The Michaelmas Party

Last night we hosted our first dinner party in St. Benedict over the Apple Tree. It was our first dinner party since, in early February, a faulty fire retardant system changed our lives forever. Dinner parties are our favourite social events, but unfortunately B.A.'s illness has curtailed them greatly for the past year and a half.  (We made an effort for Polish Pretend Son's visits home.) The fact that we can have them again is a sign of hope.

This dinner party took an unusual amount of preparation because of all the boxes lying around.  I  stuffed them into cupboards and closets between cooking tasks. Originally I meant the party to celebrate the end of our move, as well as St. Michael, B.A's anniversary, and our anniversary, but we haven't finished moving. Moving out of a working museum when both halves of a couple work full-time and one is a cancer patient turns out to be a very long, drawn out affair. However, I managed to clear a good space in our new dining-room/guest room/office, and go to Michaelmas Mass, AND cook dinner, so all's well that ends well.

A guest who is increasingly visually impaired got lost on the way, and there were several expeditions to find her. The Schola Bass brought her in, and after I had handed her a restorative glass of hot buttered apple cider with rum, we had the flat blessed by our priest. It was really quite a short ritual beginning with Latin prayers and ending with Father sprinkling holy water in all the corners of the room, where demons might lurk. He sprinkled the hall cupboards, too, so if there are any demons in the flat, they are limited to the bedroom closet.

Then I brought out the soup, vastly grateful that B.A. had set the table. This had not been an easy task because he had to find the wineglasses in their boxes and to remember to bring the silverware and the electric candles from the Historical House.  Now that we no longer live in a museum, we can have real candles, but there were no beeswax candles at either Real Foods or Tesco, so I decided it would be more eco-trad to stick to our rechargeables.

Dinner consisted of "Autumn Vegetable" soup (my family's traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas soup); two fat, roasted free-ranged chickens;sage, apple and onion stuffing; gravy; curried carrots; green beans with almonds and red pepper; and szarlotka, Polish deep-dish apple pie, with whipped cream. There were also cheese, apple slices, and oatcakes afterwards, but nobody was interested in the cheese this time. The truffles I got on sale at Waitrose a few weeks ago were more popular.  And of course there were many bottles of wine, beginning with the fancy Cava my parents sent for B.A.'s birthday in August.

I think one day I will put everything on the table à la Russe so that I don't spend that party jumping up and rushing to the kitchen for the next course, etc. The routine was easier when the kitchen was directly across the hall from the dining-room. This time I missed out on most of the conversations although I do have an amusing anecdote for, having noticed a massive volume on my desk in the corner, an Oxford man, well-primed with wine, asked me why I had a book about polish.

"It's Polish," I explained---and he will never hear the end of it.

I think there was also a conversation touching on modernism, for we were entertained by an anecdote about a Catholic countryman telling a Catholic lady that "It's time somebody put a bung in Kung."

But I must say it was very odd, after nine-and-a-half years of dinner parties in the old dining room in the Historical House (built approximately 1683), to be in a high-ceilinged square room with a rectangular window instead of a long, low-ceiled room with a fireplace and an ox-eye window and the "Polish corridor" (a sleeping nook for visitors or suddenly homeless Polish students) behind B.A. at the head of the table. This time Father was at the head of the table and B.A. was at the foot beside me, and the lighting was different, and the room felt crowded and strange.

It will be more like home, I think, when we get in the last of the furniture, empty the last of the boxes, and get the pictures on the walls.

I wish I had an account of all Historical House dinner parties since late September (or early October) 2008, when B.A. threw a dinner party for me, the recently arrived Canadian guest. but we had so many of them, the basic formula is tattooed deep inside my brain. The most similar part this timewas the Great Dishwash. Looking down into the sink, it was easy to imagine myself in my old kitchen  and forget that the dining-room wasn't just across the hall but through the new sitting-room and then across the hall. Of course, I may have been slightly delirious at that point.

Our guests said nice things about our new flat, and the Bass said the sitting-room reminded him of our sitting-room in the Historical House, which pleased me very much. When the others went away the Master of the Men's Schola, the Bass and B.A. settled into armchairs for a good chat. Shortly after B.A. went to bed, I announced that there would be a new tradition. Thus, the MMS and the B moved their chatting-and-drinking operations into the kitchen while I continued the Great Dishwash.

It's funny about second winds--or third winds. I was probably on my third wind by then. At 1 AM I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor with Dr. Bonner's soap and a sponge--as happy as a robin in spring. I don't think it was the rum-laced apple cider either. It was joy at dinner parties returning to our lives.

Ten Years On

2008

Ten years ago today I first woke up in the Historical House. Despite the rigours of my flight from Toronto and my bus ride from London, I was as happy as a lark. Then I whacked my head on the sloping ceiling. But I was still very happy.

I did not know then that the nice fellow in the loud tweed jacket who had met me at the bus station the night before, taken me to a pub for a pie and ale and then hospitably whisked me off in a taxi cab to Pemberley a Georgian manor would become my husband. 

But lo. 

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of Benedict Ambrose's reception into the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, so we are having a little party of our co-religionists--trads to a man. It is also St. Michael's Day, so in honour of the great archangel I shall be preparing a great feast. And a priest is coming, so we'll have St. Benedict Over the Apple Tree blessed, too. 

In terms of traditional Michaelmas foods, I am adapting rather than sticking to the ancient ways. First, it isn't easy to get a Michaelmas goose anymore, the goose breeders now primarily interested in the Christmas market. Second, geese cost an awful lot. Then the Michaelmas bannock, which is a kind of large scone wrapped in pancakes, does not sound that appetising. 

Therefore, I am more-or-less making Thanksgiving dinner, only with more attention to apples. 

Runner's Knee & the Potential of Youth

This features much later in the post.

How can this happen ALREADY? Wah! After Wednesday's run my knees ached all day, and they began to ache again yesterday on a walk to the Historical House to pack a few more boxes.

I looked up "Why do my knees hurt when I run?" on the internet and discovered this horrible malady called "Runner's Knee." Tomorrow on my way to Michaelmas Mass I will stop in at the fancy running shoe shop and have a serious conversation with complete strangers about my pronated feet and their evil influence on my knees.

Enjoy being young, kids!

That is actually a better topic for my blog than aching knees, which are of interest only to me, B.A. and perhaps my mother. My hypothesis that the human body starts to break down from the ridiculously early age of 35 or so should be of interest to any human in danger of turning 35 one day.

G.I. Jane was probably not a great film, but I found it very inspiring, having begun to get in shape for the first time in my life. And for almost ten years I was in great shape and regretted only that I had not been more athletic as a teenager. Although not overweight, I had disliked corporal existence and felt that my body was something heavy and smelly that I had to drag around. A daily two-mile run somewhere pretty, followed by a dumb-bell session, and (probably above all) fasting from sugar would have made me less depressed.

A fun, enjoyable and healthy goal for a teenager or twenty-year old might be to become as strong, fast and fit as possible by 30. You can maintain the strength of your 30 year old self for twenty years, apparently. Oh, this is where my brother Quadrophonic would like me to warn you that I am not a doctor and you should not take any of this as a substitute for medical advice. Consider it philosophy.

For a young, healthy body to mooch around a shopping mall or sit in a chair with the internet all day is simply a waste of a young, healthy body. We all know what young, healthy human bodies are capable of from watching the Olympics or just an important race. Whereas I do not think Olympic training is necessarily good for bodies--the training goal is not the fitness of the body but the victory--it at least shows us what the human body can do.

Actually, that would be a fun experiment even for a middle-aged person: what can MY middle-aged, seemingly falling apart body do? However, even if I could run the Edinburgh marathon one day, it would not be as impressive as what a thirty year old, after twenty or even ten years of training, would be capable of.

So if you are under 30, I highly recommend that you see a doctor to ask for advice and permission to develop your fitness to the highest level you are capable of. And, again, this does not mean winning competitions but seeking the maximum health of your body.  For example, boxing training is fantastic for your body until you step into the ring and someone punches you in the face. I am grateful for my boxing years as they made me a stronger, healthier and braver woman,  but I hope I quit before my chances of developing Parkinson's skyrocketed.

The other unsolicited advice I have for the young is for those with dry, curly, bushy, thick hair. I wish I had known this at ten, let alone thirteen. Had I known this from a child, I would have been bullied less and felt a lot happier about my appearance. Dear heavens, the freedom of not having to think about one's appearance.

Anyway, it is this: never brush your hair, stop using shampoo, scrub your scalp with a bit of conditioner after working it through your wet hair from the ends, use a detangler on your conditioned-up hair, rinse, squish the water out with a towel, apply a tablespoon of coconut oil to your hair, comb it through with the detangler, and then loosely braid your hair for a few  hours, unbraiding it later long enough for it to dry, and then braiding it up again. Since I discovered coconut oil, I have been able to grow my hair as long as my smooth-haired mother can for the first time in my life.

And now I shall find some advice about fitness goals for the over-40 set, listen to some Polish, and learn some more about the anarchist objections to the minimal state.

Hens

"Hen" is an old-fashioned term of endearment in Scotland whose usage is falling off as it is now considered insensitive to women's new place in society, blah blah.

That's a great pity, for I much prefer being called "hen" to being called "pal", which used to be reserved for men. Democratic Scotland doesn't care for "sir" or "ma'am" although I suppose we would all "sir" and "ma'am" to the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay, were they to toddle by our places of work to open a new wing, etc.  Maybe when I'm older more bus drivers will call me "hen" instead of "pal" because I remind them of their grannies; something nice to look forward to.

"Hen" is also not used overmuch by people who went to university or by foreigners like me, as it sounds funny in our non-Scots accents. B.A. some times calls me "hen" which leaves me in a bind as it sounds wrong to call him "pal" in return. I'm not sure what Scotswomen call their "partners" (another awful word) because the only Scotswomen I know either do not have partners or abstain from endearments in public.

Meanwhile, I have been reading all about hens because I am hoping to buy some in the spring and ensconce them in a hideously expensive but easily cleaned chicken coop under the apple tree.

Hens are the tentative solution to my need to mother somebody or something. B.A. does not want pets in the house, so hens are our compromise. Unfortunately, hens are a lot more work than cats and dogs, and you have to have two or three of them at once, as they hate living alone. But they do lay eggs, and they can be taught to love you through food-bribery, and they even enjoy a bit of a cuddle, so they may be worth all the attention, cleaning, worming, and tremendous chain and padlock I will have to buy.

The most depressing thing I read in the chicken books--and if you want to keep chickens the first thing you must do is read all about them--is that in urban settings you need to worry about humans even more than foxes because humans will steal eggs, chickens, coop and all. That was almost a deal breaker for me, for the last thing I want to worry about is serious sin. I write about serious sin all day long, and I do not want to tempt serious sinners into our garden with chickens.

Although chickens seem to pay their way through egg-production, they are not very economical pets, even if you buy or build a cheap chicken-coop yourself.  You have to buy chicken feed, grit, bedding, disinfectant, biannual de-wormer powder, a feeder and a drinker, and the occasional cabbage or head of broccoli so they get their greens. This seems more involved than being a cat-mother, who has  fewer things to buy: a comb, a collar, Meow Mix, Whiskas, a litter box, litter, and scoop. Being a chicken-mother is certainly more expensive than popping into Tesco for eggs.

Thus, poultry-keeping comes down firmly under the heading of "HOBBY", and as I already have a hobby--learning Polish--I have to ponder if I really have the time and money to invest in it. It would be easier to get a cat, but B.A. is adamantly against cats and my brother Nulli is deathly allergic to them, so he'd never be able to visit.

In case I haven't mentions, B.A. is adamantly against cats because he firmly believes that they creep into your bed at the crack of dawn and wake you up, and if you prevent them from doing this by firmly shutting the bedroom door, they avenge themselves by scratching the furniture.

I complained to cat-adoring pals about B.A.'s intransigence, but when I explained his reasons, they notably did not say that these reasons were unfounded.

B.A. is also against owning dogs, in part because of the terrible environmental damage to urban and semi-urban parkland caused by dogs and their owners. There are approximately 640,000 dogs in Scotland, and their urine is murder on trees and other plants. What their droppings can do to human beings is no joke. After twelve years at the Historical House, B.A. has seen just too much dog-damage to the precious Historical Landscape.

Chicken droppings, however, make a good fertiliser. So, now that I think about it, although chickens might not make strictly economical pets, they are environmentally friendly.

Run

My daily habits get a kicking in a little book called Eat, Move, Sleep. Apparently sitting is the new sugar, and every hour of sitting is shortening my life. Also, the more one sits, the more likely fat will collect in one's posterior. Goodness gracious. This is seriously bad news for contemporary journalists who spend eight hours a day or more at our desks.

There was more bad news in an article the Huffington Post, which suggests the the overweight should just give up hope that dieting will ever work in the long term.

I don't actually believe that, as the Fast Diet works long-term for many, and did work for me as long as I stuck to it. I forget when I quit, but I suspect B.A.'s illness had something to do with it. A year and a half of almost unrelenting stress have packed on the pounds, too. Besides all B.A.'s health woes, the flood-from-above, leaving our home-of-nine-years, shuttling about from refuge to refuge, the long, drawn-up process of getting our belongings moved to our new home, there is the sadness of almost everything I read and write about for work.

"How do you bear it?" someone asked---and the answer from June (at latest) until now is "I stuff my face."

Having granola in the house is just fatal.

That reminds me, by the way, of the saddest priest I ever met, who was also one of the fattest. Even then I had an inkling that he was self-medicating on food, but I had my own problems then, so I don't think it occurred to me to suggest to someone in authority that he might need help.

Anyway, Eat, Move, Sleep convinced me that everybody should get at least 150 minutes of cardio-vascular activity a week, so I have been going out for a half-hour run upon getting out of bed, five mornings a week. The first run was so awful, I hope I never quit, for having to do another "first run" is just too depressing a thought.

I haven't had a regular run outdoors since high school, as even in my most athletic days I was a gym rat and preferred the weatherless comfort of indoors. However, running outdoors--if you already have  running shoes--is free, and my route along the river to the Firth of Forth and back is scenic. It provides a mental lift to see the ducks and swans and to hear the oystercatchers peeping.

Benedict's Letters according to Bild

I spent the summer of 2006 in Germany, and it was pretty hard to ignore Bild because it carried a photograph of a topless woman on Page 1 almost every day. Apparently Bild moved the Page 1 girl to inside the newspaper in 2012, but unless I am very mistaken it's still just a rag full of gossip, football news, and soft porn. How surprised I was to discover that Bild broke the story of the Benedict-Brandmueller contretemps.

Speaking as a reporter at a media outlet that lobbed a real bombshell document at the world, I do not believe in other bombshell letters and documents unless they are actually linked to or reproduced below the lede. And furthermore I do not believe that someone who wanted to leak letters from Benedict would give them to Bild--unless Bild pays for such things, of course. But then why not publish the complete letters? 

Honestly, did no-one at The New York Times ask himself or herself these questions? Well, Brandmueller is still alive, so he can confirm or deny himself, I suppose. 

Meanwhile, I do not believe that Il Fatto Quotiadiano has part of the infamous 300-page dossier on a certain lobby group. I have read two articles by Il FQ on the topic of bombshell documents and dossiers, and they were all smoke and no fire. In fact, I got in touch with someone at Il FQ to ask politely if Il FQ would actually release the names they claimed to have seen, and the answer was "obviously not" because of "rules of civility."

Update: Okay, it looks as though Bild really does have the letters. I'd love to know how Bild got them. 

storm ali

here's a fun post written by my left hand for reasons that will become clear.

yesterday storm Ali came by with its promised 80 mph winds and tore down most of the rest of our apples. when I could I rushed out with a big blue Ikea bag and collected all the windfalls worth saving. then I put them in the bathtub and went back to work, which is a surprisingly physically demanding one, at least for my arms.

when work was done--which actually means I couldn't type anymore, since I still have articles left to do--I got to work preserving the apples in the few ways I can, these not being apples that store well. late apples store well--you can wrap them in newspaper and eat them all winter--but September apples do not.

the fermenting bin is occupied, so after I made about 3 litres of apple juice, I poured them into 7 500 ml water bottles (BA is not an eco-trad), and put 6 of them in the freezer. at the same time I turned 3 lbs of apples into apple pie filling by cooking them down over low heat with lemon juice and then adding sugar and spices. I froze that too.

but now we still have 3 dozen apples and I can barely use my right hand. I am not sure what to do, other than buy another lemon for more apple pie filling and ibuprofen for my arm and soldier through.