Minus 32 here today with the wind chill - a good day to make soup, bake bread, and keep near the stove. Northern Illinois has only an inch or two of snow forecast, no freezing rain or ice, for which we are grateful. Be safe out there. Brigid
| CARVIEW |
Select Language
HTTP/2 200
x-robots-tag: noindex, nofollow
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
expires: Tue, 27 Jan 2026 02:50:08 GMT
date: Tue, 27 Jan 2026 02:50:08 GMT
cache-control: private, max-age=0
last-modified: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:42:00 GMT
etag: W/"5e606af5f294d9552e60059643cc052cd48684e29d2b8aba96b56d5a8a84f6e3"
content-encoding: gzip
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block
content-length: 77731
server: GSE
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000
Home on the Range
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer". - Albert Camus
You can't teach an old dog new tricks. I've heard that old saying a hundred times, often when trying to train an old dog as our home has been home to 2 senior rescues since we lost Barkley.
It's not much different than taking that first solo in an airplane. You have been given the tools, you have the capabilities. But it's the fear of what you don't know that holds you back, while upward, a huge unknown, the sky, beckons. You've learned through your experience, through your lessons, that the sky is sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes frightening, never the same two days in a row, almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its quiet, and almost divine in its vastness. And you're just a little afraid of it at this point.---But it calls to you, and you know you are going to go forward. It's time.
The Quitter (1912)
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.
"You're sick of the game!" Well, now that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know--but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit, it's so easy to quit.
It's the keeping-your chin-up that's hard.
It's easy to cry that you're beaten--and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight--
Why that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and battered and scarred,
Just have one more try--it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.
- Robert Service
After some unforecast snow overnight, the walk with the dog was quiet. Down the street, a Village vehicle, someone marking gas lines as part of some upcoming work, based on the detailed markings, likely a needed excavation. They'd been doing a lot of that in the last few months, so it wasn't a surprise.
.jpg)
"One day, some people came to the master and asked, 'How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness, and death?' The master held up a glass and said 'Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably, and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it, and it rings! One day, the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'" - Achaan Chah Subato - Theravandan meditation master
.jpg)
From the nearest tree, a squirrel peers from the branches. I don't get too close, as rabies in the species is common, but there are a couple of the older red squirrels that are so used to me, they will come out of the shadows and greet me when they hear the rustling of the peanut bag. They're not pets, they are wild things, even if I've named a few that live among our 100-year-old Spruces, including Bubba, the world's fattest Squirrel, who I can't see, though he is likely nearby.
A young lady, daughter of a friend, wrote asking for advice on writing her first book. She had lots of journals, snippets of ideas, and didn't know if that would be enough to "make her a real writer". She said she had a blog, but "no one reads those; blogging is dead."
I had to tell her that anyone in this day and age who still writes in an old journal is indeed a writer. And that blogging was indeed not dead.
I look at the collection of my journals, gathered over the years. Just a few short years that stretched into twenty. So much can happen in that time. I started this blog in 2008. 2,289 posts ago. So much has happened in that time.
A well-tended grave, in a military cemetery surrounded by flags. One wooden box, bearing in cold air a warmth that can't be replaced, a well-loved dog toy resting on its lid. Two other small boxes on each side of it, one with a collar on top, another with a well-chewed yellow tennis ball. Some dried flowers from a wedding bouquet, placed between the leaves of a book of poetry.
On each page are short, simple words that do not begin to carry the weight or the sharpness of their past. But with time, those short flurries of words became long tales that are born from a soul that's an irrepressible retailer of words, a shopkeeper of phrase, an enabler of intent.
Book #1 was born out of a few blog posts and lots of journal entries that became chapters, then another, and another. It was born out of an internationally known author's belief that I was an author at heart and her encouragement to find my writer's voice. As I realized I am a writer and my world has too many words to be otherwise.
I sit here now, no music playing, no noise---just the soft breathing of a rescue dog and my thoughts, words almost imperceptible to the senses, hanging in the air to be plucked by my fingers and laid upon this wooden desk. This computer is my accomplice, guarding me with its quiet accord, bearing with me the seclusion, the mystery. I should get up and do some chores before it gets dark, but while the words are still within reach, I am imprisoned by the very freedom of my hands.
I think of the classic writers - would Jane Austin have been a hit on Pinterest? Would Hemingway have been popular on Instagram? How many Twitters to win a Pulitzer Prize? Probably not, but I bet they had journals, too.
Creativity can be short bursts of color, forms, and words.
But not in the world that I like to live in.
Because I am a writer and I have too many words.
I am the run-on sentence. I am the "too many commas". I can't take a morning standing out among broken trees, red and blue lights flashing as words pass over the forest floor like the sound of big guns, and make it a quip. I can't look out upon the hills, the top of one wreathed in billowing smoke, as around me there are shouts and hollers, ringing out like war cries, yet spoken in hushed tones so as not to disturb the dead, and express it with a hashtag.
For words are my truth, immense, and they are my voice.
Those words are strings of thoughts that you would have to travel far ahead not to hear, before you outrun the reach of a voice. You can turn off your modem, but the words still exist. For they are my words, and though confined to a virtual reality, they are words that exist, in my head and my heart, their tone from the stillness and gloom of a life with a past where my words were my one truth in each passing day.
You can choose to turn away or turn off and not read. You can give me a 1-star review because the "author of this (biography) just talks about herself" (yes, seriously), but it doesn't mean I won't write. For I am a writer, and that is what we do, sharing the nature of that internal silence that follows us down into the depths of our soul and brings up a bucket from a well---one brimming with words that spill over, to quench the thirsty hearts of whispering men
I am a writer---that solitary person who stood in the corner of the schoolyard and just looked on at the popular kids. But I always had the words, even when I was too solitary to say them. The first journal was a way to capture in words,
I'm a writer, and there are so many words.
It is what it is, a way to capture in words on a screen instead of a page, pages that can be held close in or telegraphed to the world. It can be whimsy, it can be fun, it can be as disturbed as the mind behind it, or as calm as someone one can stare at in wonder, words that reach out like a consoling whisper. It can be as intimate as a kiss or as impersonal as the wind.
It can simply be a piece of bacon and a smile.
Blogging is not dead.
It is alive when the muse fails, and the hands stay still in the air with honest idiocy of objective, which made their fruitlessness both profound and poignant. It is alive when the fingers dance over the keyboard in a frenzy, grappling with ghosts in one final act of common courage.
It is alive when the keyboard is silent, and the house is still, and the one you treasure more than anything on earth looks up from the smartphone that you will never own and says, "I love what you just wrote".
It is alive because here my voice has no word count; it can be black-and-white or filled with color. It will be stories of battles fought and won, of great mysteries, and simple pleasures. It will be warnings that the younger self will not grasp until the older self breathes its last. It will be joys and sad caresses, tender words laid out upon the tongue like a wafer, a benediction, a blessing, a self-communion of one formed of two hands. If you do not read, I will still write, as I do not write, so you can claim some part of me. But if you come out from beneath that place---that conception of existence we hide under like a tortoise in his shell and listen---the words will draw breath, even after I am gone.
Blogging is not dead.
It breathes as long as I do. Whether you read or even comment,
I'm a writer, and there are so many words.
Back when I was in my late 20s, I had an evaluation for a leadership position for an aviation outfit I worked for. It was something no woman had ever held, and certainly not anyone my age. I'd like to say I was cool and collected, but I was nervous as could be. At any point in the interview, I expected the next thing out of my mouth to be "Beer" or "Donut". The senior folks read through my resume (oh please, please tell me I used the word "Statistical" and not "Sadistical") and commented on the recent MBA (not my first choice in studies, but I knew that just being a science geek or a pilot isn't a guarantee of leadership positions later). They also mentioned my age (back in those days, you didn't have HR breathing down your neck, going "Good Heavens, man, you can't ask THAT question?)
After the technical-type questions, for which I did O (why yes, I CAN give a discourse on retrating blade stall and fully articulating rotor systems), came the deal-breaker: "Describe your organizational skills."
I thought of all those university classes, I thought of Peter Drucker's books and multi-attribute utility diagrams; I thought of getting a big box of an airplane across a big desert with steam gauges and sweat. One never forgets those flights, suspended in space, hanging from a point between mobility and absolute motion, thinking there is no better job as you chase the wind, knowing it's too good to last. I thought of budgets and acquisitions and purchase orders, and how none of them do you any good when you're looking down at 200 miles of open water, the EICAS panel lit up like a Christmas tree, and everyone is looking at you to make a decision before the other one flames out.
All those things I thought, but what came out of my mouth without pausing for breath was "I once cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 23 pilots, including real mashed potatoes and pie without a microwave, and everything was hot on the table at the same time.
"Oh, Crap, did I just SAY that?" I thought as I felt a breeze on my cheek, the axe falling, most likely. What's next, a conversation about dishware and shoes?
But I got the position. A couple of days later, I was riding herd on several hundred people. I hoped they didn't all expect pie.
So, for tonight, a little lesson on creativity and timing. Sometimes it all comes together, sometimes it's "Hello Aurelio's?" There are a million cookbooks out there, but some of the best meals are when you just get creative with what's in the kitchen. Sure, there is the occasional disaster (duck wings and chicken wings do NOT cook for the same amount of time unless you have a craving for rubber bands, and you too can make fresh-caught fish taste JUST like elastic by ignoring the instructions). But, after taking some instruction from cookbooks and with practice, most folks can learn to craft such a meal without resorting to a sodium-drenched frozen something that costs three times as much as making it yourself.
It started with a pack of two turkey tenderloins I got as a (buy one - get one free) for $10, some fresh veggies, and some dry goods.
Friday, January 23, 2026
Musings from Chiberia
Friday, January 16, 2026
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Chapter 53 - Things That Go Bump in the Night - From True Course - Lessons From a Life Aloft. Independent Author Network Book of the Year Non-Fiction
An aircraft engine has as many variances of sound as a
human. There are satisfied hums, deep-throated snarls, and the incessant
whine of someone who is never satisfied, no matter what you do for them.
Then, there is that sound, in and of itself, the sound of an aircraft engine over
the ocean at night, when there is not enough fuel to turn back, only to go
forward to a faraway shore.
The sea is a broad expanse that neither the eye nor voice can
span, and when it's calm, it lulls you into a false sense of comfort as the
engines hum, and you gaze out the window with a clear, unconscious eye. You are
not pondering thoughts that come to you poignant and silent, the order of your
conscience, the conduct of life, and if there really is a proper way to
die. You are not thinking of the operational capacities of a BKM
hydraulic pump or your own limitations. No, you are thinking about the
really cold beer you will have at the end of a day and the laughter of
companionship. That is when you hear it, or think you
hear it. That sound.
“Oh, that's not right,”
you think, and then you hear it again, that asthmatic thump. As you check EPRs, pressures, and temperatures, somewhere in your head are the words: “An engine-driven, two-element (centrifugal and gear) fuel pump supplies high-pressure fuel to the engine. Loss of the gear element of the fuel pump
will result in a flameout.” You feel no fear, only annoyance, at the
callous outcry of machinery and cold water that have caught you unawares,
making you give up your daydream of cold beer and warm skin and confirming, unreasonably, your fondness for narrow escapes.
Then it is gone if it ever occurred at all except in your mind,
the engine only emitting a steady, slow hum, like somnolent bees. But
your senses are back on red alert, that seeming malfunction that the mind hears
on such overwater trips, ministering to boldness as forged as its own pretense
of fear. What is it to fly such a vast distance, one youngster asked me once. I
replied, “It seems like five hundred minutes of boredom and one minute of
stark terror.”
You either loved or hated your ship. Aircraft, in general,
are easy to fall in love with, with their ever-present potency and mysterious
uncertainty. Even as a child, I dreamed of them, watching them fly
overhead, the contrails a heroic thread, the sun glinting on their promise. But
they varied even within the same make and model, twins from different mothers.
Then there were the mornings when you went out to the flight line and there, on the tarmac, perched four large birds, three of them bright, shining, and gleaming, perfect in form. And the fourth, older than the
dirt upon it, with a stain of fluid on the ground underneath, the Scarlet Letter
of hydraulic fluid (old airplanes didn’t leak fluid, they just marked their
territory.) Even if you got a good
aircraft, there would be days they could be as unruly as a mule, refusing
to start, to move, and occasionally willing to give you a swift kick. It
is sometimes the smallest of things that can be your undoing.
But it's not just your own craft turning on you that you have to
be concerned about on such trips. The weather over the ocean is its own
continent. Perhaps not so much now, but twenty-five years ago, when I was
a pup with four stripes on my delicate shoulders that were not yet
tarnished, weather planning for ocean crossing was less meteorology
and more alchemy. I think about many long flights,
our course drawn out with paper, not electronic blips of a
satellite fix, a small x marking a fuel stop, a small cross marking our destination,
a line marking the path—where
we as pilgrims sought out that holy place, that grail of a full night's sleep.
I remember one flight that would have a stop on an island, a piece
of land in the middle of an ocean, just big enough for a tourist's fat wallet
and the occasional aircraft. There was a great oceanic storm brewing off
in the distance, but it was to have no impact on our flight path, according to
all of the aviation weather experts. Still, as the craft pitched
ponderously in the air that was to have been still, even if the sky was clear,
there was this nagging tickle at the back of my neck that said: “should have
stayed in bed.” As we passed the calculated point of go on or retreat
back to the mainland, the controllers telling us it looked good ahead, the
clouds began to build and form, not so huddled we couldn't easily pick our way
through them with the right tilt of an antenna, but building nonetheless, and
rapidly.
As we got within fifty miles of our destination, the clouds built themselves
into
full-blown thunderstorms, releasing their energy in
broken bursts that boomed like the barrage of heavy artillery firing at a very
small enemy. The air was full of flying water, heavy sheets of rain that
extended well past the individual cells, landmines with updrafts and downdrafts
I was trying to avoid. It was supposed to be clear and sunny, with no alternate landing site required; our biggest concern was what food we could get before taking off again.
My copilot was very young and relatively inexperienced, not with
the craft, as he was fully trained, but to this whole oceanic environment. I could sense him getting pretty
nervous. I just smiled and said, “We're
almost there.” There is no quitting in this sort of thing, and often there is
no going back. You endure because you have a conviction in the truth of what
you are doing. Duty was not just a
thing, but a name, that establishes the order, the mortality of conduct and the
outcome.
“Skipper?” a gentle voice from my right.
We checked the weather for our landing destination. The wind was
very heavy but not beyond the limits of my skill or the aircraft's proven
handling, but it was going to be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. What concerned me
more was the torrential rain, barely enough ceiling and visibility to land, “barely”
being optimistic, but enough to make the precision instrument approach and
hopefully see the required lighting. There were no other options when the
nearest bit of land is hours past the fuel you have.
My copilot, upon hearing the terminal weather, gently stammered, “What
are we going to do?”
We were either going to succeed, or we were going to be scorched by a flame that fate would flick at us without pity, with no time to utter any last words of faith or regret. But I wasn't going to tell him that.
I gave him my sweetest smile and said
simply:
“We're going to land.”
And we did, dropping our nose and descending down into that somber
wall of rain and gray that seemed the very stronghold of that small place we
were trying to breach, picking up the runway there through the rain at the very
last moment, the wind pounding us like surf. When we landed, my copilot
wanted to kiss the ground. I simply gave my aircraft a grateful pat on the
nose, like the trusty steed it was, as it stood there, trembling in the wind as
if it had just run a great race.
I'd never quite seen weather change so violently and rapidly
outside of the forecast. Apparently, Mr. “Giant Rotation of Water and Air” took
a sharp bend in the hours we were aloft, pushing some weather up our way.
Not yet hurricane strength by any means, just the nasty stuff you generally try
to avoid.
After that, I think I was owed my five hundred minutes of boredom
and just wanted to go perch on a bar stool somewhere dry.
There have been many other storms, ones with premeditated gales of
wind that seemed to have a fierce purpose all of their own—such a furious attentiveness
in the howl and rush of air that it seemed to personally seek us
out. But that did not summon in me a feeling of fear, but rather, a deep
sense of awe in the power of our planet, though I was tempted to
say a quick prayer to the Patron Saint of ailerons and rudder, if indeed, there
was one.
There were days we left the ramp to launch into that deep sea that
is the sky, no one to see us off, as in days of old, where the ships left port
while some quiet mothers and anxious maidens cried and waved lace handkerchiefs
as they dreamed undrowned dreams. We were on the move so much, most of us had
no time for such ties, and our connections were brief sparks from cold stone,
unexpected and as short-lived. For now, at least, we just had our crew and crew chief, who, while immensely competent, usually ate tacks for breakfast and was typically as excited to see us arrive as my house cat was when I came home.
There were days of fierce delights, of sunlight that
bounced off the nose, like some weaponized ray of an alien craft, its power
deflected by mere sheet metal, and more relays that anyone knew (seriously, when
they built this craft, SOMEONE was having a sale on relays.) There were nights
we hung motionless in the air, with no sense of motion, ourselves a futuristic
craft that flew beyond a brace of suns into the darkness, awaiting the kiss of
imminent adventures.
It was also long and hard work. It was machinery that would break in a place of isolation requiring repairs, with a manual you wished you had brought with you, which was like trying to explain the order of the universe with one brief, hazy glimpse of truth. It was heat and
cold, pain, and pressure. It was learning to trust
equally providence and the immutable laws of physics. But its
reward was great.
I understood the conjured diplomacy of the relationship between
earth and sky, alive to its looming dangers and measured mercies. I bore the power of the atmosphere and the criticism of others, the levy of duty, and the common severity of the tasks that build a backbone and enable you to break bread. It's a life that will check the edge of your temper and the point
of your command; that will affirm the character of your fight and the hidden
truth of your fears. It's a life that beguiles as it disenchants, a life that
frees you even as you willingly let it enslave you.
Our world was long drawn-out days, a future that disappeared
moment by moment into history, and days that fell forever into the arms of the
sea or drifted down upon deserts or mountains where they caught and hung on the
landscape like clouds. Our world was one aircraft that fired up with a belch of
smoke, then hung there, lonely under that smoke, till we were released with a
quick salute.
It was an orderly world that revolved around a specific, precise, and measured way of doing something, while working in an environment that cared little about either precision or order. You were trained in every
possible outcome, only to find that one circumstance that wasn't like you were
trained for. Then you discover the most unyielding of haunts of man's own
nature, wrapped up in a question like rolled steel, more chilling than your
brief mortality. And that is the distrust of the absolute power
consecrated in an established standard of conduct. You can go off the path,
right? Boldly go where no man has gone before. It works out in the
movies, doesn't it?
I don't miss it, and I do, there on those nights, when the golden
blaze of sunset bites into the rim of the earth and the night casts its shadow
upon me. On such nights, I see the form of an aircraft overhead, not the modern airliner, but a craft that's seen some battles, one with ancient radios and tired rigging, visible there in the last remnant of light. I don't see them often, but when I do, I simply
stand there in that slant of light, the form moving away to the heart of a sky
that is its own vast enigma. Only the moon now watches me, hanging in the sky
like a slender shaving of pale wood. I watch that aircraft until it's only a
flash of a strobe, one that captures all that last bit of light in the sky,
disappearing into the darkness, gone, even as it's forever contained in the
center of it.
The sky is an incomplete story and for that I am grateful. - L.B. "Brigid" Johnson
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Letting the Music Out
You can't teach an old dog new tricks. I've heard that old saying a hundred times, often when trying to train an old dog as our home has been home to 2 senior rescues since we lost Barkley.
It's not so much that being older makes one less able to learn, short of cognitive issues. It's just that we get used to a certain way of doing things and don't wish to change. My teenage grandchildren would be mortified to know I still have a flip phone. It's not that I can't use a smartphone; the cockpit of an A-320 makes a phone's technology look like something Fisher Price built. But this brick of a phone has survived being kicked, dropped in a puddle, run over by a bike, mawed by a medley of dog teeth, and it just keeps working and has done so for less than $50 plus the monthly fee to keep it connected. It has "the ringing app," the only one I really need, as when the desk computer shuts down, I wish no further electronic leash to the world.
But I notice now that I'm retired, I do tend to get into a routine. Up before 7 each day, the dog out for some exercise with me, coffee and a bowl of hot cereal (the pancake breakfasts are for Saturdays, the rest of the time it's "Honey Bunches of Gruel"). Then, outside of the volunteer work I do 3 days a week and the occasional consult for someone in a suit who will pay big $$ to pick my brain to prep for a trial, my time is my own.
But am I going to take up knitting, put my feet up, and watch my hair go grey? (Something that my hair so far seems reluctant to do, red hair apparently being as stubborn as the rest of me?) No.
I couldn't do that at 30; I'm definitely not going to do it now. No, I will leave my comfortable chair and head out, as inconsequential a move as a bird leaving a trusted branch. Something just draws me out of my solitude, a whisper, the sound of a train, the wind in the trees, and I'm heading out, be it on foot or wheels. Just as it was when I was working, I'm constantly looking all around me, noting the people rushing about, their eyes disregarding the sun, their shadows unaware of the branches that wave over them, chattering with the tweets and calls of life. Rushing about until the days are gone until that last one, where all the words of hope and defiance, of great joy and great risks, which take wing so easily into the free immensity of a living sky, fall wearily into that newly dug grave.
Then I will go home and make some music because that special intensity of existence we think is reserved for the young is calling. For you see, long after my "youth" was gone, I went out and bought a violin.
I was always good on the piano and the clarinet, but as far as the violin was concerned, I had the musical gift of a dyslexic tree sloth, but I tried. My fingers were a bit stiff, but the music was still in me, even if only Barkley was around to be the music critic.
Oh, please tell me you're going to just set fire to it.
The first step is always the hardest. Trying something new. Embracing something long forgotten that, at one time, you loved. Learning to do something you've never done but wanted to. Tiny leaps upward propelled by longing and only held back by the gravity of timidity.
It's not much different than taking that first solo in an airplane. You have been given the tools, you have the capabilities. But it's the fear of what you don't know that holds you back, while upward, a huge unknown, the sky, beckons. You've learned through your experience, through your lessons, that the sky is sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes frightening, never the same two days in a row, almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its quiet, and almost divine in its vastness. And you're just a little afraid of it at this point.---But it calls to you, and you know you are going to go forward. It's time.
I still remember the day I walked into that little family-owned music store - so many instruments of beauty, of power, love, lust, longing, faith, joy; so many ways to paint a picture on the silence of your life. So, after holding, feeling, and touching, I picked one. I had never played. I left, happily clutching the case and the name of a local teacher, the echo of the music from the store trailing like a contrail in the twilight sky. Did it go well? I had expected, with a few lessons, to experience the joy as the music soared and spun, caught a breeze, then soared out into the night on a perfumed breeze. Actually, it was more the sound of someone strangling a set of bagpipes, but I didn't give up.
One is never too old to learn. One is never too ingrained in their habits to take up the instrument that, for them, will be the perfect blend of the joyous with the sublime, hands stroking a thing of beauty as it resonates with the sound of their dreams, the lingering notes of their need. Being married to someone who was a musical prodigy isn't going to stop me (he can't fly a jet OR make croissants), and it might be a pipe dream that I learn to play this thing well enough to play in public. But I'm not going to ignore a desire because I feel that I'm too fixed in the routine of my life. So, be it an instrument, a new physical skill or endeavor, or simply learning to craft something with your hands, try it. And may the music of your longings fill up those quiet spaces within, as you curl up between the notes and breathe deep the dreams that are in all of us.
I'll never be 20 again. I can't bench press what I used to, run as far, or put on a pair of socks without dislocating a hip when the floor is really cold. But my will is as strong and straight as the road to Glory, and that is something learned only by the years, even if you can't rewind them like a tape. The Roman Poet Ovid said, All things change, nothing is extinguished, everything flows onward. Learning new music would pull me onward, forward, calming me, soothing my mind, giving it rest, becoming the soundtrack of my life.
If I could have put some of my aerial adventures to music, what a song that would have been. Flying can be as mathematically precise as Bach, as fluid as Chopin, and as restful as Brahms. I've had landings that were as lyrical as Vivaldi, and I've had some that should have been set to the theme from Loony Tunes. There were days when there was no sense of motion, my craft seeming to hang upon the high, clear sky in a tranquil paradox of time and motion, held on the air like a
sustained note. There were days in which storms crashed around me, a kettle drum rumble of thunder warning me away, ice pellets striking the windshield with the ringing truth of a bell. It would have been my loss had I not experienced both, but it would have been, had I listened to those who said: “You shouldn't do that.”
Both brought me things worth every risk. Both induced in me a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of that which is unseen. Music and flying are both wonders or can be. What is a wonder to me may not be a wonder to you, but you may understand it, the passion, the yearning for something that's only yet a taste, the visceral connection between the soul and what elevates it to the heavens. It is what strikes in you, that same chord, the same spark that is embedded in some hearts. It is something that, in certain individuals, is simply part of our most basic inability to live with the lonesome gravity of silence.
Today, the house is empty, with the weather unseasonably warm for January. Perhaps I'll crack open the windows and let the music out. - Brigid
Sunday, January 4, 2026
The Scone Ranger
The Quitter (1912)
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.
"You're sick of the game!" Well, now that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know--but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit, it's so easy to quit.
It's the keeping-your chin-up that's hard.
It's easy to cry that you're beaten--and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight--
Why that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and battered and scarred,
Just have one more try--it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.
- Robert ServiceGood words to live by. Keep your revolver in good repair, keep on living, and freshly baked Scones in the morning with homemade blackberry jam. It's much preferred over "hell served for breakfast".
- Brigid
Monday, December 29, 2025
Tattered Flags
What WAS a surprise was that the technician was spray painting the colored markings for the gas line work ON THE SNOW, which was already melting.
Yes, every Village has an idiot. We just have more than one.
When did common sense go out the window? Is it something I just noticed once I got to the "Get Off my Lawn" age, when it's so easy to forget the dreams and illusions of youth in the cynicism that creeps in as we pass 60? I was reading a fairy tale to my youngest grandchild once, and I suddenly thought, "Look, A pumpkin turns into a fully-outfitted, gilded coach, and Cinderella just blindly gets in it and rides away. Who in their right mind would DO that? Apparently, Cinderella did and found her Prince and a happy ever after. The rest of us? We usually get a sharp dose of reality and glass slippers that REALLY hurt to wear.
Some of what might be considered common sense is innate intelligence, and that's all relative. I always thought I was pretty clever, then one day I went to the U of Pennsylvania, where my former father-in-law, a robotics pioneer, was professor of computer information science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. In his lab, there was a robotic arm that would play ping pong with you and win. It was built by a freshman. At that moment, I felt incredibly stupid. I muttered "beer, donut" and quietly left to liberally sprinkle some chicken and myself with some white wine as I made dinner with my mother-in-law.
Some of my aerial adventures certainly decry any semblance of good sense. But even on my worst day, I didn't imagine some of the things I encountered over the course of my later career in the aviation equivalent of "hold my beer". Most survived, and with a legal slap on the wrist or just a stern talking-to, never did such things again. But there were just some fools who seemed to dare us to come out to be the witnesses and guarantors of the outcome of the very act we spent so much time trying to prevent. But some just didn't listen or learn, and the day inevitably came when I ended up at a front door. I know I'm supposed to start with “I'm sorry for your loss,” but I couldn't. I merely stood there as someone who had just aged before my eyes, grabbed onto me like a lifeline, breaking into tears. I remember one woman on a small drought-ravaged farm. She couldn't have been much more than a hundred pounds and felt like a bundle of sticks against my muscled form as she cried, sticks that had weathered so much for many years, only to be tossed upon a fire, for which I could offer no healing rain. You don't forget that.
Somewhere in the Good Book it says know thyself, and though my interpretation of that was likely well out of context, I learned early on about limitations and tried not to exceed them, or red line. Looking in the mirror this morning, I note the scar where I got whacked hard by the bungee cord of a CF700 engine cover standing out in relief on alabaster skin that shows every worry, every tear. I realize that I, too, made mistakes that changed a life, often mine, in ways other than good, and that it was only through fate, luck, or a God who factored in my own stupidity when putting a calling on my life, that I am still here.
I do understand the lure of doing something without really thinking it through. As a child, I once used my dad's soldering gun to try to give Barbie a tattoo (to impress GI Joe), only to melt her whole arm off. Another Barbie lost her leg being launched in a potato gun across the fence. Then there was the time my brother got me to eat a dog treat shaped like a Hershey's kiss. When I bit into it and made a face, he said, "It's a dog treat, it's made out of sawdust and cow poop." (Not true, VITAMIN FORTIFIED sawdust and cow poop). Of course, I ran crying to my mother, who simply said, "If you're stupid enough to do something just because your brother tells you, don't come to me for sympathy."
I didn't learn immediately; there was something about the unknown, the unexplored, the "what if?" in life. I was the kid that even though I got straight A's, fidgeted in class, couldn't sit still, looking at the whole "classroom" aspect of life as a waste of time which drove me half-consciously, out into the world as soon as that bell rang away from a comfortable berth, from the menace of the mundane, to the wonders of a world beyond walls. Even as a child, I understood the ancient human instinct of the chase, and I rushed out to claim what I thought was lacking in my structured upbringing: wisdom to acquire, adventures to behold, and fun to have.
Which again was quickly quashed by my mom, who was a former Deputy Sheriff for Multnomah County in Oregon. She had seen too many ways to end up in a body bag and passed on some of that wisdom. The lessons took; I attempted to daydream less and listen more, and later in life, as airmen say, to keep the pointy end forward and the rubber side down.
.jpg)
Like my mom, I later learned the ramifications of physics too well. I'd like to say I retired without ever having to burn my clothes at the end of the workday, but I can't. I'd also like to think I could take in all that the world dished out at me like a trooper, but I can't. Sometimes late in the night, I'll wake from a dream, one I have often of an actual event, a crash where the aircraft broke apart as it hit trees and terrain, a fireball erupting from a fuel tank. Two were killed immediately, but another onboard wasn't at the scene. A grid was walked; there were footsteps in the snow and pieces of soot and burned fabric. The body was surprisingly far from the wreckage. He'd run clear, then walked, then crawled, already dead, just not realizing it yet as he strove to flee. I stood there and cried so hard that I had to don new PPE. It's an image I will take to my grave.
I wake up today to my mortality in a world that's full of those still wandering in happy denial. I can't change them; I can only change myself. I gave up alcohol years ago, I eat extra veggies and apparently when I was a kid and said, "I can't wait to grow up so I can stay up as late as I want", as late as I want apparently is 9:30. I can't undo past excesses, poor choices (never order the seafood at that restaurant in the terminal with little foot traffic at SFO International), and questionable taste in automobiles (seriously, I owned a Dodge Shadow??) But I can live with where it brought me. Moments of the loss of sense or self are nothing more than fate's little footnote, already fading, a scent, the sound of a voice, a flower pressed between pages, never to be opened again. Those regrets don't drive my day; they are a shade, a shadow, a whispered warning, perhaps, but a quiet one.
Outside, there is snow. I'm going to go out in footwear that is not suitable, fueled by a bowl of Frosted Flakes and too much caffeine, and seize the day. I have my lessons, years of patience, and extreme care that got me through broken clouds, turbulent air, and unforecast change, where the senses of my command brought me out to safety. How slow had been those flights of passage, and how quickly they were over.
So, for today, I'm just going to explore, laugh, and wonder in the world. The snow is melting, and the laundry will hold. For what is one day? A short space before the light too soon, and the echo of an owl's wings brushes against the windowsill. Just a brief interlude in the sun's dance.
My past may have brought high winds, bent trees, and fire; a helter-skelter of responsibility, fear, danger, and the occasional fractured heart. Such is what I did, and such
is what I am. But for today, I'll embrace what comes my way: the trees, a refuge of familiar order; the few remaining leaves; a brace of tattered flags against ancient wood, not knowing yet that they are dead.
I watch as a leaf flutters down from above, resting on the ground immobile, stilled forever, as it were, until the breeze picks it up and spins it aloft towards the sun which breaches the perimeter. For now, I have the light, some of the sense my mom instilled in me, and a snowball the size of a small planet in my hand, just waiting for my husband to leave the house.
A new day awaits.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
A Bit of Classic Prose and a Classic Firearm
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon;
let the brow o'erwhelm it.
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
-William Shakespeare - King Henry V
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon;
let the brow o'erwhelm it.
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
-William Shakespeare - King Henry V
Monday, December 22, 2025
Learning to Walk on Broken Glass
In my Facebook feed, I saw a snippet of a post from 10 years ago. A photo of Barkley that had been posted in remembrance on that first Christmas after we lost him. So many pictures from those happy times. Happiness is still found, but the people and souls who made up our lives then have changed drastically. In the last few years, I've said goodbye to Barkley, Abby, and Lorelei Lab, my brother, my dad, and my stepbrother. Now my little sister (biological) is fighting for her life with Stage IV cancer.
As children, we view the world as if it will always be as it is that day. Mom and Dad will always be there; the dog will live forever. There is little that cannot be fixed with glue, a bandage, and Mom's chocolate chip cookies. As we get older, those perceptions sometimes remain: that we will live happily ever after; that we will have children, who will have children, who will have children, the family living forever, in a defined order of aging and passing. We go into adulthood believing what is useful for us to believe, or rather what is intolerable for us NOT to believe.
After Barkley's death, we went out to see my Dad to laugh and remember much more than just the life of a dog. While I was there, I took Dad and my new husband one day up to the cemetery on top of a hill, where we could watch our shadows upon two small graves. My brother did not go; still weary from both chemo and radiation, but helping us prepare flowers to take to those graves.
I remember standing there, shafts of sun hitting that small stone, listening to the short song of a hidden bird who sang four short notes, then ceased, as from a distance came the incurious, calm sound of bells. As my Dad did, I realized long ago that one must sometimes don that shirt of flame, which we do not have the power to remove but only to bear, without being devoured by the blaze.
There is no perfect order, there is no guarantee, but there still is, and always will be beauty. If we didn't learn that, we'd only move without living and grieve without weeping, neither worth the toll they take on that which remains. For myself, I chose now to weep, and with that, remember.
I think again of those beliefs peculiar to childhood, namely those things we believe simply because we are too young not to believe. The first was Santa Claus. I had my doubts the first year I sat on Santa's lap at the hardware store, and he was wearing black geek glasses. Santa should look like Santa, not a 30-year-old CPA. Still, I kept quiet, buying Mom's explanation that he was just Santa's stunt double, Santa being busy that day. Certainly, Santa was real; he had to be real.
.jpg)
Then there was the Tooth Fairy. Dad still has this little note, written in my handwriting, an affidavit to the Tooth Fairy attesting that indeed I did lose my tooth, but I swallowed it with the piece of apple that pried it loose. It's wrapped around a little plastic box filled with baby teeth. Big Bro was a little less subtle. One night, long after I was asleep, Dad was alerted from the bathroom where he was preparing for bed with a "Dad, I caught the Tooth Fairy," and he had Mom by the arm and was tickling her, and they were BOTH laughing.
The Easter bunny had just a slight role at Easter, being a tradition to bring sweets to celebrate the gift and the Sacrifice of Jesus, rather than being the reason for the whole holiday. Still, before church, we loved to find the little baskets outside the door, with candy eggs and a chocolate bunny. Until one day, when we got up, and there was no basket.
Mom and Dad announced we were too old for the Easter Bunny. Instead, they were taking us on an outing tomorrow! To the State Capital! Yes, children getting to visit a government building instead of a basket of candy! You can only imagine our excitement. On the drive there, we whispered intricate conspiracies from the back seat to get out of this to no avail, not wanting to hurt our Mom's feelings. So we learned what a rotunda was. Dad finagled a tour at a local brewery on the way back, likely needing a drink after watching our tax dollars in action.
Watching the cans getting processed was a whole lot more fun than politicians in suits, and as we drove home, Mom did stop and get us some ice cream, realizing the day hadn't gone as she'd hoped but appreciating that we at least tried. I think deep down, we had known for some time the Easter Bunny was our Mom and Dad. But we were not yet openly willing to admit to another fractured fairy tale.
Still, though, our parents let us hold on to the perception that the world was unbroken as long as they could. Some things, though, could not wait until adulthood. One was finding out we were adopted. So many people, then, and even now, ask me about biological parents, and I have no answers for them. But for the reason of the severing of that tie, which is not the concern of the world, neither of us sought to find them, outside the scope of our hurt or their harm, even if we refused to pass judgment for the reasons we ended up where we did. Or perhaps we did pass judgment, but were simply unwilling to pronounce sentence.
All I can truly say is my brother and I came into the best possible family. Disciplined, loving, hard-working people who came from nothing by way of material means or privilege and still crafted a life of learning and beauty. Our clothes were handed down or handmade, our food from the garden, pasture, or forest behind the house, and our bikes were used. But we had everything that was truly important, and that was a deep appreciation for every day, even those marked with illness or imperfection, easily forgotten when we were greeted upon returning home by our Mother's smile and the joyous bark of a dog.
This was the beauty of family, simultaneously fragmented and undefeated, emboldened and afraid, yet still seeing the good in the world around us. So we carried on, my brother and I, as we told our stories. "Remember when Dad was told to give me the 'birds and the bees, boys and girls are different talk’ because Mom was sick? It consisted of a photo of a boy from the Sears catalog in his underwear, a finger pointed to a critical area, and the admonishment "Don't kick your brother there!" He would then laugh and remind me of something silly I had done in school, memories that shone in the sunlight on the telling, his laughter still ringing like a touch on glass. In our stories, we were children, and our favorite dog was always with us. We were not just immortal; we were invincible. We would run and run until our bones turned to water, and we fell in a puddle of arms and legs and barking dog, forever joyful.
On the den wall is a family tree my aunt drew with careful calligraphy, giving us each a copy. I note many branches, some ending abruptly as some died young, some were widowed, some childless, a lifelong bachelor or spinster among them. Now, on a branch, which had ended abruptly, is a name, next to mine, something I owe in part to a dog named Barkley.
For Barkley was indeed my family: his story, joining these others, each entwined into a family history of black sheep, white knights, the victors, the vanquished, each carrying with them loves and burdens and more than one four-legged companion with whom they shared the journey. Each name, name by name and page by page, will be laid down until inevitably, only one name will remain, for that glass is indeed, inevitably broken. That person will, I hope, trace the names and whisper the stories that haunt the winds, even if no one is left to hear, but ghosts on the page, with no earthly house in which they wait for us.
As I start to weep, a hand reaches out to touch my face, in benediction, in blessing. That is the true beauty which sustains us; a birth and sacrifice on which the world was saved is re-enacted here in this world every day, in the saving grace of a small, imperfect family and the memory of a dog.
- Brigid
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Tree Watchers
Such is the nature of wild things and wild dreams, which, when viewed, summon our wish for constancy, but when out of sight, seem so elusive and illusory that they appear less like dreams and more like ghosts that now live in another dimension. I scatter some peanuts and some sunflower seeds, making sure the feeders and suet corral are full, and return to the house. In my wake, small winged forms hop happily into the bounty even as I shut the door to the house, as the wind blows the snow into intricate patterns like some ancient hieroglyph that only God can read. - B.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Get a Dog - It Will be Fun They Said
>
After 17 inches of snow, the rain began last night. The backyard is now a slushy mess, which Sunny loves. But drying her off with a beach towel requires 4 hands, so I got a "Chicken Stick" out ahead of time (her "let Mom write"bribe snack). I then placed it on the counter before she came in from the fenced yard.
Coming inside, she gets a small, hard, round sweet potato treat for staying still while being dried off on the enclosed porch.
I don't think I'm going to get any writing done today.
After 17 inches of snow, the rain began last night. The backyard is now a slushy mess, which Sunny loves. But drying her off with a beach towel requires 4 hands, so I got a "Chicken Stick" out ahead of time (her "let Mom write"
She gently takes the treat in her mouth, then spots the Chicken Stick as she enters the kitchen.
She SPEWS out the hard treat in a 60-degree arc towards my kneecaps at 1200 meters per second like a Canine Claymore.
Sunny then stares at the chicken stick til I hand it over.
Then it's time for a zoomie in the living room before passing out to snore on the couch.
I don't think I'm going to get any writing done today.
Friday, December 5, 2025
On Blogging
A young lady, daughter of a friend, wrote asking for advice on writing her first book. She had lots of journals, snippets of ideas, and didn't know if that would be enough to "make her a real writer". She said she had a blog, but "no one reads those; blogging is dead."
I had to tell her that anyone in this day and age who still writes in an old journal is indeed a writer. And that blogging was indeed not dead.
I look at the collection of my journals, gathered over the years. Just a few short years that stretched into twenty. So much can happen in that time. I started this blog in 2008. 2,289 posts ago. So much has happened in that time.
A well-tended grave, in a military cemetery surrounded by flags. One wooden box, bearing in cold air a warmth that can't be replaced, a well-loved dog toy resting on its lid. Two other small boxes on each side of it, one with a collar on top, another with a well-chewed yellow tennis ball. Some dried flowers from a wedding bouquet, placed between the leaves of a book of poetry.
On each page are short, simple words that do not begin to carry the weight or the sharpness of their past. But with time, those short flurries of words became long tales that are born from a soul that's an irrepressible retailer of words, a shopkeeper of phrase, an enabler of intent.
Book #1 was born out of a few blog posts and lots of journal entries that became chapters, then another, and another. It was born out of an internationally known author's belief that I was an author at heart and her encouragement to find my writer's voice. As I realized I am a writer and my world has too many words to be otherwise.
I sit here now, no music playing, no noise---just the soft breathing of a rescue dog and my thoughts, words almost imperceptible to the senses, hanging in the air to be plucked by my fingers and laid upon this wooden desk. This computer is my accomplice, guarding me with its quiet accord, bearing with me the seclusion, the mystery. I should get up and do some chores before it gets dark, but while the words are still within reach, I am imprisoned by the very freedom of my hands.
I think of the classic writers - would Jane Austin have been a hit on Pinterest? Would Hemingway have been popular on Instagram? How many Twitters to win a Pulitzer Prize? Probably not, but I bet they had journals, too.
Creativity can be short bursts of color, forms, and words.
But not in the world that I like to live in.
Because I am a writer and I have too many words.
I am the run-on sentence. I am the "too many commas". I can't take a morning standing out among broken trees, red and blue lights flashing as words pass over the forest floor like the sound of big guns, and make it a quip. I can't look out upon the hills, the top of one wreathed in billowing smoke, as around me there are shouts and hollers, ringing out like war cries, yet spoken in hushed tones so as not to disturb the dead, and express it with a hashtag.
For words are my truth, immense, and they are my voice.
Those words are strings of thoughts that you would have to travel far ahead not to hear, before you outrun the reach of a voice. You can turn off your modem, but the words still exist. For they are my words, and though confined to a virtual reality, they are words that exist, in my head and my heart, their tone from the stillness and gloom of a life with a past where my words were my one truth in each passing day.
You can choose to turn away or turn off and not read. You can give me a 1-star review because the "author of this (biography) just talks about herself" (yes, seriously), but it doesn't mean I won't write. For I am a writer, and that is what we do, sharing the nature of that internal silence that follows us down into the depths of our soul and brings up a bucket from a well---one brimming with words that spill over, to quench the thirsty hearts of whispering men
I am a writer---that solitary person who stood in the corner of the schoolyard and just looked on at the popular kids. But I always had the words, even when I was too solitary to say them. The first journal was a way to capture in words,
I'm a writer, and there are so many words.
It is what it is, a way to capture in words on a screen instead of a page, pages that can be held close in or telegraphed to the world. It can be whimsy, it can be fun, it can be as disturbed as the mind behind it, or as calm as someone one can stare at in wonder, words that reach out like a consoling whisper. It can be as intimate as a kiss or as impersonal as the wind.
It can simply be a piece of bacon and a smile.
Blogging is not dead.
It is alive when the muse fails, and the hands stay still in the air with honest idiocy of objective, which made their fruitlessness both profound and poignant. It is alive when the fingers dance over the keyboard in a frenzy, grappling with ghosts in one final act of common courage.
It is alive when the keyboard is silent, and the house is still, and the one you treasure more than anything on earth looks up from the smartphone that you will never own and says, "I love what you just wrote".
It is alive because here my voice has no word count; it can be black-and-white or filled with color. It will be stories of battles fought and won, of great mysteries, and simple pleasures. It will be warnings that the younger self will not grasp until the older self breathes its last. It will be joys and sad caresses, tender words laid out upon the tongue like a wafer, a benediction, a blessing, a self-communion of one formed of two hands. If you do not read, I will still write, as I do not write, so you can claim some part of me. But if you come out from beneath that place---that conception of existence we hide under like a tortoise in his shell and listen---the words will draw breath, even after I am gone.
Blogging is not dead.
It breathes as long as I do. Whether you read or even comment,
I'm a writer, and there are so many words.
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Dinner on the Fly
After the technical-type questions, for which I did O (why yes, I CAN give a discourse on retrating blade stall and fully articulating rotor systems), came the deal-breaker: "Describe your organizational skills."
I thought of all those university classes, I thought of Peter Drucker's books and multi-attribute utility diagrams; I thought of getting a big box of an airplane across a big desert with steam gauges and sweat. One never forgets those flights, suspended in space, hanging from a point between mobility and absolute motion, thinking there is no better job as you chase the wind, knowing it's too good to last. I thought of budgets and acquisitions and purchase orders, and how none of them do you any good when you're looking down at 200 miles of open water, the EICAS panel lit up like a Christmas tree, and everyone is looking at you to make a decision before the other one flames out.
All those things I thought, but what came out of my mouth without pausing for breath was "I once cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 23 pilots, including real mashed potatoes and pie without a microwave, and everything was hot on the table at the same time.
"Oh, Crap, did I just SAY that?" I thought as I felt a breeze on my cheek, the axe falling, most likely. What's next, a conversation about dishware and shoes?
But I got the position. A couple of days later, I was riding herd on several hundred people. I hoped they didn't all expect pie.
So, for tonight, a little lesson on creativity and timing. Sometimes it all comes together, sometimes it's "Hello Aurelio's?" There are a million cookbooks out there, but some of the best meals are when you just get creative with what's in the kitchen. Sure, there is the occasional disaster (duck wings and chicken wings do NOT cook for the same amount of time unless you have a craving for rubber bands, and you too can make fresh-caught fish taste JUST like elastic by ignoring the instructions). But, after taking some instruction from cookbooks and with practice, most folks can learn to craft such a meal without resorting to a sodium-drenched frozen something that costs three times as much as making it yourself.
It started with a pack of two turkey tenderloins I got as a (buy one - get one free) for $10, some fresh veggies, and some dry goods.
I said, "Tenderloin with garlic sliced in a chardonnay sauce?" and Partner in Grime said, "stuffing with onion and celery as a bed?" and it went from there.
It ended up as this.
Turkey Tenderloin in White Wine Reduction with Garlic and Mushrooms served on Onion/Sage stuffing with Walnut Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Pear Cinnamon Balsamic glaze.
No recipe, no rules, and two big thumbs up.
Start with the tenderloin(s). Marinate in a dab of olive oil and a little lemon juice, then rub with garlic and roast until not quite done (about 10 minutes less than the package directions, still pink in the middle). While that cooks, chop a couple of large sweet potatoes into two-inch chunks, toss with a little walnut oil, and place in a cooking pan. While you're in chopping mode, chop 1 1/2 onions (the half onion into small pieces and the whole one into larger chunks) and chop 2-3 stalks of celery. Throw the whole onion, cut into larger pieces, with the potatoes. I have these nifty Ceramic knives that Old NFO gave me many years back that make it easy. Preheat oven to the temperature on the tenderloin package.
Get out a box of Stove Top stuffing (normally I make my own, but I got this for a buck on clearance), put water and butter per directions in a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of sage, and set on a cold burner.
Sauté the celery and the half onion bits in a pan with a little EVOO until the celery is JUST starting to get limp and the onion is starting to caramelize. Toss the celery and onion mixture into the stuffing water, then put the pan back on a cold burner.
Turn the heat on the water for the stuffing to a warm setting (you want it to heat, not simmer). In the same pan you sauteed the onions and celery, saute some sliced mushrooms and a child-sized handful of fresh basil. When the mushrooms are starting to soften, drain off any liquid and add 3/4 cup of white wine (the alcohol will cook off, but you can substitute apple juice), and a splash of lemon juice. Stir until the liquid begins to cook down slightly. Place turkey slices on top and let it finish cooking, stirring occasionally to let the wine reduction cook down, adding 2-3 tablespoons of butter at the end to thicken. Leave the pan on low, stirring occasionally, while the potatoes finish.
When the timer goes off for the potatoes (or when they start to get soft), drizzle 1/4 cup Cinnamon Pear Balsamic Vinegar over the top (available from Saratoga Olive Oil Company online). Stir and return to the oven for 10 minutes, or until the center is soft when poked with a fork.
Raise the heat under the veggie-infused stuffing water to boiling, then add the stuffing mix. Stir, cover, and remove from heat.
When potatoes are done, everything is done. Serve turkey over stuffing with sweet potatoes. Drizzle any extra juice from the glazed potatoes over the turkey and stuffing.
It might not be dinner for 23. It may just be dinner with your best friends of the two and four-legged variety; time to laugh, time to shed the worries of the week, watching them all fly away as toasts are made and thanks is given.
It ended up as this.
Turkey Tenderloin in White Wine Reduction with Garlic and Mushrooms served on Onion/Sage stuffing with Walnut Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Pear Cinnamon Balsamic glaze.
No recipe, no rules, and two big thumbs up.
Start with the tenderloin(s). Marinate in a dab of olive oil and a little lemon juice, then rub with garlic and roast until not quite done (about 10 minutes less than the package directions, still pink in the middle). While that cooks, chop a couple of large sweet potatoes into two-inch chunks, toss with a little walnut oil, and place in a cooking pan. While you're in chopping mode, chop 1 1/2 onions (the half onion into small pieces and the whole one into larger chunks) and chop 2-3 stalks of celery. Throw the whole onion, cut into larger pieces, with the potatoes. I have these nifty Ceramic knives that Old NFO gave me many years back that make it easy. Preheat oven to the temperature on the tenderloin package.
Get out a box of Stove Top stuffing (normally I make my own, but I got this for a buck on clearance), put water and butter per directions in a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of sage, and set on a cold burner.
Sauté the celery and the half onion bits in a pan with a little EVOO until the celery is JUST starting to get limp and the onion is starting to caramelize. Toss the celery and onion mixture into the stuffing water, then put the pan back on a cold burner.
About now, the timer for the turkey should go off. Remove it from the oven and let it cool slightly, then slice it. Place the potatoes in the oven, raise the temperature to 375°F, and set the timer for 30 minutes.
Turn the heat on the water for the stuffing to a warm setting (you want it to heat, not simmer). In the same pan you sauteed the onions and celery, saute some sliced mushrooms and a child-sized handful of fresh basil. When the mushrooms are starting to soften, drain off any liquid and add 3/4 cup of white wine (the alcohol will cook off, but you can substitute apple juice), and a splash of lemon juice. Stir until the liquid begins to cook down slightly. Place turkey slices on top and let it finish cooking, stirring occasionally to let the wine reduction cook down, adding 2-3 tablespoons of butter at the end to thicken. Leave the pan on low, stirring occasionally, while the potatoes finish.
When the timer goes off for the potatoes (or when they start to get soft), drizzle 1/4 cup Cinnamon Pear Balsamic Vinegar over the top (available from Saratoga Olive Oil Company online). Stir and return to the oven for 10 minutes, or until the center is soft when poked with a fork.
Raise the heat under the veggie-infused stuffing water to boiling, then add the stuffing mix. Stir, cover, and remove from heat.
When potatoes are done, everything is done. Serve turkey over stuffing with sweet potatoes. Drizzle any extra juice from the glazed potatoes over the turkey and stuffing.
It might not be dinner for 23. It may just be dinner with your best friends of the two and four-legged variety; time to laugh, time to shed the worries of the week, watching them all fly away as toasts are made and thanks is given.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)