Legend of Sleepy Hollow--Redux

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How I loved The Legend of Sleepy Hollow when I was a kid! Of course, my initial introduction was to the Walt Disney version, which most of my cohort saw in movie theaters. Who can forget poor, terrified Icabod Crane on his broken down mount, fleeing from the "headless horseman" as the Specter thundered after him in that pell-mell race to the bridge beyond which it was said that the apparition could not pass! Maybe I missed the point, but if memory serves, my sympathies lay with the skinny school-teacher, who'd dared to court the local heiress.  Or maybe, Disney spun the story that way. Darned if I know at this late date, 70 years later. 

 

In yellow and green, Major General Philip Schuyler's drawing room;

The fireplace before which Alexander Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler

As an adult, about 30 years back, while doing research for several novels set in the Hudson Valley at the time of the Revolution, I had occasion to finally read Washington Irving's original story. Unsurprisingly, the Disney version which I remembered was not exactly what Irving (1783-1850), one who grew up in that storied valley, originally penned.  Irving was a famous wit of his day, a writer in post-Revolutionary America, whose fame today rests on two short stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Irving certainly knew these little valleys, filled back then with descendants of the Dutch original settlers. In a few of these rural backwaters, the inhabitants still spoke Dutch and practiced their ancestral folkways. Old Dutchmen still gazed with disapproval at their "feckless" and "acquisitive" British neighbors, just as the Amish do "the English" today, right here in my neck of Pennsylvania.

In the elaborate language of Irving's day, when people often readstories aloud beside the fire, we learn that Icabod Crane, the lanky, threadbare schoolmaster, is Connecticut born and raised, which makes him an outsider in this rural valley. In those days, the people of Connecticut. unlike their next-door neighbors, the New York Dutch, had been founded by dour fundamentalist Calvinists, who arrived in that "savage-filled wilderness" with strong beliefs and many superstitions. Their Sundays were filled with morning to evening Church services, at which attendance was definitely not optional. 

The Blue Laws, "no business conducted on Sunday," were strictly enforced. Sunday dinner was cooked on Saturday and served cold. You couldn't even move a chair across the dining room to accommodate a new guest without violating their version of scriptural law. They firmly believed in witches and The Devilish Supernatural. It is mentioned in the story that Icabod often read his copy of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, "in which he most fervently and potently believed."

The New York Dutch had their superstitions as well and Icabod just naturally loved these scary stories, too.  The old women in whatever house the schoolmaster was lodged each week--most of his pay for teaching the children of the town was room and board--were only too happy to share their own local goblin-filled tales with him. At one of these firesides he was introduced to the "Galloping Hessian," a hooded figure on a black horse who haunted a stretch of road which ran along a creek and passed the local churchyard. This spectre was reputed to be, as you probably know, a cavalry-man from the Revolutionary times whose head had been "carried away by a cannon ball," for which he was doomed to perpetually search.

Major General Philip Schuyler's Home Today

(Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton's childhood Home)

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Penniless Icabod, who dreams of marrying the heiress, Katrina Van Tassel, dreams not only of her, but of her wealth as well. His plans, should she marry him, are to eventually sell the family land and invest "in great tracts of wild land," to pack his bride and all that he can into a Conestoga wagon and head west, "to Kentucky, Tennessee or the Lord Knows Where." Portrayed here is the New York Dutch view of Connecticut Yankee--shrewd and acquisitive! 

This, information, to my mind, removes some of Disney's whitewashing of Icabod as the hapless victim of -- as he is drawn -- Big Brute Brom Bones. Now, Brom doesn't have book learning, but he "had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and...there was a strong dash of waggish humor at the bottom." The original of Brom was certainly not "Bluto," but your standard, garden-variety Alpha Male. He'd expected to win Katrina sooner or later, as she was the finest marital prize available in their valley.  in his mind, Icabod, was an unexpected, ridiculous interloper, to be disposed of as soon as possible. This he proceeds--after some earlier, clumsy attempts--to to do, by cleverly playing on the schoolteacher's biggest weakness, his well-known belief in the supernatural. 

We may also surmise, as we read the original tale, that Katrina herself decided to move things along by pretending to be charmed by Icabod. Brom, after all, is described as enjoying his bachelor life a great deal, out with his "boon companions," riding around on fast horses half the night and generally not showing a willingness to get serious and settle down. 

Not to overly bash Disney, whose goal was to entertain kids, I'll stop there, but reading Irving's original story, written for adults to enjoy as well as children, was a real treat.  

~~Juliet Waldron

 

How We Saw Tina & Ike - Or, Once Upon a Time in the 70's

 

FLY AWAY SNOW GOOSE BY

JULIET WALDRON &

JOHN WISDOMKEEPER,

a Canadian Historical Brides

Northwest Territory Story

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In the '60's, I was a typical white college kid who hadn't heard much of what has been called Black music, except for the groups like The Temptations, The Crystals, Martha & The Vandellas, Ronettes or the Shirelles, the ones that made it onto rock'n'roll stations. (The only exception to this being Calypso, which I'd danced to during my high school years in the West Indies.) 

When I arrived at college in the States, I got to know new kids, ones that came from big cities, like New York, Philly, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago and D.C. This new cohort arrived with plenty of Rhythm and Blues and Soul mixed with their Folk and Rock L.P.s weighing down their college-bound trunks of indispensable stuff from home.  

Some years later, married, mother of two, I imagined I'd found the BFF I'd never had in my HS. I'd always been an outsider, for different reasons in the different places. I had a poor self image and secretly I'd always wanted to be "in with the in crowd" despite my own insistence upon being the nerd in the corner of the room. This new friend was young, glamorous and had three little kids, more or less the same age as my two. Her husband was a junior hot shot salesman who'd been a popular member of his fraternity. They couldn't have been any more different from us, but as young marrieds at the beginning of our lives, from marriage to parenting--not to mention work--we shared a lot. 

This was the early 70's and we were young, still wanting to play. Fresh out of college as we were, "fun" meant that the women cooked dinner--something simple, like sphagetti and a salad. Then we'd drink jug wine and listen to (and critique!) the latest rock LP because we were a generation who'd grown up listening to "our music" on the radio. We also told one another the usual get-acquainted stories about our origins. From childhood, we shared tales of raising kids and usually ended with how we were going to escape having the same lives as our parents. Our own kids ran around the house or out the yard, deep in pretend or hide and seek.

This extroverted couple took us to places my husband and I would normally never go--like a Rock'n'Rhythm review in a nearby city to see Ike & Tina Turner. My girl friend, with an urban background, told me that she'd read that Ike sometimes beat Tina. In those days, such a story was between us, woman to woman, as we all knew that physical abuse was but one of the hazards of being born female.  

The audience, when we got there, was a riot of color, some black, some white and some brown. I'd not been in such "mixed" company since living in the West Indies. Some were dressed to kill, with spangled mini-dresses, big hair, and high heels; others just wore jeans. My girlfriend had, of course, decided that we should dress for the occasion. She let down her blonde hair and wore open toed heels and a floaty hippy dress--white, gauzy, short, patterned 

with cherubs and long church choir sleeves.

She'd explored my meagre closet and come up with one of my mother's decades-old cast-off cocktail dresses. This was hot pink and rose red with a fitted bodice, boat neck and full swirling skirt.  She also discovered a ridiculous pair of heels from England, with pointed toes and extravagently high heels. We decided that a pair of bright green stockings would really proclaim that though the dress was thrift-shop retro, it wasn't the 1950's anymore, baby!

Our entrance, just as my girlfriend had foreseen, was majestic! We couldn't have felt more far-out.  Naturally, we got some put-down comments, but such was the price of our utter coolness.  ;)

Soon, music blasted into the auditorium, as a girl group warm-up band took the stage, to be followed by Ike and Tina. He watched her like a hawk, his dark eyes full of calculation, as he checked out the size of the crowd. He made certain we all would all notice that she was his, hands on her waist and then on her shoulders, but she appeared to want to get down to business, stepping forward and giving us all a flash of her white teeth. She waved the chord, freeing the mike, while everyone cheered and jumped and whooped. The band's name might have still been "Ike and Tina Turner," but it was plain who we'd all come to see. 

For over an hour, Ike and Tiny rocked us. They sang their oldies, as well as covering newer hits. Here's a few that I remember from that memorable night.

https://youtu.be/sTM17bmV4wg  ~ Honky Tonk Woman

https://youtu.be/FwaxT7zL7kA  ~ Fool in Love

https://youtu.be/bpuf6AmQH4M ~ Nutbush Avenue

https://youtu.be/uj0wPrN_Y_4  ~ River Deep Mountain High

It was over far too soon. We left, drenched with sweat and totally hoarse, as you are after a great concert. 

Time passed; friends departed. We moved and moved again. Tina vanished for a time from  pop radio, but then she was back, without the abusive, controlling husband, and better than ever. Many even bigger hits followed. My favorite is the heart-wrenching "What's Love Got to Do With it?" which spoke volumes to so many. 

Then, in the 2000s, I encountered a new Tina, now in a Buddhist incarnation, as were many in our cohort. After years of pain, of suffering, and a lot of growing, the Queen of Rock had found healing and peace.  

https://youtu.be/6XP-f7wPM0A  ~  Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu Om

 

 A rough translation: May there be well being in all, May there be peace in all, May there be fulfillment in all...Peace, Peace Peace.)

Hail the Traveler! I'll never forget that wild night in a Hartford auditorium. 

~Juliet Waldron

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The Night the Moon Sang

 

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 My husband, two little boys and I had driven 7 hours north through snow and ice from Connecticut to Maine to see his favorite cousin, Susan. She and her family were house-sitting in a large, lovely 18th Century sea-captain’s home whose sloping lawn stretched down to an inlet of the sea. 

The whole world was electric blue in the twilight when we piled out of the VW and waded the last few feet of their driveway. We stomped our feet to get rid of snow in the unheated  mud room. The kitchen was wood-fire-piecemeal hot, and Susan was belatedly beginning to work on a sink full of dishes. 

The family lived for the winter in a few downstairs rooms, and kept the pipes warm for the owners, who were off sailing in the tropics, a life-style unimaginable to us. Sue’s husband was a potter, and while he made beautiful things, from dinner services to exotic display pieces, they were not exactly flush with cash. Beans or spaghetti and homemade bread were probably supper that night; I don’t remember.  It was Susan’s birthday, so she’d made a delicious, heavy, scratch chocolate cake, and I’d brought up Grandma Carol’s family famous “Cowboy Cookies.” 

Night grew deeper. Finally, the kids and cousins were extinguished; the adults were all talked out. We retired to couches and sleeping bags. It was cold as the hinges of the 9th Circle of Hell in any room not heated by a woodstove, an utterly clear and magnificently dark sky starry night—at least, until the full moon got up over the tall black pines. Then it was like day out-of-doors, the moon balefully glittering down on those crisp, fresh pillows of snow. 

Susan and I had agreed to wake up later, because we’d consulted the almanac and learned that there was to be a lunar eclipse around 1 a.m. It was the night between our birthdays—mine would be tomorrow. We were a kindred pair of magical-mystery-tour women, both Pisces in the cusp. We were not about to miss such a grand celestial side-show.

Exhausted from carbohydrates and driving , I’d fallen into a deep sleep, but in what seemed only a few minutes, I heard Susan's voice in my ear.

“Juliet! Get up! Get Up!”

I sat up groggily. I could see her quite well with the moonlight pouring in the windows; it was amazingly bright. 

“Get your boots and get downstairs—quick—quick--hurry!”

I did as she asked, for she sounded almost desperate, as if something was terribly wrong. Not only that, but she enforced the idea by rushing out of the room as soon as she finished speaking. I heard her feet going down the stairs rapidly. I got my boots on and followed, fast as I could. When I reached the kitchen, there she was, my coat in hand.

“Is it the eclipse? What’s happening?”

“Come on—quick--hurry! You have to hear this! It’s crazy!”

I threw the coat on and followed her out the door. The first breath, as we stood on the back steps, froze my nose and made me choke. It must have been zero—or lower. She gestured upward toward the moon, sailing high over the forbidding, snow robed pines. 

As we stood there, trembling, it acquired a halo of dull red for the eclipse had begun. The snow-weighted branches randomly cracked in the cold. I had an odd feeling inside my head; I seemed to be looking up through water.  Next came a kind of hum, a low tone that reverberated through the scene, and then I heard sweet tones, like a flute or an electronic instrument, ring across the sleeping, snow-shrouded land and out across the icy ocean which could be seen--and heard--at the bottom of the slope. 

The veiled moon grew redder; the haunting tune repeated. Susan grabbed me by the shoulder. 

“Do you hear it? Do you?”

“Yes! Yes! What …?” I kept looking up and down and side to side to see if anything was different or if anyone else was nearby, but I couldn't see any human-made light, shape, or motion. We were alone and shivering with the snot freezing air and the sheer weirdness of the snow-bound scene under that muted, dire moonlight.

“Thank God!” Nervously, Susan giggled. “I thought I’d completely lost it.” 

She was cheered now that we had both "completely lost it." ;)

The tones were beautiful, melodic –and almost, in some peculiar way, perfectly normal. 

Well, when the “music” stopped, we went back inside and attempted to awaken our respective spouses, but that was hopeless. Neither of them wanted to leave the warm cacoon of their beds—besides, they believed their Pisces women were engaged in some weird, flipped out folie à deux.  

Now, if you are thinking about “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” go right ahead.  Our trip into  The Uncanny Valley happened in 1973, four years before Spielberg’s blockbuster.  In fact, when I heard those tones in the movie all that time later, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and a cold chill ran down my spine.

I'd remembered that frigid night in Maine when a blood red moon sang to Susan and me.

~~ Juliet Waldron

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Windego, and other Monsters

Fly Away Snow Goose

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WINDEGO: An evil spirit of the northland, a monstrous creature who comes prowling in winter, hungry for human flesh; it is remorseless, pitiless. 

If the year was a lean one, winter was a hard time for the hunter/gatherers who lived in the NWT. The People would leave their summer camps in small groups and scatter into the vast emptiness, away from the lakes and rivers where they'd all come together as a tribe to trade and celebrate the fat season of summe. Our of necessity, they'd change their tribal, summer way of life to retreat to live in isolation, hunting and trapping the range around them, away from others who were now engaged in the same thing. Sometimes, it did not go well; the hunters were not lucky; the game was scarce or had changed from their accustomed paths of migration. 

Then, the spectre of starvation haunted the isolated camps, and sometimes people were driven to desperate measures in order to survive. A man who had eaten his family in order to stay alive, was said to have "gone  Windego." Such a primal sin was viewed with horror, so a monster was created to explain this counter-cultural behavior. A few of those stories came to be written down in early colonial times, but the oral versions were well known to those who were exposed to the fierce winters, who sometimes had experienced, first-hand, hunger and the awful struggle to survive. 

It is said the Windego eats his own lips and checks, so his skull is always partially visible, and he arrives surrounded by a stench so horrible that it even overpowers the bitter winter wind.  People, driven to this extremity, were believed to have been taken over by this dreadful being, and that was the reason they had committed the unholy crime of cannibalism.  In fact, during the 19th Century, early Canadian psychologists defined "going Windego" as a "culturally based" disorder.

(Thunderbird--well known to the Northern First Nations--

among the Tlicho, Thunderbird was referred to indirectly, as "Father."

He's one of the good guys.)

Today, the Windego is, in some quarters, viewed as a cryptid. Wikipeidia defines cryptids as "animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not believed to exist by mainstream science." Cryptozoology primarily looks at anecdotes and blurry photos, the sort of  claims rejected by the scientific community. These monsters now feature in YouTube videos in all manner of ghastly forms, but this vision of the Windego is of only passing interest to me.

"Windego" appears to me--not as a myth created by "superstitious 1st Nation's People," --but as an acutely observed form of human personality disorder. I didn't figure this out on my own, but by listening to Buffy Sainte Marie's song called "Priests of the Golden Bull." 

She makes a connection with the storied monster and the unfettered greed and disregard for the cooperative behavior which holds together our societies. Look around. The Dark Triad personality, (where a subject possesses a toxic combo of Narcissism, Michiavellianism and Psychopathy) is having a good run these days among CEO's, Tech Bros, politicians, and the sort of "religous" figures who live in gated mansions and always need their followers to send more money. 

In a world where it's considered smart to get rich while ignoring the human suffering or the irreparable harm pursuit of this quarter's profits causes a community -- or the arm done to the water, the air, or the planet -- Ms. Sainte Marie sees the ever-hungry, cannibalistic Windigo. The "Greed is Good," mentality is on display everywhere. 

Take a look at ever so many modern companies, their successes measured by how many jobs they've eliminated, or how they've stolen pension funds from retirees in the course of a merger, or how many rural communities they have destroyed, for instance, building a petrochemical refinery or an industrial pig farm next door to a small town which doesn't have the clout to fight back. 

"Gentrification" in cities raises rents until the essential workers--those who run the store checkouts, clean the buildings and streets, teach and/or care for children and seniors, can no longer afford to live close to where they are employed. Other casualties include small entrepreneurial businesses of all kinds, from restaurants and local bars, to independent bookshops and corner convenience stores.

Today's Windego doesn't just live in the deep woods. These days, he (or she) is seen as a "celebrity," on our television screens, and all over the internet and Twitter. Many are even elected to high public office. Worst of all, their "Not my brother's keeper" attitude is now held up to young people as the smart way to live. 

Instead of dwelling on psychos and cannibals, instead, let's take this time of All Hallows, All Saints and All Souls to find some peace and to give thanks: to remember our ancestors, our friends, mentors, and family who have passed beyond the veil. Let's also remember our honored dead, the kind of people who served and helped, rather than injured, the common folks of our communities and our country. 

~~Juliet Waldron 

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The Fall of the House of York

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"Juliet Waldron's grasp of time and period history is superb and detailed. Her characters were well developed and sympathetic."

"One of the better Richard III books..."

Crest and Motto of Richard III

On a sunny late summer morning in August, 1485, near Leicester, two armies faced one another. The King of England, Richard III, arose at dawn. Tradition, and Shakespeare, claim that he had had a bad night, although this can never be known now, 537 years later.  The King often traveled with his own bed. One night earlier, he had slept in his royal bed, for he had brought it along with his baggage train from Nottingham Castle. Perhaps too large and bulky to be used in a battlefield tent, the royal bed had been left behind at an Inn in Leicester.  Richard was known as a man who "slept ill in strange beds" and so preferred to maintain regularity in his sleeping arrangements.

Chaplains probably said Mass for the King on that fatal morning, as this too was standard practice on Medieval Battlefields, before he broke his fast with watered wine and bread. His esquires would have begun to armor him. His open crown, set with jewels, was set upon his helm, and then, mounted upon his favorite white charger, Whyte Syrie,* he began to direct the disposition of his army. 

According to John Ashdown-Hill, Historian and member of the Royal Historical Society: ..."When John de Vere, one of Henry Tudors most experienced commanders, saw the royal army advancing to oppose them, he swiftly ordered his men to hold back and maintain close contact with their standard bearers. In consequence the rebel advance ...ground to a halt..." This manuever drew the rebel forces into close formation, with the French mercenary pikemen held in reserve. Ashdown-Hill speculates on why, at this point, the sight of his hated distant cousin sent him charging to destruction. 

"Perhaps out of bravado, or from a sense of noblesse oblige, or possibly because he was suffering from a fever and not in full possession of his faculties, Richard called his men around him and then set off with them at a gallop to settle Henry's fate once and for all." 

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 Ashdown-Hill (The Last Days of Richard III) speculates on why, at this point, the sight of his cousin sent the king charging to destruction. (Certainly, Richard did not know what Henry looked like, but he would have seen his standard and known he surely stood nearby.) 

"Perhaps out of bravado, or from a sense of noblesse oblige, or possibly because he was suffering from a fever and not in full possession of his facaulties, Richard called his men around him and then set off with them at a gallop to settle Henry's fate once and for all."  

It was a risky move. In chess, this would be the same as sending one's king across the board to directly attack the rival king. 

Richard's legendary charge came near to succeeding. Richard himself slew Tudor's imposing standard bearer, William Brandon, but this is the moment when the wily foreign mercenaries Henry had brought with him drew together in a phalanx, protecting Henry and keeping him out of harm's way. Richard's cavalry hurled themselves into the pike wall so created. Many, including Richard, were unhorsed. At the same time, the remainder of the King's cavalry came crashing in behind. The  Yorkist army was now in dissarray.   

John de Vere and Lord Stanley, both still hanging back--de Vere because he was an experienced soldier, Stanley, waiting to see which way the battle would go--now seized their opportunity. Stanley's men fell upon the milling mass of the royal cavalry. They caught the King on foot and he was soon overwhelmed and slain by a pack of enemy soldiers. 

Richard's bravery has never been questioned, even by the Tudor chroniclers. 

"King Richard was slain, fighting manfully in the midst of his enemies." - The Croyland Chronicle.

When Richard fell, de Vere wheeled and attacked the Duke of Norfolk. During the initial clash, Norfolk lost his helmet and caught an arrow in the eye. The Yorkist side had now lost both captains. The leaderless army began to collapse. 

Michael Jones, whose 2016 military history, Bosworth, 1485, believes that Richard's charge, while a throw of the dice, was in fact "the final act of Richard's ritual affirmation of himself as rightful king." Ashdown-Hill says that Richard "acted in full accord with the late medieval literary tradition."  

After his accession, Henry Tudor would soon confirm this first impression, as the kind of man who preferred judicial murder to a face-to-face duel. While there would soon be a host of Yorkist family members executed on various trumped up charges by him, there is no record of Henry VII even lifting his sword at the battle which would establish his famous dynasty. 

What can I make of my own long fascination with this still controversial character, this long dead English King? In many ways, Richard was the last of his kind. His brief reign marked the end of the  Plantagenet Kings, and from this time forward, historians habitually date the beginning of modern times. Richard's pagentory charge was a medieval aristocrat's decision to play the role of king--a leader of his men--in the most heroic fashion possible. 

Henry was indeed a modern man, cut from different cloth, a man who had far less right to the throne than most of the people he exececuted, a man who had been poor and on the run, but who now intended to become rich by taking everything he could take from anyone who opposed him. The personal tale of Henry VII is a classic picture of a paranoid miser. This fruits of this monarch's gold hunger would--as is so often the case--be blown by his equally paranoid and indulged, vainglorious son, Henry VIII.  

I read the Daughter of Time (by popular mystery writer Josephine Tey) when I was eleven. Richard's story as she told it--here was a man "framed" by his enemies and maligned forever after--became an overriding obsession. I can still pick up my tattered Penguin paperback and find the bedraggled white rose I dried between the pages, oh, so many years ago! Today I can still remember all the kids at summer camp whose ears I talked off on a subject most of them had never heard of. Tilting at windmills in my own nerd way, I guess. 

Now, of course, I look at history--especially the kind of western history which I was taught in school--in a very different. In the great scheme of things, the innocence or guilt of an otherwise obscure English king doesn't matter much, but to this day it remains a heck of a great story. 

Roan Rose is my proud contribution to the Richardian genre. Here we hear the tale of the servant Rose, one who was privy to so much, yet still survived to tell it. 

Dear Rose! She is one of my favorite creations. I hope readers love her as much as I do.

~~Juliet Waldron  

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Comfrey, Cat Warfare, and Green Tomato Sauce

The Commoner and her King

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(Crawling out from under the bed to write this.) 

I grew Comfrey in my garden this year and the resulting plants are enormous tall spiky things with leaves that are reminiscent of tobacco. Comfrey was once used in teas, but no more. This is because we've learned that it is toxic when taken orally. Herbalists no longer recommend  it either as tea, or to be used as a wash on an open wound. 

                                                                          Feral Garden

However, the leaves and roots do contain allantonin, a protein that encourages cell division and thus healing. Traditionally, it was used as a wrap for broken limbs and injured joints. The leaves contain a storehouse of other good things --calcium, potassium, phosphorus & vitamins A, C and B12. It sends down a long taproot--sometimes as much as ten feet--to fetch nutrients up to the surface from deep in the soil. 

Why did I plant it? Well, I'd heard that it serves as an activating ingredient for compost piles or simply as a beneficial mulch dug into the garden at the end of the season. Starting it from seed on a windowsill was an early COVID project for me. The seeds must be stratified (chilled) for several weeks before planting in order for them to grow.

Comfrey has pretty purple flowers which I'm enjoying here at the end of the season. The late season pollinators are big fans too and for that reason alone I'm glad I planted it. I will chop it and dig it into both compost and garden after the first frost and and then hope for a flourishing garden next year. 

Right now, I’m typing around a gray love-sucker of a cat, our two year old gray neutered tom, Tony. He was named after Anthony Bourdain, so I should not be surprised at his over the top behavior. He's  charismatic and cuddly, but, sometimes, he's a wicked jealous cat bully.

The villain of the piece

After a few minutes of my typing away, Tony jumps down and slinks away, heading to the other side of the living room in order to mess with Kimi who was enjoying a sunbeam and minding her own business. Inspiring a PTSD attack in one of your emotionally vulnerable housemates and initiating a running battle is a sure-fire way to get my attention away from the keyboard and back to him—the place where it clearly ought to be. 

This is negative attention-getting, according to a long ago child psych course. A decade ago after this kind of inter-pussy cat escalation, I would have put Tony outside so he could test himself against the semi-urban jungle for a few hours daily. That can tone down the rambunctions of a boy cat, but I don’t want to risk losing him. 

                                                     Let's stare at Kimi until she freaks 

Moreover, I no longer want to be an accomplice to a cat's (quite normal) serial killer proclivities. If outdoor cats stuck to mice and voles--and, dare I suggest, maybe even a few of those bulb nabbing chipmunks--I wouldn’t mind so much, but my last outdoor cat--the legendary B0B--bagged way over the limit of native songbirds. My toleration of this will (no doubt) negatively affect my Karma.  

So, these days, my cats stay inside.

With three cats, I could write buckets on the hausfrau trials with multiple cat boxes, but I will spare you the gory details. 

What we house-bound humans are learning is that we must continuously work on integrating this three cat family. These particular cat-onalities continue to evolve and change, just as do the behaviors of the COVID-bound humans who reside here with them.   

And, last but not least: Green tomato pasta sauce!  Yes, this is delicious. I'd never seen a recipe before, but decided I'd try when it stopped raining here about five weeks ago. I was sick of lugging water to the large tomato pots at the end of tour lot and decided to quit. (A week after I took the plants down, it rained--naturally.) 

But as I stripped the vines I knew that some of these fine large green tomatoes would ripen but others would never get there. I used the smaller fruits in the following eyeball-it-as-you go sauce recipe. 

Green tomatoes chopped--the recipe I based this upon used 4 lbs. 

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

garlic cloves--I used 5, but we like garlic

one medium finely chopped onion

red pepper flakes or red pepper to give it a bit of heat

basil--I would say 20 leaves because it's another seasoning we like

You may bake it at 400 degrees in the oven until it reduces--about an hour--or d0 as I did, and throw it all in the crock pot and let it cook down together. 

Serve with pasta (linguini is a nice base) topped with 

pecorino romano cheese

More basil leaves 

and, if you are independently wealthy--a handful of pine nuts.  

We ate ours without the pine nuts and it was still delicious. This was one of those "plan-over" concoctions, where there was plenty left over for the next day.

~~Juliet Waldron

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