Category Archives: family

Sunday Morning Papers and Coffee

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I believe it’s time to start going through the stack of newspapers that seems to pile up at our house whenever we slack off from reading them every day. Plus, since my husband and I both work with newspapers — although he’s an actual boss/editor and I’m just a lowly writer — we pick up papers everywhere we go, from the freebie weeklies to the weighty Sunday editions. I’m embarrassed to tell you that this is a mere couple weeks’ collection, not counting our local dailies we read and recycle pretty regularly. I just hate to get rid of any paper or magazine we bring in the house because I might miss something important. At least when I made coffee this morning in the iffy stovetop espresso maker — sometimes it works the way it should and sometimes not, although I think when it doesn’t that it’s more a matter of user error than anything else — I got some nice foam for my cappuccino, so I think I’ll pour a cup in the pretty red coffee mug my friend Jana gave me this week and sit down and start reading papers. Until it’s time to go to church.

And here’s the other thing about this morning here in northwest Alabama: It’s cool outside! If I had to be out for any length of time right now, I’d have to wear a sweater. It’s not even 60 degrees. This is big news around here. Even though the weekend football games were hot and humid, cool mornings are definitely progress. I’ll pour another cup of coffee to that!

Art on the Move

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I know that graffiti on railroad cars is vandalism. It’s against the law, expensive for the railroad company to remove and dangerous for the artists. I know all that. And I certainly would not want to come outside to get in my car and see that an artist had used it as a free canvas and then have to drive it around like that. When you look at it that way, railroad graffiti is destructive, wasteful and just plain wrong. Yet, I’m fascinated with it. When I’m stopped at a train (which happens a lot where I live), it’s a pleasure to sit and watch the art roll by. I wonder where it came from, who did it and why. I know that some of what I’m looking at is probably gang-related or obscene and I’m too ignorant to realize it — but sometimes art is subversive, so that’s OK.

I’m so enthralled with railroad graffiti that I bought this book, “Freight Train Graffiti,” by Roger Gastman, Darin Rowland and Ian Sattler (about $22 from Amazon, soft cover). It’s a valuable pop-culture and art resource. It does a super job of explaining graffiti techniques and why — and how — railroad graffiti evolved and why artist risk their lives to do this. The best part is the pages and pages of graffiti-ed railroad cars, with clues on how to identify individual artists. I passed this book on to my art-teacher son-in-law and he uses it in class.

At least, admiring the graffiti makes the train stops go faster!

Mountain Time

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                                                                                               My daughter’s in-laws live on a mountain (OK — I guess it’s only a really really big hill, comparatively speaking) in northwest Alabama. I love going to visit — you can see why. Thankfully, they consider me part of the family, so I get to go often!

Family Guys

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Grandson Nolan Thomas Behel with grandfathers Buddy Behel, left, and John Pitts, right, during a Labor Day family cookout. Adorable, right? What a lucky little guy Nolan is to have these men — and others — as role models in his life. Sort of makes you feel good about the future, doesn’t it?

Cookie Chemistry

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Something happened with my favorite peanut-butter cookie recipe this weekend and I’m not sure what. Usually when I make this, the cookies turn out thick, soft and crumbly. However, when I stirred up a batch on Monday morning for a family Labor Day gathering, the cookies ended up flat and crunchy instead. Why? This has happened a few times in the million years I’ve been making this recipe and I never know why. Monday, I could tell I was on the way to flat and crunchy because the dough was smooth and glossy — more like a batter than a dough — as I mixed it up. When the cookies turn out thick and soft, the dough is thick and solid and definitely has to be spooned. Luckily, the cookies were a hit — some people prefer thin and crunchy — although my daughter immediately noticed that they weren’t my usual. I guess it’s good that I’ve got a go-to recipe — it’s so quick and easy  I can do it in my sleep and probably have — but I’d love to know why it turns out one way sometimes and another way other times. Alton Brown, where are you when I need you???

Here’s the recipe (it’s also one of my favorites because, with no eggs involved, you can eat the dough with abandon. Not that I do that or anything.):

Peanut Butter Cookies

Melt one cup butter. Stir in one cup each white sugar and dark-brown sugar. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir together 2 1/2 cups flour and 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda and add to mixture. Stir in 1 cup peanut butter. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet and bake about 10 minutes in preheated 350-degree oven. Let cool in pan a minute or so before removing to cooling rack.

Halloween Baby

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Grandmas cannot resist Baby Gap. I don’t even try anymore. When I saw these adorable Halloween one-piece outfits today, I knew they had “Grandson Nolan Thomas Behel” written all over them — well, besides “Short and Sweet” and “Little Pumpkin.” Because he is all of those things. Don’t you agree?

But I did happen to wander over to the other side of Gap and picked up my favorite two-for-$20 camisoles in the basic colors of white and black. I always grab these when they’re in stock and wear them all the time as layering pieces since I’m too vain to wear blue jeans that actually fit me so I have to do all I can to cover up the resulting tummy bulge.

Whaddyabid?

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Chairs and other furniture at an auction in Tennessee

Chairs and other furniture at an auction in Tennessee

My mom tried to talk me out of going with her to an antiques auction this past weekend in Manchester, Tenn. “You’ll be bored,” she said. She knows I’m a one-and-done antiques-shopper: I take one turn around the antiques mall/estate sale/antiques shop and I’m done. But she takes her antiquing seriously —  and I’ve got a couple friends like that, too. They drive miles and miles out of their way to check a possibly interesting yard sale. Then they take hours and hours to examine Every Single Little Item at the possibly interesting sale. Of course, I come away empty-handed and they end up with bargain-priced treasures. That’s what happened Friday night at the Coffee County Fairgrounds when the contents of a going-out-of-business antiques mall were in the middle of a three-day sale. My mom had been Thursday and found some prizes, so I was intrigued with the chance to see her in action and pick up some secrets when she wanted to go back Friday. So, am I the only person who didn’t know how much fun auctions are? It was like a shopping trip, a history lesson and an evening of entertainment (how can auctioneers possibly talk that fast?) combined. I loved poking around the tables and shelves and boxes full of leftover antiques and junque. Then I sat, listened and learned: 1) Stay calm. 2) Set a bid limit and stick to it. 3) But don’t let anything you really want get away. I was awestruck by my mom’s smooth confidence and discerning eye. She would merely raise her hand a bit to bid. A horizontal slash of her hand meant a half-bid increase and a slight shake of her head meant she was done. But it wasn’t all sitting. My dad and I were the “toters,” grabbing paper and boxes to wrap up Mom’s successes — she likes glassware and linens (much easier to pack) — and then toting them out to the truck. Business as usual for my dad, but I was startled at how much physical labor antiquing demands. I got rewarded, though. My mom won this old McCoy pottery bowl I liked and then gave me one of three white-and-blue china demitasse cup-and-saucer sets she’d bought for my brother. Sold!

Future Cirque de Soleil performer

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Literally putting your foot in your mouth...

Literally putting your foot in your mouth...Don't you wish you could do this? Grandson Nolan Thomas Behel practices for a potentially lucrative circus career.

Michael, meet Carolyn

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We moms, of course, are always on the lookout for Suitable Suitors for our daughters, and I’m wondering now about Michael Phelpsfor my younger daughter Carolyn. I mean, he seems like a nice boy — very polite and he’s nice to his mom. I’m guessing that now he’ll always have some sort of job, right? And Carolyn’s broken a few swim records in her time, too, let me tell you (hello, Athens-McMinn County YMCA), so they’d have a lot in common. But I heard that he eats a huge amount of food at every meal, so that’s a little disturbing. I mean, would Carolyn have to cook for him all the time? Hmmm….

Actually, in our family, “boyfriends” are called “bufferins,” and this is why: A few years ago, my two daughters and I were in somewhere together and Carolyn randomly said, “I need a boyfriend” and somehow I time-traveled back a couple of decades to when “aspirins” were generically called “Bufferins” because that’s all we had, so I heard “I need a Bufferin” and I immediately started searching my purse, saying, “I think I’ve got one in here somewhere,” to which statement my daughters looked at me very strangely. And, really, when was the last time I actually had a Bufferin in my purse? Do they even make Bufferin anymore? (Notice how I’m changing the subject here so you’ll stop thinking about how could I possibly confuse “Bufferin” with “boyfriend.” Did it work?!)

Best Michael Phelps joke I’ve heard (this is from Mo Rocca on National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”): “What will Michael Phelps do now? Go back to his regular job — as mayor of Atlantis.”