did you know that some point-and-shoot cameras have a 'fireworks' setting?

Neither did I.

But it didn't stop me from clicking furiously away at the bursts of fire gleaming over the water.


No, that's not my husband. He insists I tell you that. Marty has hair.
We got very fond of this guy, though, and a good thing, too, since he appears in
every bloody shot I took that night.

I am such a doofus.

(Disclaimer: If the aforewritten seems a little manic, please excuse. I am high on escapism and much, much Mountain Dew.)

Here I am!

Gone but not forgotten, yes?

I have been weathering several momentous events, some
of which I will cover later, some I won't.

And along the way I took several days off to go Up North
with my Sweet Baboo.
(Do you remember in the Peanuts gang that
Sally, Charlie Brown's little sister, was in love
with Linus? That was her endearing term for him.
I like it because it's affectionate and yet makes him
look appropriately ridiculous.)

I wanted you to know, however, that in spite of the earth-shattering
happenings that have, er, happened lately, I am
committed to keep writing to all of you (best friend Carmen and
all you crickets chirping away) and breaking into new frontiers
of baking, cooking, and kibbutzing.

Just give me a day to catch up on the mountain of laundry
that is as tall as I am and get back into the groove of work and
cooking, and I will do my utmost to post blogworthy, scintillating
work. And play.

"Let me entertain you, and we'll have a real good time."
(But not until later in the week.)

Six Unimportant Things That I Love-the meme.

Okay. So.

I'm reading through the updates on my Google Reader and at the end of
one post, I see my blog's name at the bottom.

Whoa. I shook my head twice, blinked my eyes thrice, and looked again.

Just when I thought there was no one out there but the crickets,
I discover I was wrong.
(I promise, I won't do the Sally Fields thing here, although the situation
clearly calls for it. It's just too easy.)

Someone (besides my best friend Carmen) must be out there acknowledging
my space in the blogosphere.

I feel like one of the Who's.
I am here! I am here! I am here!

So, thanking The Distracted Housewife very kindly, (it was she
who tagged me, BTW), I will get down to the business at hand.



Six Unimportant Things That I Love:

(in no particular order)

1.) My waterbed: I have had the same waterbed since 1981 and find it incredibly difficult to
sleep on anything else. On extended stays away from home, I turn into a zombie after more than one night on a hotel mattress. That waterbed is my refuge, my solace, my happy place, my
playground.

2.) My garden: When we moved into our current home, there was a potentially lovely rock garden out back with perennials already there, struggling to survive. I planted hostas and some more Asian lillies and waited. Those plants have really taken off and they feed my soul every time I got to the garden.

3.) A picture of myself standing in Trafalgar Square. Several years ago I made a solo trip
to my All-Time-Happy-Place, England. I stayed with a friend in Kent and one day we drove up to town (London) for the day. He took a picture of me standing in front of the National Gallery, leaning against the fountain wall. There is the mother of all grins on my face, and not just because I had succeeded in achieving my weight-loss goal before the trip: no, I was in the one place I'd always wanted to be, and it was one of those EEEEEK! moments. (More on those in a later post.)

4.) My Get Smart DVD's. With all of life's trials, tribulations, and travails, isn't it great to know there is a place where buffoonery reigns supreme, violence is a sock on the jaw, and the eternal struggle of Good vs. Evil boils down to Kaos and Control? Whenever chaos rules my daily life, I take great comfort in getting an iced beverage and lounging on the aforementioned waterbed and vegging out with Max, 99, and the gang.

5.) Beatles songs. I have formed a religion whose creed is "The answers to Life can be found in Beatles lyrics." Amen. Try it; you'll see.

6.) My patients. Not that they're unimportant. I work for a visiting nurse agency, mostly treating the Medicare generation. When I meet an elderly person with whom I can really connect and form a special bond, that's magic. For whatever good I can do for them, when they tell me that I've made them laugh for the first time in ages, they've handed me the world.

Now, I understand, I tag some other someones to reveal their
Six Unimportant Things That I Love.

The Other Side of Fifty.


The Busty Baker


English Mum in Ireland

One Lump or Two?

I have had a hankering to try a root beer cake for quite a while, and being
faced with two recipes, I chose this one because it was larger. It filled a
Bundt pan instead of a snack-cake type one. I figured if the cake
turned out well, I'd want plenty of it around. Most chocolate cakes don't last very
long in our house, and I'd love to blame it on the male population but in a rare
moment of self-confession, I admit that I'm the one with no self-control.
I just can't leave it alone until it's gone--and then I begin plotting anew for the next
dessert to grace my kitchen counter, erode my self-discipline, and increase my self-loathing.

By the way: it really does taste like root beer--chocolate root beer, which is wonderful
and puzzling at the same time--you can find this out if you dip an index finger into
the batter, just to test it, of course. Don't forget this taste-test, because after it's baked, you lose some of the root beer overtones, as it were.


Root Beer Float Cake

(from Joy the Baker)

Ingredients:

2 cups root beer (don't use diet)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. spray the inside of a 10- inch Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray or butter generously and dust with flour, knocking off the excess.

In a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder and butter over medium heat untilo butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a small bowl whisk the eggs until just beaten. Then whisk into the cocoa mixture until combined. Gentle fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy. You can give it a quick whisk if you like, but don't overbeat the batter or it could cause the cake to be tough.**

Pour the batter into prepared pan and cook for 35-45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack or cake plate to cool completely.

Sorry there are no pictures for this one, but if you've seen one dark brown Bundt cake, you've seen 'em all. Besides, I forgot to take any pictures before it got scarfed.



**For fear of over-beating, I did not worry about the little lumpies that were in the batter--BIG MISTAKE!!! The finished product ended up with little pebbles of white flour (or something equally nefarious) that my sons were convinced were chunks of mold and thereby refused to eat. That meant more for me--NOT a good situation, as my too-tight scrubs will attest).

****caveat!! This frosting was a little weird. I followed the directions faithfully with no substitutions, etc. but I would do it differently next time. It's a great buttery frosting with a beautiful texture, but very salty! I was puzzled why you would use unsalted butter but then add salt to it. Next time I will use salted butter and eliminate the teaspoon of salt altogether--I mean, I realize that a bit of salt can enhance the chocolate flavor, but this was overpowering, and I only used half what the recipe called for. I'm glad I listened to my gut feeling or it would have been inedible. And for me to consider anything chocolate as inedible...



Try this frosting at your own risk--

Chocolate Root Beer Frosting

2 oz. 60% cocoa, melted
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using an electric hand mixer, beat softened butter and cocoa powder. Once combined, add the melted chocolate, salt, powdered sugar and root beer. Beat together until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake. slice and serve with vanilla ice cream.