Sonya Makes Ginger Beer

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Photo: Sonya, Mackedie, and Randy Norton in the back yard of the house on Shasta Avenue in San Jose, June 1974

My old friend Sonya is here this week. Our friendship goes back to the mid-1960s, when we were alternate lifestyle ladies together, sashaying around in our long skirts and thrift store glad rags.
In 1972 I rented a room from Sonya and her husband Randy. They lived with their infant daughter Mackedie in a house in San Jose just off the Alameda.
That summer Sonya, Mackedie, and I hit the thrift stores and nurseries and tofu factories of San Jose, and went to the Rosicrucian Museum, the Montalvo mansion, and the Winchester House. We took long drives on Skyline Boulevard where the San Francisco Bay area fell away to the east and the Monterey Bay area fell away to the west. The following winter I decided to move to Vashon, and that was the end of my time there.
Last night she told me the story of the time she made ginger beer.
Sometime after I moved up here, when Randy and Sonya were still living in the San Jose house, Sonya decided to make ginger ale. Verner's, “the notorious ginger ale from Detroit that actually has some real ginger in it,” was not strong enough for Sonya's taste. Did I mention that Sonya is addicted to ginger like some of us are addicted to chocolate? Well, she is. She decided she was going to make ginger ale strong enough to meet her standards.
Her husband, Randy, said, “If you're going to go to all that trouble, why don't you make ginger beer?”
She said okay, but a couple of days later, before she'd got around to the brewing, Randy was talking to an old-timer friend of his and came home to tell Sonya, “Mac says to drop a couple of raisins in each bottle.” Old timer ginger beer brewing wisdom, they thought.
Randy brought home two 24-bottle cases of long neck bottles and a bottle capper, and Sonya made the mash following a recipe she found in an old book with recipes for home made beers, wines, and cordials. When after a few days the frothing of the liquid stopped, she bottled up the liquid, dutifully putting two raisins in each bottle as advised by Randy's friend.
Randy then took the two cases of bottles down to the basement, putting them on a shelf on the other side of the washer and dryer.
You can guess what happened next, especially if you've ever bottled your own fizzy liquids. One night when Sonya was lying in bed she heard, she thought, a truck backfire nearby. Didn't give it much thought.
A couple of days later she heard two shots, bang, bang!
That sounded like it was right under the bedroom, she thought with alarm. Then she thought some more.
She went down the stairs to the basement. As she opened the door, BANG!
As she suspected, the ginger beer bottles were exploding.
For the next few weeks whenever Sonya wanted to do the laundry, she held up a metal garbage can lid as a shield in one hand, while carrying her bundle of laundry in the other. She and Randy were afraid to touch or move the bottles because they were so sensitive – opening the door would set off an explosion. Any jiggle or disturbance would set off a bottle or two, and bottles exploded randomly at other times. She said that eventually all but one of the bottles exploded, and they were afraid to touch that one.
Sonya swept up the glass, and decided the raisins had been a mistake. The raisins increased the fermentation to unprecedented heights. She declined to make ginger beer again, though, even without raisins. Being able to do the laundry safely was more important.
I've heard similar stories from other friends who have tried bottling their own fermented or carbonated beverages. Even without raisins it's a tricky business, and explosions often result. You probably shouldn't try it unless you have nerves, and a garbage can lid, of steel. They ought to list those two things in the recipes.

Waiting for the Test Results

My birthday was last week, and a couple of people wished me “the happiest birthday ever.” Oddly enough, that is exactly what it was.
I had some biopsies done six days before my birthday and I was waiting for the results. Many of my friends and family members have had cancer, and I thought it might be my turn.
If you have waited for test results for a biopsy, you can testify that the waiting period is not fun. You imagine all kinds of things. You go from planning your funeral and writing letters to the kids telling them you love them, to thinking maybe you're fine and wondering, since all your friends and family are sweating out the wait for test results with you, “Will I feel embarrassed after all this fuss if I don't have cancer?”
Then you go back to thinking it probably is cancer. Or maybe not. But it probably is. But it might not be.
And so on.
As the days crawled by for me, I'd go for minutes without thinking about the tests and wondering what the results were, but then I'd remember with a thud. I took deep breaths and tried to relax. I used what I call “the power of positive denial.” I told myself that as long as I didn't know for sure, I could enjoy my ignorance. One morning I realized that having cancer is a lot like not having cancer – you're still alive, you're still you. That was good to know, even before the test results came back.
I sang, and wrote, did a few crosswords, watched a little TV, and laughed with friends. It all worked for a while, then I'd remember that I was waiting.
Finally, on my birthday, the call came.
“Are you sitting down?” the woman on the phone asked. It did not seem like an auspicious beginning to the conversation.
“Wait,” I said, and sat down, ready, I thought, for whatever it was.
She told me I didn't have cancer.
I have to tell you that when I heard the words, “You don't have cancer,” embarrassment was the last thing on my mind. I was more like, “Yay, wahoo, whoopee!”
My body relaxed like a rubber band that had been twisted tight, and for the rest of that day and part of the next I walked around feeling loopy. I had a silly grin on my face, even though I did hear the rest of the test results: the cells that were biopsied are indeed whipping up bad craziness. They are almost cancer, but haven't quite gone over to the dark side. They must be removed.
So my summer plans have been simplified: surgery, followed by recuperation from surgery. I'd rather fly to Maui,* but oh well.
The big hitch in the plan is that I don't have medical insurance. I lost that when my husband became ill and couldn't work full time anymore. I had a plan to stay healthy until I was old enough for Medicare, but that has not worked out so well. Before I get to see a doctor I'll be speaking to a financial counselor. Once I've been financially counseled, and fill out several reams of paperwork, I shall be treated. So they tell me.
Right now I'm happy to be alive, and kids, I do love you, even if I do have to send you a notice on Facebook to remind you when it's my birthday.
*Actually, I wouldn't rather fly to Maui, or anywhere. For over three decades I've had a severe fear of flying. But I've been thinking since this biopsy thing came up, what the heck. I might like Maui. So look for gratuitous mentions of flying to Maui in future columns. It's going to be my fallback fantasy this summer.

Don't Call Australia in the Morning

As I am writing this, it is May 20, 2011. According to some people who have been getting a lot of press lately, the end of the world is supposed to occur tomorrow, May 21. If that is the case, it won't matter that I didn't get my column in before deadline today.
That's what I was thinking, and then I thought, wait. Do they mean May 21 American time, or May 21 Sydney, Australia, time?
We have friends who live on the east coast of Australia north of Sydney, and when ever I try to figure out what time it is there, I use the simple rule that they are eighteen hours ahead of us, or, as I sometimes like to think of it, six hours behind us, tomorrow. So if it's seven twenty-five in the evening on Vashon Island (and it is right now), then it's – um – wait – one twenty-five Saturday afternoon in Sydney. So it's already more than halfway through May 21 there. Maybe I should give them a call and see how they're doing. What if they don't answer?
That simple rule is simple because it's not accurate, by the way. Sometimes we're on Daylight Savings Time, sometimes we're off, and the same is true for Sydney, Australia. So sometimes we're seventeen hours behind them and sometimes we're nineteen hours behind them. Occasionally eighteen hours is correct, but I get confused trying to figure it out.
I made a chart after our friends moved to Australia. I listed all the hours of the day in the first column to show what time it was on Vashon Island. Then I did comparative columns of what time it was in Sydney on Daylight Savings Time (nineteen hours ahead), what time it was there off Daylight Savings Time (seventeen hours ahead), and what time it was there if Daylight Savings Time didn't matter, when we're both on it or off it, during overlapping weeks that sometimes occur (eighteen hours ahead). This chart was meant to keep me from making a friendly telephone call that woke them up at four in the morning, which I did once, and I could tell it was not appreciated. Friendship is all well and good, and a great thing, but there are boundaries.
I can tell you as a general rule that it is not a good idea to call Australia from the West Coast of the United States between our three in the morning and let's say our one or two in the afternoon. Observing these guidelines respects the sleep schedule of people living on Sydney time. If you live in some other time zone but the West Coast of the United States, you're on your own. It was hard enough to figure out this much.
Oops – just looked on Facebook, and our god daughter who lives in Cairo, Egypt, has observed that if the end of the world was occurring on Greenwich Mean Time, it's late. Maybe not May 21, after all.
I tend to think that when Jesus said, “no one shall know the hour or the day,” he knew what he was talking about. No one will see it coming. So straighten up and fly right, pal. You never know.
And don't call Australia in the morning.

Happy Birthday, Libbie!

Our friend Libbie Anthony (that's her on the left in the picture) turns 70 today, May 10, 2011. She sent an email to many people reminding them of this fact and asking them to send her birthday greetings to make it a heck of a day.
She also mentioned that she had recently had a toe amputated. She ignored her diabetes for a few years, and regrets that now.
Lib & I used to sing together with Velvet Neifert as the trio Women, Women & Song. We sang our way up and down the West Coast all through the 1980s. It was a great ride, mostly, like all of life.
Two things I ask of my friends who read this: First, don't get all bent out of shape because I wrote a poem for Libbie's birthday and not for yours. If you want a poem, ask me, and I'll write one. Second, don't go chopping off any body parts in hopes that you'll inspire me. I mean, eew. Just email me or call and tell me what's been going on and I'll see what I can cook up for you. And remember, it takes time and effort to write even bad poetry.
Let's get to it. Here is Libbie's 70th Birthday poem:

In Memory of a Missing Toe
On the Occasion of the 70th Birthday
of Elizabeth Whitman Anthony

Oh late lamented toe!
That once with me did caper
With nail painted red
With graceful girlish taper

I took you as my due
The docs took you, you're gone
You've hit the finish line while all
The rest of me goes on

Ne'er again the other nine
To march with their comrade true
Ne'er again when I'm alert
Shall I be on my you

So thank you for the many years
The many miles you granted
I'll face the future without you
Albeit somewhat slanted.


Happy Birthday & Many Happy Returns
from Yr. Friend
Mary Litchfield Tuel


Grandma's Diary: Nine

Dear Allysan,
When I started writing a column for the Vashon Loop nine years ago I wrote about you and titled the column, “Grandma's Diary.” You were my newborn grand daughter then, and the apple of my eye.
You gave me a lot of material to write about when you were small.
There was the time you threw the package of ramen noodles into the dishwasher when I wasn't looking and I didn't find out until after the load was done washing. Man, those noodles were clean.
Then there was the time I went to the bathroom, leaving my laptop computer out, and when I came back not three minutes later, you were busy writing on the computer screen with a black marker. When you saw me, you dropped the marker, said, “I done,” and ran away. I went to look at the computer and found you had colored almost the entire screen black.
Handy tip: acetone will remove black marker from a computer screen, but try not to inhale the fumes.
We had a lot of fun together back in the day. Once you and I traveled to California to visit my cousin Nancy, and coming home Nancy rode up the coast with us. The three of us went swimming in a motel pool in Crescent City. Like your dad and your uncle when they were little, you enjoyed riding on my back like a cow girl as I plunged through the water.
After a few years I decided not to write stories about you for the paper any more. I figured it was hard enough growing up in a small town, without having people know stories about you and come up to you in the store or at school and say, “You're the girl who...” whatever the story was. I made this decision after a woman came up to us at the supermarket one day, looked at you, and said, “Oh, you're that naughty little girl!” She was kidding around, but I figured you didn't need anyone saying anything like that to you, even kidding.
Now you are about to turn nine. You are half-way to eighteen, which is considered adult in many ways. I thought I was adult when I was eighteen. Now in my 60s I think people in their 40s are kids, so an eighteen-year-old is practically a baby. When you are eighteen, you will not think you are a baby.
When your father turned nine I remember the shock of realizing that he was halfway to adulthood and I hadn't done a fraction of the things I'd wanted to do with him. We never drove a van across the country to visit all the parks and monuments and historical sites I wanted to see and show to him. We didn't go live on the beach in Mexico for six months so we could all learn to speak Spanish. Stuff like that. We did once take a train trip across the country and back, visiting family in Ohio and New Mexico, and we drove to California to visit the grand parents several times, so we did some traveling. It's just that I had these ideas about what I wanted to do with my kids, that's all, and when your dad turned nine I realized that there was so much I'd never get done.
Now we're sitting here on the couch together and you're watching me write this letter about your turning nine, which you're going to do any minute now, and I find myself thinking of the things I wish I could do with you – train trips, road trips. I wish I could be like Auntie Mame (I'll explain who Auntie Mame was later) and take you to see the wonderful things this world has to offer, the places and people. But instead you have to stay here and finish second grade.
That's life. We dream about flying to Maui, but we have to stay home to finish second grade, and turn nine with our mom and dad and grandmas and grand dads and our friends around us to eat cake and give us presents and wish us well and try as much as possible to make right where we are the best place for a beloved child to grow up.
We grandparents know that at nine you will not be a child much longer. Adolescence will soon begin creeping in, and then you'll be a teenager, and the beautiful talented brilliant child you are will be gone forever. Instead you'll be a beautiful talented brilliant young woman, but you know what? I can wait for that. I can wait, and I can savor this brief time before you emerge from childhood.
In closing, I want to say: you rock, grand daughter, you rock now and you always will, and I am so blessed, so fortunate, so lucky that I get to know you. Happy Birthday. Love, Grandma

Doggerel and Other Invasive Species

It's been a good week for doggerel here at Casa Tuel. It started out innocently enough. It began as I was digging out buttercups:
The buttercup, a pretty flower
Bright and cheerful in the yard
Once it's rooted in your garden
Getting rid of it is hard.

Hardly Shakespeare, but it amused me and led to other rhymes:
Morning glory climbs the fences
Choking out the plants you want
You can pull and pull and pull
But get rid of it you cahn't.

After that I was on a roll:
Blackberries grow arching canes
That will rip you with their thorns
You might think that you have killed them
But next spring, ta-da, reborn.

Dandelions dot the yard
Golden flowers, gossamer spheres
Blowing in the summer breeze
Multiplying every year

Quack grass frolics through the orchard
Sending rootlets underground
I believe there is one plant that's
Sprouting up the world around

Ivy, once put in on purpose
Chokes the land with vines and leaves
Housing raccoons, eating houses
Sucking life out of the trees

Scotch broom ate the horse's pasture
Now it's started on the lawn
Push it back with a bulldozer
And delude yourself it's gone

Finally, I was practicing the Irving Berlin song “Easter Bonnet” to sing for a gathering of elders, and found myself writing doggerel to that old tune:
Spring is being tardy at starting up the party
I look out my window and it's raining again
I'm so tired of waiting. The weeds are germinating
But I look out my window and it's raining again
In the front yard, my front yard
All the soil is soft mud
that's up to the knees
of my old dungarees
Oh, I could use some sunshine
To dry out would be so fine
But I look out my window and it's raining again

You can see how insidious the urge to write doggerel can become. I pass the bug along to you. Go ye forth and write bad rhymes! It's something to do while you wait for the rain to let up. Cheers.

In Memory of Megan

Megan Belia died this week. We hoped she'd have a little longer, but nope.
So now we tell the stories.
A few years ago as we first got to know each other, Megan and I realized that we both knew Malvina Reynolds in the 1970s. Megan did the artwork for one of Malvina's album covers.
Megan and her family lived in Montana then, and gave Malvina a place to stay when she came up to Montana to perform.
The leader of the local John Birch Society where she was playing knew about Malvina's political beliefs. She was open about that. She was a socialist. Yup, a real one who had read all the books and grown up in what came to be known in this country as the Old Left. The John Birch guy was outraged that she was coming to sing her songs. Shot off his mouth about how awful she was to anyone who'd listen, apparently.
The night of the show this stalwart defender of capitalism showed up, and someone pointed him out to Malvina, who walked toward him with a smile and her hand extended in a friendly greeting.
“He jumped over two rows of chairs to get away from her,” Megan said. “He was terrified of her.” The power of a little old lady with white hair and a guitar is more than you'd imagine, apparently. Something to think about.
After her marriage ended Megan became a nurse practitioner whose specialty was obstetrics and gynecology. By the time she came to Vashon to be close to family a few years ago, she had retired on disability. She lived quietly in a small apartment with her service dog, Charlie. Charlie was a crested Chinese hairless that she had rescued, and Megan said that she and Charlie supported one another mutually. Having him with her enabled her to go out in public and be around people. Her doctor certified Charlie as a service dog.
Megan became involved at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit and did a lot of volunteer work, in the community, at the nursing home, and through the church. She became a lay pastoral counselor. No matter how crappy her own life or health was, she'd call you up and say, “How are you?” and really want to know.
She had Charlie with her one day when I went to meet another friend at a restaurant, which I shall not name. It's not even there anymore.
Megan and Charlie joined my friend and me at our table, and we were having a nice visit when the waiter came up and told Megan that she and her dog would have to leave. She explained that Charlie was a service dog, and she refused to leave.
Well, that's when the stuff hit the fan. The restaurant manager who was there had a fit and fell in it. He came to the table and spoke angrily to us, ordering us out. Megan tried to explain that service dogs were allowed to be in restaurants. I tried to explain that Charlie was legally the same as a seeing eye dog. He threatened that he would call the sheriff and have us arrested.
Megan said calmly, “Well, I guess today's the day I go to jail.”
No law enforcement officers ever arrived. If they were indeed called perhaps they understood better than the manager that Megan was right, and had the law on her side. Not only are service animals allowed in restaurants, all that restaurant personnel are legally allowed to ask is, “Is this a service animal?” If the answer is yes, they are legally obliged to bugger off and leave the animal and disabled person unmolested. They cannot ask for proof of the animal's status. They cannot throw the animal or its owner out. It's a law created to prevent the harassment of disabled people, the kind of harassment we experienced that day, or worse.
That was my great adventure with Megan. I wrote about it in the Loop at the time. I didn't use her name, but the people who knew her knew who I was talking about. The last time I saw her she told me it was one of the most traumatic events of her life.
That is why there is a law against harassing people with service animals. A disabled person who needs a service animal to function in the world has enough trouble, without being treated like a criminal.
She told me soon after going into hospice care, “Once in a while I'm angry with the cards I've been dealt. I have to say good-bye to people I love. That leaves the pain issue, and the breathing, which are being taken care of by medication here in the hospice. I'm not in pain. I'm not afraid to die.”
Which brought to mind one of Malvina Reynolds' songs. I went to the hospice and sang it for Megan and some of the other residents a couple of weeks ago:
“Baby, I ain't afraid to die, it's just that I hate to say good-bye
To this world, this world, this world.
This old world is mean and cruel. Still I love it like a fool,
This world, this world, this world.” - This World, © Malvina ReynoldsRest in peace, Megan.