The Second Coming (of age, that is...)

When we hear about coming of age stories, they're tales of teens or pre-teens who experience life-altering events that lead them into maturity. But do we truly experience just one coming of age? Is the fabled midlife crisis actually a second coming of age? Even though nothing has changed, this past year I've been feeling like I am going through a growth spurt or something. I am 53, almost 54. I weigh more than I ever have in my life. I am a professor, which was never in my childhood dreams--I didn't even know it was an option! I have a warm, generous, loving, passionate partner husband who seems to love me unconditionally, poor guy. I spend a good deal of my waking time on the shores of Lake Michigan--a dream fulfilled! Despite fibromyalgia, weight, arthritis, and an autoimmune disease, I continue to have my health.

In essence, life should be good enough, right? Why, then, do I feel like I'm on the brink of something? Big changes ahead are what my soul says--my radar is on, I'm ready. But what on Earth...? Could it be the 3 precancerous polyp removed from my colon? Could it be that my heart decided to have atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter? Could it be that I've been in either a moon boot or an ankle brace most of the past year? Or is it this damned endless winter/spring? Perhaps I am yearning to spring free.

I have many friends who seem to have experienced Renaissance periods in their 50s and 60s, becoming poets, community leaders, composers, choir directors, and artists. Who am I going to be?

Feeling Mortal Today, So Here's My Favorite Cookie Recipe!

My Aunt Kay found (or was it her daughter, my cousin Rae?) this cookie recipe for my cousin Peter who would not eat anything without peanut butter on/in it.  (Note: Peter was a grown, married man dentist!) Aunt Kay wanted to make those wildly popular chocolate chip cookies, but Peter wouldn't eat them! Thus: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies! I've been making them about 40 years, probably. In the 90's I started pressing the dough into a pan (did I do it first, or did Michael's grandma?), and in 1993 my friend Gretchen exclaimed, "Oh, look: they have little love handles on them!" So the pan version are called "Love Handles." I still prefer actual cookies, though.
Oh: Michael's grandma also added oatmeal to them, GOOD CALL!! Her daughter Linda told me the older Grandma got, the less salt and sugar she'd put in the recipe to make it healthier...lol!

One more story: my best friend Karen immortalized these cookies by including the recipe in the QuikTrip cookbook in Tulsa over 20 years ago. She called them, "My Friend Patty's Cookies!" The bad news is, she got the recipe wrong--half was double-batch, half was single!  Makes for a good story... :-)

AUNT KAY'S PEANUT BUTTER-CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

AKA "LOVE HANDLES"

—Patty Rieman

Combine: (as my hands develop arthritis with age, I've come to use an electric mixer)

1 cup stick margarine or butter, softened is easier
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
½ -3/4 cup peanut butter (more is better, I prefer creamy)

Combine, then add:
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
½ to 1 cup uncooked quick oats

Then add:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips, larger size (12 oz?) Chunks are best, or M & M’s work, too.

 Spread the entire bowl of dough in a 13 x 9 ungreased baking pan. Bake for app. 30 min. at 350 on center rack.  You may also bake as cookies, app. 11-12 min. for walnut-sized balls on ungreased cookie sheet.

100 Favorite Books--I'm up to 72!

(Note to self: next time, use Excel so that you can see right away if you're repeating yourself!! :-))  ***I've decided to put asterisks by the ones for adults.

A friend commented recently that he'd enjoy seeing a list of my 100 favorite books. Challenge accepted! So far, I've been able to name 60. Thank goodness I don't have to prioritize them... Here's what I have so far; it's a lot harder than I anticipated. I don't want to just list books I remember reading and liking--I want ones that matter, or that bring back the best memories, or that I never wanted to end.

1. The Bean Trees--Kingsolver ***
2. To Kill A Mockingbird--Lee
3. A Wrinkle in Time--L'Engle
4. Bud, not Buddy--Curtis
5. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963--Curtis
6. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder--Wells ***
7. Unwind, Unwholly, Unsouled (and probably Undivided when it finally comes out!)--Shusterman
8. The Accidental Tourist (Tyler) ***
9. Breathing Lessons-(Tyler) ***
10. Tangerine--Edward Bloor
11. The Prince of Tides--Pat Conroy ***
12. The Book Thief--Zusak
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins--O'Dell
14. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew--Sidney
15. The Cay--Taylor
16. The Boxcar Children--Warren
17. Travels With Charley --Steinbeck
18. Little Women--Alcott
19. Eight Cousins--Alcott
20. Kinsey Millhone collection--Grafton ***
21. Scarpetta collection--Cornwell ***
22. Stephanie Plum collection--Evanovich ***
23. The Secret Life of Bees--Kidd ***
24. The Language of Flowers--Diffenbaugh ***
25. The Hunger Games trilogy--Collins
26. Make Lemonade trilogy--Wolff
27. Harry Potter, especially #1 & 7--Rowling
28. Witness--Hesse
29. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Kelly
30. Bittersweet--Spencer ***
31. Waiting to Exhale--McMillan ***
32. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day--Cleage ***
33. Hattie Big Sky--Larson
34. A Light in the Attic--Silverstein
35. Where the Sidewalk Ends--Silverstein
36. That Quail, Robert!--Stanger
37. The Great Gilly Hopkins--Patersen
38. Long Way from Chicago--Peck
39. The Mitford Series--Karon
40. A Time to Kill--Grisham ***
41. Tom Sawyer--Twain
42. The Green Mile--King ***
43. Bingo--Brown ***
44. The Napping House--Wood
45. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day--Viorst
46. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--Taylor
47. All Creatures Great and Small--Herriot
48. Cannery Row--Steinbeck
49. Will Grayson-Will Grayson--Green & Levithan
50. Charlotte's Web--White
51. The BFG--Dahl
52. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--Lewis
53. Far From the Madding Crowd--Hardy
54. Christy--Marshall
55. The Poisonwood Bible--Kingsolver ***
56. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes--Crutcher
57. Whale Song--Crutcher
58. The poetry book Grandma gave me when I was 5
59. The Joy of Cooking
60. Betty Crocker Cookbook

          61.   Anne of Green Gables--Montgomery 

           62.  Becoming Naomi Leon-Ryan

           63.  Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten--Fulghum

           64.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Archambault, Martin, & Ehlert)

           65.  Skinjacker Trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, Everfound)--Shusterman

           66.  Bruiser--Shusterman

           67.  The Phantom Tollbooth--Juster & Feiffer

           68.  The Search for Delicious--Babbitt

           69.  Tuck Everlasting--Babbitt

           70.  Rascal--North

           71.  Any Small Goodness--Johnston
         72. The Anna Papers--Gilchrist ***

on loss and friendship

Someone important to someone important to me died this week. The deceased served as a role model, mentor, father figure, and best friend to someone who needed him terribly. I mourn his loss, and I am saddened that the state of our own friendship prevents me from being of any use to him in these dark days. He will say he's too busy to grieve, or at least to talk about grieving. He will say "later," his response anytime I want to talk about anything important. And knowing him as well as I do, I will simply say ok. This is how we work. Or don't work.
With Facebook I have somehow become this big discloser--can't sleep? Tell my 400 friends! Having surgery? Show everyone how funny and brave I am, and praise my nurturing husband and pets! Get my feelings hurt? Have them repaired by above-mentioned 400 friends! Need to vent? You guessed it.
But this friend doesn't tell anyone anything. As devout a Christian as he is, I'm not sure he even tells God. Where does it go, all that grief, anger, loneliness? Sometimes I think it goes inside me, even when he hasn't said a word. I am his status page, inside out and unread.

"The most powerful ways that you make a difference are usually the least visible."

(I wrote this tonight on a foster parent friend's Facebook wall). I like it!

Where I'm From, Part 2

(new class, so new version...again, written in the company of wonderful EDU 3540 students!)

Where I’m From 2-28-13

I am from Kennys and Baylises, with enough Rieman to give me big hips and a generous smile.

I am from down at the lake and Central Street, Beaver Island, and the Arch, always yearning for water.

I am from Siamese cats and too many spiders, mourning doves and grackles, and Grandma's calling to tell me she's seen the first robin.

I'm from teachers, readers, and racist Republicans, whose loving roots I trimmed to keep only the good.

I am from nifflies, sugar cookies, overdone roasts, and rolls burned on the bottom from an oven so old, my mom had to guess at the temperature.

I'm from sun-bathing in April and grilling in February, all the while stoically shivering in the Michigan chill.

In my closet are boxes all beaten and tattered, filled with Grandma's letters and Mom's goodbye. Where I'm from is just a beginning, but an integral part of who I soon shall be.

I agree with Eddie Rabbitt...

It’s 6 p.m. and I’m alone at the “cottage” (as we call our teeny tiny house that is a second home in Wisconsin) with my sweet boy Bud, not Buddy. It’s been raining and raining all day, and I cannot tell you how wonderful the sound is. I can hear it on the roof, on the porch as it streams over the plugged-up gutter (poor Joe just HATES that!), and ting- tangeling on the window a.c. I can’t remember the last time I was able to just sit quietly and listen to the rain! It was probably on the front porch at home, most likely with Luna sitting between my feet on the footstool.

I’d like to say the sound brings back memories, but it’s more like sensations…a sense of warmth, of snuggling, of rest. Why do so many people dislike rainy nights, I wonder? Is it loneliness, perhaps a wistful longing for someone to share the night with? Does the rain bring melancholy and thoughts of so many regrets? Or is it just another thing to worry about—did I roll up my windows? Damn, I didn’t clean out the gutters yet! Oh, crap, my newspaper’s out there getting soaked! Geeze, how much more rain will the ground absorb?  Or the more social justice minded: “Oh, those poor people who have nowhere to go!”

And still, here I sit…mellow, with a Mona Lisa smile as I just soak in (pardon the pun) the song of the rain. My heart and my worried mind are eased with its cadence, my sore muscles seem to loosen at its wordless song of peace.