Monthly Archives: November 2025
The Midwestern Table at Herstry
Why I’ll Eat Anything
As part of a call for “Feast” essays, Herstory has published my piece, “The Midwestern Table.” As you read it, I hope you laugh, cringe, and finally understand why I could never be a picky eater.
All the “Feast” theme essays can be found here (I am in good company):
Herstry: The Feast
I never do this. So I am doing this.
The Big Question…
…is always the same this time of year. What am I thankful for. And oh my gosh there is so much for which I am thankful, so I thought I’d say a few out loud.
I’m thankful to be retired. It is so busy, so fun. As a friend says, “Retirement is better than it’s cracked up to be.” I’ll write about this more some other time, but I love doing as I please. I’m thankful that when I retired, my company gave me a beautiful send-off that made me feel appreciated and recognized. I think this is rare, and old-fashioned, and I’m glad that I worked for a rare and old-fashioned company.
I’m thankful for my husband. He’s absolutely the right man for me; intelligent, funny, devoted, and also quirky enough to keep my interest. We never run out of things to talk about, experiences to share, adventures to plan. We bring out the best in each other.
I’m thankful for my family, extended and nuclear, especially my girls, their humor and talent and general beauty. I’m grateful for the families they have built, for the son and daughter in law they brought to the family, for the three shining grandchildren they have made.
I’m thankful for my network of friends who buoy me up and make me laugh and inspire me in so many ways. I really do have all the best people in my life.
In other words…
It’s always people, for me. I’m thankful to have found my people, birthed my people, worked with my people, discovered and maintained and enjoyed connections with so many wonderful people. You’re all mine, you know. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Two Daughters
By Emily Pérez
When there are two
daughters, one is soft
one is swift
one can stretch
her face to contain
honey or humor
saline, a bone graft
disdain.
One cannot bend
but knows her place
the curtains
the floorboard’s tongue-
in-groove, the hearthstone.
When there are two
daughters there are two
moons, both sickle-celled
and fawn-eyed.
One that sings
one that scolds.
Both hold their breath
under bridges.
Sometimes there are two
rivers cutting landscape
flooding farms
sometimes fire strides forth
on two fronts
sometimes two stars
orbit each other, but these
reflect each other’s light
and these are not
two daughters.
(source)
Putting this up here, thinking about my sister. I’m ruminating.
Dog Day
But first, Dogs.
Yesterday I went to pick up my friend Sarah for a lunch date. She was ready to go when I arrived, but there were dogs there. Dottie, named for black spots on her white paws as a puppy, and Frank, named for his eerie blue eyes. “Let’s go get some fish and chips,” Sarah called out happily, but I was perched on a footstool, reaching for the short glossy fur of dogs. Prancing dogs, one with a rope and a ball clenched tightly in her jaws to let me know how happy she was to have me there. She is sleek and black and elegant, with catlike grace, and if she were mine I would call her Isis, after the Egyptian queen of the underworld. The other dog I’d call Jack, because to me that seems to be his name, with his cattle dog brindle coloring and uncanny white snout, wide as a Bull Terrier’s, and those strange blue eyes, always watching me to make sure of what, I don’t know. A hundred pounds of young, muscular dogs, romping and wrestling in play and nipping each other in competitive jealousy to be the one that sat at my feet, to gaze into my eyes with that singular canine devotion, to be carefully petted and caressed and talked to as if this particular set of eyes was the only set in the world. How can they both be the very best dogs, I wonder, though that is what I told each one in turn. And after a long interval of attention, each took a minute to lean a rump against my legs, extending an invitation that I declined, as I don’t require the information available at the back end of a dog.
And then I washed my hands, and then we went to lunch.
October is Over, and Coins
Dividing the Jewelry
My sister wanted to divide my mother’s jewelry on the day Mom died. I mean, the actual evening of the very day, October 30, 2004. I was furious with her for even suggesting it, but she’d first started asking about it on the way up to see Mom. As far as we knew, we were just going up to see our mother in the hospital. We were unaware that this would be the last day of Mom’s life.
On the drive, my sister let me know that she wanted a diamond and emerald ring Mom won in a contest. I wanted to lash out, to shame and excoriate her for even talking about something like that. But I stayed calm.
This was an opportunity, I decided. I could freak out, or I could actually take a moment to calm down and consider what I wanted of my mother’s. After a beat, I said that was fine, if I could have Mom’s wedding set. And that evening, I took it, along with Mom’s watch and a couple of bracelets. I didn’t want them. I wanted Mom, but I knew if I didn’t take what I wanted, my sister would take it all and sell it.
I was right. I had my mother’s diamond put into a new setting, and I wear it every day. The contest ring is gone.
More Division
My dad was anxious to clear Mom’s stuff, but he didn’t want to do it. The rest of this painful dividing up fell to us, and happened after the funeral. We all went back to the house and go to work on the clothing. Once we finished with that, my sister started sniffing around the kitchen, looking for a specific plate that had either flies or bees around the edge, something Mom won at a farm auction in South Dakota in the 1960s.
Dad told us that our younger brother had taken it. “He took that and her rolling pin and the coin collection.”
My sister’s eyes flashed. “I don’t know,” she said in a prim, warning voice. “There were some valuable coins in that collection.”
I shrugged. “Good. I’m happy that he has something of value.” My sister pressed her lips together and said nothing more. This was probably a good thing because I’d have let her have it. I was furious. But that was nothing new. I was furious with my sister around Mom’s death, and it’s true that she could be impossible, but it is also true that I needed to be furious with someone and my sister was an easy target. My brothers and I were so stunned with grief that we could barely function. My sister was not. She was strangely gleeful, and I couldn’t stand it.
Hence, furious.
Other Divisions
But back to the coin collection. Mom had saved coins her entire life, but I sincerely doubt that there was anything valuable in there. If Mom had coins of actual value–those old silver coins with Lady Liberty on them–she’d pawned them. But she still saved coins of perceived value, even if the only perception was her own.
There was something special about going through my change, looking for something Mom would want. I saved half dollars, old nickels and wheat pennies in a special place and took them to her on my frequent visits. Mom accepted with a gleam in her eye, then squirrelled away the coins. I found this delightful.
Mom also saved coins from wherever she went in Europe. Most of those coins weren’t worth much more than face value, but they meant something to Mom. Value and worth are two different things, aren’t they? She liked the acquisition, and I liked the giving. And that was definitely worth something.
October Coins
Mom died 21 years ago. Things were so much different with my sister for more than half of those years. I gave up being furious with her, and she gave up resenting me for being born. There was a new generosity in her heart once her meds were balanced and she was sober. I loved it.
We gave to each other. I gave her money quite often, and gift cards, and rides. I took her thrifting and to lunch and I even took her to Bonnie Raitt a few months before she died. She gave me small things almost every time I saw her. And she gave me the greatest gift she ever could, which was her sobriety. It was what I wanted most from her.
After forty-five years of drinking, my sister would have celebrated fifteen years of sobriety on October 1st of this year. I told her that I’d like to go to a meeting with her to see her get her fifteen-year coin. Now, that would have been a coin of real value. She was so excited to share this with me.
Sweet sister, sweet mother. Two of the most difficult women who ever lived, and also two of the most delightful. I am thinking of them both, and missing them terribly.