CHAPTER THIRTY: FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER

Food, clothing, shelter – what could be more basic? I had a friend named Susan, a writer, who had written a short story about ham and cheese sandwiches as the food of choice for a particular romantic liaison. This story was in “Bitches and Sad Ladies”, a compendium of short stories that I recommend to everyone. One time, Susan and I drove to and from my cabin in Vermont (in another life), and all the way up and back (4 hours total) we recalled moments in our past based on what foods we had eaten, or what clothing we had worn, or what kind of place we lived in. These sensory memories were so vivid. To this day, I remember people and places by what I ate, wore or where I stayed. I may not remember your name, but I remember what we ate, or what we wore. Other people can evoke whole events with the lyrics of a popular song of the time. The Admiral can do that, and he remembers the lyrics to every doo-wop song ever written.

So this time I’m writing about what I ate recently, what I wore recently and where I recently stayed, as I continued taking excursions on land, while Slow Motion remained tied up at Calvert Marina in Solomons on the Chesapeake Bay.

Food, glorious food! The reunion with my girlfriends at the Inn at Mitchell House, near Chestertown, was a gastronomical extravaganza. Let’s start with the perfectly crisp, golden brown French toast that Tracy, our innkeeper, prepared for our first breakfast, followed by the light, savory frittata she served the second morning of our brief stay. Especially after a brisk hour long walk, this breakfast fare was hearty, but not unhealthy. On our happily fully stomachs, we drove to Crumpton, where acres of things – furniture, paintings, linens, jewelry, farm tools – are auctioned off at a pace as fast as the front runner in the Kentucky Derby. The auctioneer careens down a field in a vehicle sort of like a golf cart, as he jabbers about each auction piece in sales-speak, making up filler words. “What am I bid, inevitable, for this, inevitable, bed frame? Inevitable, 40, inevitable, 50, can I get, inevitable, 60?” That’s what it sounded like, if you slur those words together and spit them out at 10 words a second.

Well, after trudging up and down the field of auction items about ten times, following the pied piper with the silver tonsils, we got a little bit hungry. One of the other attractions at Crumpton is the Amish concession stand, which runs the whole length of the large building full of auction items. Talk about comfort food. Yes, they had wet bottom shoe fly pie. But it was the fresh from the oven soft pretzels, dipped in mustard, which took your breath away. And then they had smoothies and “frappes” in exotic flavors (mocha caramel). They made crispy potato chips, low salt. Most of the bakers and cooks were in their teens – the next generation of Amish is in good hands, at least in the culinary arts. We completely lost interest in the auction going on inside the building, as we kept running back to the Amish stands for just one more snack. Yes, that was lunch – maybe not the most nutritious, but one of the most delicious.

The Bethlehem Babes (that’s our name) had enjoyed fine dinners in the Chestertown area, when we previously stayed at a bed and breakfast nearby. But this time, we ventured to different restaurants, upon the recommendation of our innkeeper, and the meals were outstanding. The first night at Brook’s Tavern, we had the home made pasta special with crab and mushrooms and garlic – and one other ingredient, probably ambrosia – no sauce, except for what was distilled from the ingredients. Carol V. had stuffed trout, which was one of the best meals of her life, she said. I firmly believe that the quality of food enhanced the quality of our discussions, although with this group of super-intelligent, extremely well-educated women, we can plumb the depths of a subject without a heavenly repast. Still, when great food and great conversation occur at the same time in the same place – ooh la la!

Which brings me back to the start of our two day discussion of the state of feminism and why so many women still do not speak up for themselves or speak up for other women in need of their support. This discussion began with our wine and cheese and chocolate chip cookies on the lawn, then moved inside to the drawing room, where all manner of snacks were introduced. But as we got more animated in stating our opinions, backed up by solid facts as well as personal experiences, the food took a back seat to our Important Thoughts. And I really mean that. Each of us in the group has been subjected to gender discrimination at some point in our lives. We all worked, and when we started working, women made 54 cents for every dollar earned by men. We’ve made progress in this area of discrimination – now women earn 74 cents for every dollar earned by men. Some of us have fought long and hard for women’s right to privacy, including the pivotal rights to reproductive freedom, to accessible contraception, and to keep the government out or our bedrooms. We lived through the tragedies of women dying at their own hands holding coat hangers or at the hands of illegal abortionists, and we said “No More! Not on our Watch!” If you ever wonder why a person would vote for a candidate because of his/her position on one issue – freedom of choice – think about women dying in alleys, in seedy hotel rooms, in faraway places, just trying to assert their right to control over their own bodies.  If you don’t have that right, you really don’t have anything. And Justice Antonin Scalia doesn’t get it, never will. Think about who you want to be the next president – one who appoints someone hell bent on taking your fundamental right away by overturning Roe v. Wade? Or one who appoints someone who respects women enough to know that we can and will make our own rational decisions about reproduction, contraception and abortion. And if you’re not going to have any more children, for God’s sake, think about the rights of your sisters, daughters and granddaughters. It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s our bodies we are fighting to keep and protect.

As I write this Blog, I have been served SOS, and omg, it’s divine. The Admiral has many talents besides piloting a fifty foot long motor vessel. One of them is maker and purveyor of fine meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. He makes SOS with chipped beef or ground beef. This one was with chipped beef. The over easy egg on top was prepared to perfection, just the least bit runny to join the beef gravy on top of the crisp white toast. A belly warming meal on a dreary, rainy Sunday night. And the beefy smell fills the salon. When friends meet the Admiral and experience some of his obvious attributes – humor, wit, good listening skills – then I mention his meat loaf or stir fry, and they say “He cooks too?” This is said with just the slightest bit of envy, I believe.

Back to the smells and sights of the reunion. The second night we went to Baywolf, an Austrian owned restaurant in Rock Hall, located inside a former church – stained windows and all. This was predestined, as we had been talking the day before about the absurdity of requiring all high school students in our time to read Beowulf in Old English. The restaurant name is derived from taking the “wolf” from the owner’s first name, Wolfgang, and the “bay” from the Chesapeake. Some other time, we have to go back and enjoy their Austrian veal dishes and roasts. But on this occasion, it was “all you can eat shrimp”night, AND Wolfgang had just caught some rockfish the day before. So 4 of us had the luscious shrimp prepared 3 ways – steamed with old bay seasoning, stuffed with horseradish and wrapped in bacon, and splayed and fried and dipped in tartar sauce. The plumpest shrimp in the universe. This is not an exaggeration. They were served with a side of ratatouille. And they served 3 of each for starters. For me, that was also the end. So much for “all you can eat”. But we ordered more for those who had ordered the fresh rockfish. According to them, the rockfish was the best they had ever eaten. Add to these culinary delights the conversation that just kept flowing – it was a night for the ages. We all grew up together, so in between our heated political discourses, we played “where are they now?” about high school friends. And we remembered eighth grade English with Ms. Aldrich of the two dresses – one green and one blue, with matching belts that she daringly switched from dress to dress. So it’s like she had a wardrobe of 4 dresses, instead of 2.

This brings me to clothes. There are always great little clothes shops and jewelry stores wherever we hold reunion. We make no trips to big box stores. The locals get our business.  One year, at St. Michael’s, it was the most amazing blue stone ring that Carol V. scored. This year, it was the perfect weight of sweater for end of summer, start of fall, which Pat discovered in Chestertown. And we have changed sizes since our first reunion, some dramatically. Marlea used to hate to shop for clothes. Now that she’s a size 8, she will go into any clothing store and try on the 8’s, without too much encouragement by the rest of us. Last year, when I sadly could not attend, I missed the solo fashion show she put on for Pat and Mary Jane. Carol G. always wears the most amazing shades of turquoise blue. And Carol V. finds one of a kind shorts, tops, slacks, jewelry that we all salivate over. Of course, she’s petite and we’re not. I’m not a clothes shopper for the most part – and now that I’m a boat person with two shorts, two slacks, 4 tops, 4 shirts, even less so. But shopping for someone else, like my sister, can get my juices flowing. This year I found a royal blue pashmina for her that was cashmere soft – a little something to help celebrate her 50^th wedding (elopement) anniversary.

Shelter: You know about Slow Motion’s length of 50 feet. Did you know we have 3 staterooms, one with a king size bed, one with a queen size bed and one with bunk beds? We have two bathrooms. We have a salon (where I sit on the leather couch writing this blog), a galley, an enclosed sundeck and a flying bridge. We also have a cockpit and a swimboard. But the numbers don’t convey how homey Slow Motion has become. We bought a new rug for the salon – Persian style. And we got rid of some depressing old black and gray sundeck furniture, replacing it with sunny green and white chairs and a eucalyptus table that seats 4 and folds up. Sometimes the Admiral calls Slow Motion the “old tub”, but she’s not. She’s home. However, recently I found out that I am not comfortable here by myself – no locks on anything, no easy escape from my stateroom. The Admiral was gone for a few days, and I heard every little sound in the boat shed (we moved here to allow Kadey Krogens to stuff the marina for a half week). I could not sleep either night I was alone. This, after so many years of living alone in a house at the end of a deadend road, which has no protection against home invasion. But I had a dog, you see, so I was never really alone. So I have learned that my home is Slow Motion plus the Admiral on board.

For our reunion this year we stayed at a pre-revolutionary mansion. The foyer was filled with stuffed birds, including two huge swans caught in North Carolina. The kitchen had big heads (and half bodies) of elk and deer or moose. The drawing room, where we gathered after each dinner, had stink bugs flitting about on the ceiling and diving down to terrorize us. The stink bugs didn’t gather (or we didn’t notice them) until 10 o’clock one night. The night before we carried on our plans for gender equality until 11:30 p.m., without stink bug interference. But the second night, they showed up and drove us to an early end of discussion. Shelter, wherever you find it, should not include stink bugs. Or stuffed birds or deer, elk or moose, for that matter. Catch and release. Say it ten times – catch and release. As to deer, elk and moose, shoot them with a camera with a zoom lens. Photos show their beauty in a way that taxidermists can never capture it.

Food, clothing, shelter at the 50^th anniversary of my sister’s elopement, October 5: A week after the reunion where we renewed our Feminist Manifesto, the Admiral and I went to Chadds Ford to celebrate the 50^th wedding anniversary of Sue and Butch. As to shelter, we stayed at a serviceable Hampton Inn, which must have imported busloads of people from the area to crowd the breakfast room each morning. It didn’t seem like many people were staying at the motel. Yet, there were hordes swarming all over the one waffle iron and the covered egg serving dish. Sue and Butch and Dwight and Brett brought pizzas for dinner our first night. We had the “breakfast” room to ourselves for most of the evening. Some unfortunate people came into the room, two women and a child, and it looked like one was interviewing the other, as several of the grandchildren – the little boys, of course -- were screaming and racing from breakfast room to lobby and back. The adults gained control at one point, and we finished our pizzas in relative peace and quiet, as the louder kids went to the pool to swim. The Admiral had wanted to go to Romano’s, his favorite tomato pie, Stromboli and cheese steak joint in Essington, but that will have to wait until the next visit. This was a family weekend, and I had the chance to meet two grandnephews I had never seen, hug my DK, marvel at the height and beauty of Elena and Anastasia, and re-connect with Tanya, Dwight and David and their partners.

The next day Sue’s “bridesmaids” – she didn’t have any when she eloped October 6, 1962 – took her for a manicure and pedicure. She had a hair appointment to poof up her hair. And we treated her to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants, P. F. Chang’s. It was exactly what we would have done for Sue fifty years ago the day before her wedding – it was still fresh and exciting fifty years later. The bridemaids were me (her sister), Tanya (her daughter), Elena (her granddaughter), and Brett (her daughter-in-law). We shared a big bowl of wonton soup at Chang’s and Sue had honey shrimp. The waiter pushed Pad Thai hard, and Tanya enjoyed the special. Brett had Kung Pao, Elena had chicken fried rice and I had honey chicken. This was my second meal of the day, as I had blasted my way through the breakfast crowds to get a full sausage and eggs and bagel breakfast. As we left Chang’s, I noticed on Brett’s car the letters “OTP”. I asked her what they meant. And she said, “Ann, you know I’m Republican. That stands for One Term President.” Ouch. Just one week away from my reunion of women warriors, I find women in my own family who apparently have more pressing issues than protecting their right to privacy. Because Republicans, as a whole, and their current candidates in particular, are trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade and all the progress we made – at great sacrifice – for our generation of women and the generations after us. I was bummed out, the pleasant meal at PF Chang notwithstanding.

However, nothing raises my spirits more than a talk with my BFF, Janie, who reminded me that this weekend was devoted to a joyous celebration, not political discourse, and in the words of my dog’s trainer, I should “leave it”. Reluctantly, with control over my body in the balance, I “left it” and returned to preparation for the 50^th anniversary party at Dilworthtown Inn. This meant an emergency trip, through snarled lines of rush hour traffic on Route 202, to Macy’s, gripping my gift card from Sondra in my right fist. I had no shoes for the night, save the Sperry Topsiders and the flipflops I had been wearing on the boat. I had fifteen minutes max to find a pair of black heels and return to the maelstrom on the streets. I had promised the Admiral I would be back in an hour. The Shoe Department at Macy’s was a disaster, with women everywhere demanding more styles and other women waiting to pay – and one beleaguered shoe salesman in the middle. Help arrived with a woman and a walkie talkie, who was calling on all un-busy sales people to run to the Shoe Department to bail the guy out. Somehow I got his attention, he found a pair of black shoes (on sale), I tried one on, and he ignored the demands of about 10 other women and rang me up. I had suggested that I could go elsewhere to pay, and he said “oh no you don’t; I work on commission.” For the fashion conscious: these were 3 inch platform black patent leather pumps with open toe and sling backs, size 9 and ½. Comfortable enough, as the President would say.

Back to the motel room by 5 p.m. The gala began at 6. We were just 2 miles away. I put on the one dress I had brought on our boat adventure, a long black, sleeveless number, with slits on both sides and a burnt orange pattern of flowers and wave stripes forming the bottom border, with a few sequins here and there. I felt sort of glamorous in it and my new patent pumps, so I turned to the Admiral for inspection and comments. He said: “That dress looks like a sofa.” Glamor gone in two seconds. As I looked crestfallen, he noted that his “feng shui” made him say that. To a certain extent, he was correct, the dress had a design on it consistent with some upper scale sofa material. But that ignored the total appearance of the dress on ME, which he admitted was rather pleasing. The Admiral had pulled out a completely unwrinkled blue Oxford cloth shirt and a navy blazer to go with his khakis and preppy loafers. How does he do it? From boat bum to Ralph Lauren pinup in 5 minutes.

Did I mention that I had chosen a bronze nail polish for my fingernails and toenails, which absolutely matched the bronze/burnt orange in my dress? That’s why I needed the peep toe shoes (on sale). I felt great, and I knew that my sofa dress was perfect for the occasion. So off we went to celebrate Sue and Butch’s night.

The “shelter” for the party was a pre-revolutionary innkeeper’s house, directly across from the Dilworthtown Inn. We had the entire place to ourselves. There were about 30 of us, all eager to make this night memorable for Sue and Butch. Turned out they made the night memorable for us. Butch composed a little ditty about his first glance of Sue at a school dance wearing a tight black pencil skirt, his first dance with her (“here he comes; here he comes!”), and his falling in love with her at first sight. He was charming, endearing and amazing – hard to believe that four days before he had an operation to patch an aneurysm in his head. Sue was dazzling in her jewelry, some of which she had co-designed with a native American jeweler (that necklace is to die for!). She expressed her love for Butch, her soulmate, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place (except for maybe one brain dead waitperson). Their smiles told the whole story. They both glowed with their love for one another. They beamed! It was a wonderful sight to behold. Everyone in the room wanted some of what they have.

 

Other family members and friends gave testimonials to Sue and Butch. My brother, Rusty, described his little brother/big brother relationship with Butch, who taught him how to build and blow up airplanes, drove him up to the Poconos at 55 mph on the back of his Vespa, and introduced him to the marvels of chemistry through basement explosions. Mary Jane told us how she had awakened one morning in her house, as a teenager, and walked down the hallway, looked in her brother’s room and saw Sue and Butch sleeping in the same bed! Shocked, she ran downstairs to report this original sin, only to be let in on the secret that Sue and Butch were married. In those days, no sex before marriage, but after marriage, when you had the license from South Carolina to prove it, even your parents couldn’t stop you from canoodling in the upstairs bedroom.

We had a grand old time. We all sang some lyrics I had written to the tune of America the Beautiful (Oh Sue and Butch, Butch and Sue, God shed her grace on thee; Your love endures for fifty years, for it was meant to be.) Maybe I had written a few too many verses, but by the end everyone knew the refrain and lustily joined in to “bring it home”. The Admiral said he was ready with the hook, if I had any idea of singing more verses. We partied like it was 1962, when gas was only 20 cents a gallon. Then we went into the dining room for the most amazing meal. After the fresh salad of mixed greens, we all received perfectly grilled filet mignon, green beans and the crabbiest of crab cakes ever produced in any kitchen anywhere. All killer, no filler, crab cakes, lightly and even browned all around. The Admiral was impressed, and as you know, it takes a lot to get his stamp of approval when it comes to restaurant fare. I loved the food, but my stomach was still full of breakfast and PF Chang’s, so when the waiter came to take my plate, it still had some of the crab cake on it. He whisked it away, and THEN the Admiral said “I wanted to eat the rest of your crab cake.” Within 5 minutes of that plaintive regret, the waiter showed up with a complete crab cake, and with a flourish, placed it down in front of the Admiral. He was unfazed, as this is apparently the treatment that Admirals get used to.  

Boat bedtime is usually before 9 p.m., and we left the golden aura of Sue and Butch’s party at 9:30 p.m. – it was still going on, with people hugging and laughing and enjoying moments from then and now. But we boat people are in a different time zone all together. So back to our room to change out of Cinderella’s sofa dress and the Admiral’s gala gear. Too tired to even tackle a New York Times crossword puzzle, we crashed until morning, late morning for us. We made it to a few minutes of breakfast and goodbyes, then headed home to Slow Motion, our tried and true shelter from the storm. Back to boat clothes, back to meals whipped up in the galley, back to our crossword puzzles and our bed. Back to our future of boating adventures, as we prepare to head south for the next few months.