When Dancing Salsa Hurts

I’ve always been a dancer. I started out dancing standing on my daddy’s feet. He was a master “jitterbugger” and danced at the drop of a hat.

I was enrolled in tap dance when I was 4 years old. I took ballet classes as a young child through high school. I even danced in The Nutcracker Suite at the Keller Auditorium. As an adult, I taught dance aerobics for years.

At 47, dance had always been a big part of my life. I was fresh from Mexico where I danced myself almost to death. I learned cumbia and salsa and folk dancing. When I returned to the States, my first goal was to find a place to speak Spanish and to dance.

It was at ChaCha’s where those wishes came true. The Cubans were newly arrived from Guantanamo Bay where they had wiled away their lives imprisoned for two years for trying to leave their country. Their first goal here was to find a dance/social club as soon as they could.

Many were lonely. Many had experienced horrors you can’t imagine. Many missed home. Most did not speak English.

I descended the steps at Cha Cha’s into the basement of the dance club. The music was shaking the walls and the people were shaking the floors. It took about a minute or two for a beautiful dancer named Ramiro to grab my hands as he guided me onto the crowded dance floor.

I won’t go into this story because I’ve written about what happened after that first night in Cha Cha’s in other blog posts. But this is where I learned to dance casino, salsa and rumba, Cuban style.

At first I just copied what Ramiro did. I secretly described the rumba as the chicken dance. As it turns out, I was right. He held me tight for the slow dances but with incredible rhythm and finesse for the rest. I was hooked.

After that, for the next 3 years, days and nights were filled with dance. It was like an attempted murder when that was taken away from me. I thought I would die but I survived but not unscathed.

Ramiro in his love and kindness led me to believe for all this time that I could dance as well as he and the other Cubans. I don’t exaggerate to say that he was the best among them. If I was around any of the Cubans still, you actually could ask them and they would agree.

From my other stories, I know that you know that I have an arm that was affected by polio. Because of that and the subsequent surgeries pertaining to the weakness in my right shoulder, I don’t have a full range of movement. If you know anything about dancing, having a full range of movement in both arms is essentially imperative, so they say. But not to Ramiro.

Ramiro never mentioned my arm. He just made it work. He skillfully used my left arm and the limited capacity of my right arm to spin and twirl me expertly. I don’t think anyone ever noticed… until the night a friend of Ramiro’s asked to dance with me.

This night, there was a gathering at a friend’s house. As always, there was music and people dancing. Ramiro and I, of course, were dancing and drinking and eating and laughing and talking.

It was this same night that I was nearly mortally wounded. I survived but still suffer to a small degree. The scars are still painful. My heart bled then as it does now and my tears still flow with the memory.

Who or what hurt me so terribly that I remember it with a sharp pain in my heart? What happened? Who hurt me and what did he do? Let the guilty be named and let him be prosecuted. His name is La Meda.

You might say that this is overly dramatic, but to me, it is not. Remember, I had been dancing since I was tiny when I was enrolled in tap dance and had classes in ballet. My parents danced in the house and when visiting family and friends. Their nights out would be at dance clubs. Dancing was a big part of my life, polio or no.

La Meda was a Cuban, A so-called friend of Ramiro’s from their days in Guantanamo. I never liked him and I never trusted him. You know how some people can just give you a vibe that you don’t trust, that you don’t like. I knew he had an American girlfriend and I knew that he cheated on her every weekend. I knew his girlfriend and I knew the girls he cheated with.

So when La Meda asked to dance with me I was reticent. Ramiro loved to dance with me and I think that he wanted to show La Meda something he was proud of. He was also proud of my fluency in Spanish. But I don’t think La Meda really wanted to dance with me, I think he had bad intentions.

He grabbed my hands and we began to dance. He immediately started to do all of the arm things, which I couldn’t do. It didn’t take more than 2 or 3 minutes for him to show that I was unable. As we danced, he was scowling, looking in my eyes and looking at Ramiro, scoffing.

He dropped my hands and gave me a slight push. As he walked away from me, he said to Ramiro, “she can’t dance”. To that, Ramiro was silent. He grabbed my hands and we danced throughout the rest of the night.

From that night on, we didn’t see La Meda again… at least I didn’t. I’ll be forever thankful for the time I had with Ramiro and all of the love and all of the dancing that we did. Have I forgiven La Meda? Apparently not.

Dancing salsa can hurt.

How Heavy is the Garden

It’s a hot start to July.

The garden is heavy.

The day lily’s bow towards the porch and face up to the sun.

The climbing roses pull-down the trellises.

Those roses that climb the lilac, have bent the branches to block the door.

A million apples pull and arch the columnar,

And the espalier reaches for the ground.

While the jasmine, heavy and fragrant, lies upon the grass.

While Lying in the Hammock

It’s just past noon on the summer solstice.

For days it’s been cool and raining.

Everything is just a bit damp.

While the temperature is climbing,

The hammock is calling.

I answer the call and lay down,

and I gaze upwards.

The sky is so blue it’s an impossible shade of purple.

The leaves are every shade of green,

From black where little light can reach,

Under the dense branches,

To chartreuse where the leaves shine against the sky,

Almost translucent where sunlight amicably tries to penetrate.

I think I’ll just lie here for a while.

After all, the warmth and beauty are mesmerizing.

Disappointed by a Rose

Heritage roses

On my walk today and smelling roses, nary a one had a fragrance.

Give me an old fashioned rose any day with fragrance and thorns. Let my nose be delighted and my fingers pricked.

Though beautiful, I’d never plant a rose that’s been stripped of its birth right.

Ode to the Old Lemon Tree

Today, I’ll make lemon pudding, I thought. I’ll squeeze the fat fruit. I’ll scrape the bright rind. I’ll stir the cornstarch and sugar together with the zest then I’ll pour in the juice. I’ll stir in sweet milk and when it begins to thicken, I’ll add in the creamy butter.

Then there came a memory like they are wont to do.

A lemon tree stood alone in the yard, scarce of leaf, bent and rough of bark, unexpectedly laden with fruit.

That old tree brought me joy on days when I tired of rice and onions. I’d go to gather the flawed, dimpled, sun-like yellow fruit to make pudding.

All I needed then was sugar, an egg, a lemon and cornstarch to stir until thickened. Lemon desserts aren’t lemon to me unless they make my jaw hurt from the tartness.

Now that I have the luxury of butter and milk, it doesn’t diminish the sweet and tart lemon pudding I made when I was poor… more poor than I am now.

The old lemon tree is far away but I’m sure it still stands. Why would anyone dare to cut down such a bountiful tree. But then who knows for sure what others might do. At least in my memory it still stands.

Now, I buy lemons from the bins at the store, the same store where I buy the butter and milk. I don’t know where any of them have come from or how far they’ve traveled.

I’d prefer anyday to go out and gather lemons from the old lemon tree. I’d fill my pockets with the warm fruit, heavy with juice and make the simple pudding that makes life good.

Swallowing My Tooth, Go Carts and BB Guns

When I was a kid, we were living in Eugene in Fox Hollow on Spencer’s Butte. We lived nextdoor to the Rice family. Dad and Mom became friends with Ray and Myrna Rice and we kids got close to Cathy, Charlie, Cheryl, Janet and I don’t remember the names of the other kids, but I think there were about 4 or 5 of them.

The oldest kid was a boy and he didn’t care much for us. I remember that I had a great straw hat that I treasured and a solid crush on the boy. One time he put that straw hat over a pile of dog poop and stepped on it. That was the end of my straw hat, though I tried to clean it with a strong stream of water from the hose. Mom made me throw it away. And that was the end of the crush I had on him.

Even though we were only going to be in Eugene for a couple of years while my dad tried to find job satisfaction at Acme Fast Freight, he never got happy and so I remember tensions were high. But we were tight and held together.

Mom went straight to work at Sacred Heart Hospital. Being a nurse who trained at the University of Minnesota, she could get a job in a minute and deep at heart she was a nurse. She loved her job no matter where she lived.

We only stayed in Fox Hollow for the 1st part of those 2 years but boy they were fun times. For one, it was rural and we had moved from St. Johns, which was a small community in the larger city of Portland. We had the run of the place. Just up the road was a roller rink where we went as often as was allowed.

Steve often would put Kristi on his handlebars and they would go up to the road above our house and ride down the mountain as fast as he could peddle. As far as I was concerned they were dare devils and I dare not attempt a ride down the mountain… especially not with Steve. He was ridiculously fearless.

He was in high school, maybe freshman and sophomore years and Kristi was probably in 5th or 6th grade… eleven years old maybe. She was nothing but fun and carelessness. Her hair would fly and her big blue eyes looked wild. She was as fearless as Steven.

Steve was ingenious and loved to invent something out of nothing. He built a “go cart” out of scrap wood and some wagon tires. We didn’t need a motor since the house was at the bottom of a steep descent down from the road. That was our raceway.

We’d push the heavy cart up the driveway, turn it around, hop on and go. I don’t remember much of a steering mechanism. I remember ropes or something attached to what you might call something to steer with, it was more like, lean to the left, lean to the right and hope that once you zoomed through the carport, you wouldn’t crash into the roof supports and you’d try to miss the clothes line pole centered between the support beams. Most of the time we made it.

The house was a long way from the road, so we picked up alot of speed. And brakes? There were none. By the time we came by the house, barely passing through the carport safely, we’d be sailing at top speed. We’d, pass the house, continuing on across the property until we crossed a dirt road and smashed and crashed into a fence on the other side. The fence stopped the go cart so suddenly, your whole body jerked and shuddered to a halt nearly giving us whiplash.

A huge oak tree, perfect for climbing, awaited certain unlucky kids who were not as adept as we were at missing it. But there was something more sinister than the oak tree standing there. The fence was covered in poison ivy.

I remember Steve covered in the poison ivy rash, all red and scabby, with an uncontrollable itch and whitish pink from calamine lotion. Out of us three kids, Steve was the only one who got the dreaded infection. But that vine covered fence didn’t stop us from continuing to ride our go cart down the hill and into the fence.

The old oak tree was my safe haven. I called it the girl’s tree and boys were not allowed to climb it. If they tried to I’d scream at the top of my lungs and kick at them until they left me alone.

During this time, Steve had a beloved bb gun. One afternoon, he reluctantly acquiesced to teach me to shoot it. He held it up, barrel pointing to the sky. He growled at me to not pull the trigger until he said to, threatening me with sudden death if I made a wrong move. I promised I wouldn’t. He dropped some bbs down the barrel and lowered it horizontally with his thumb over the end so they wouldn’t roll out.

For some reason at that moment, without warning, I pulled the trigger embedding the first bb into his thumb. He pulled the gun out of my hand and started yelling and pushed me. I started yelling too, screaming, “Please don’t tell Mom. Please don’t tell Dad.” He never did because they probably would have taken the gun away from him if they knew he was letting me shoot it. That was not the first or the last time that we kept secrets from Mom and Dad.

Well, back to the Rice family. They liked to go camping and fishing as much as we did. What I remember most is that Myrna would make these big fat melt-in -your-mouth cinnamon rolls to take along. Though I loved the swimming and the fishing, the campfires and roasting marshmallows and sleeping in a canvas tent, in canvas and flannel sleeping bags, the cinnamon rolls are what I remember most about camping with the Rice’s.

One summer evening I was over at the Rice’s house. To get there, there was a path between our houses. We went back-and-forth enough that we could walk that path or run that path or cartwheel on that path blindfolded. It was about the distance of two city blocks. It was partially dirt and grass. When it rained the dirt parts had big puddles and mud but in the summer there were just dips and high spots making it all the more fun to ride our bicycles over. There was a boulder near the end closest to our house. The large stone was the size of a hassock for a comfy living room armchair.

When I got to their house, it was almost sunset. They were making homemade taffy. Myrna cooked the taffy and when it was cool enough, the kids pulled and pulled it until it was shiny and smooth. We couldn’t resist eating it at the same time. Once Myrna said we had pulled enough, we cut it with scissors into bite size pieces and wrapped it in wax paper squares and twisted the ends to keep it from sticking together and to keep it fresh.

I was having a wonderful time laughing and talking and getting all sticky. I was popping bits of taffy into my mouth, the candy sticking to my teeth. Suddenly, I realized that a tooth, one of my molars, got stuck in taffy and pulled it right out of my gums and I had swallowed it. Immediately, I began to cry.

I ran from the house into the darkened yard. I should have been able to transverse that path with ease, but no. As I ran my eyes were filled with tears and I was afraid something terrible would happen to me since I had swallowed my tooth.

I was running wildly and at top speed. On any other night, I would have reached home in a minute or two. But when I got to the boulder, my toe hit it and my momentum launched my body over the boulder and into the grass headlong, adding insult to injury.

I was dazed. I was worried. Mom was still too far away. Eventually, I was able to get up and make my way to the house with bloodied knees and bloodied hands. And on top of that I had swallowed a tooth. I couldn’t imagine what would happen now. Would I die?

My mom, who first of all is a nurse and second of all is a stoic and third of all is a loving and caring mother, took me to the bathroom where the cleansing and disinfecting took place. No tiny stone or bits of sand or mud was left in my poor knees and hands and they were soon disinfected with mecurichrome and bandaged. No tears or crying for mercy stopped her from making sure that these injuries would heal properly.

It took a bit for her to understand that I was trying to say that not only did I have bodily injuries but I had swallowed my tooth along with a piece of taffy. I’m sure now that mom hid her smile at how distraught I was. She knew that that tooth would be quickly excreted along with everything else I had eaten.

But Mom being Mom, she held me tightly in her arms and comforted me and explained that I had nothing to worry about. I knew that the best place for me to be was in my mother’s arms. Once she assured me that this was not a life-or-death situation, I calmed quickly. This was just one of the many times that my mom picked me up, cleaned me up and took care of whatever injuries I suffered be they injuries to the heart or injuries to the body. She knew just what to say and just what to do.

The Case of the Stolen Borscht Recipe

How was I to know she would be offended. I thought this would honor her. But it affected our relationship, negatively, from that day forward .

It was decades ago and we had moved from Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, off the coast of Washington, and into the astoundingly and equally beautiful Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

We lived on the Island for about 7 years. During that time, we met some very interesting people. Among them were Magdalene and her husband Ivor. They had both been born to Ukrainian parents in the same refugee camp in Germany after WWII was over. His family was then sent to England and hers to the US to begin again.

Their families didn’t know one another. But later, once both Ivor and Magdalene were grown young adults, by happenstance, they met in New York City and fell in love. I won’t continue their story since it’s their story to tell.

How they ended up on Whidbey Island with 2 children in tow, I can’t recall. We moved to the Island because we were promised a house and a job. An old high school friend of Jack’s was pastoring a church there and had connections.

It was at this church that we met Ivor and Magdalene. Now, when I look back, it was the friends that we made that made being in a toxic environment seem worth it. I still have a couple of friends from that time. Fewer, of course, because whenever you leave “the church” being ostracized is the norm. But I digress.

The Borscht

I’m no expert, but from what I learned, borscht is an everyday, common soup/stew eaten in many countries of the world. Mainly made of beets, which gives it its distinctively rich, red bordeaux color and the tomatoes, fresh or canned. It takes on unique flavors based on the meat used for the broth and the addition of other mostly root vegetables. Some cooks add cabbage and others add saurkraut. Dill, fresh or dried, is sprinkled in liberally.

Once the meat is seared with the onions and garlic, water is added to cover and then left to simmer until the meat is fall off the bone tender and the broth is rich and savory. Various meats can be used… like I said, this is not a “precious” soup. Its kinda like a “what’s in the fridge” kinda everyday soup. Anyway, this is what I was taught.

Then carrots, potatoes and other vegetables of your choice are added and cooked until very tender. The meat always used in this recipe was pork short ribs. Once everything is red, dyed by the beet juice and it fills the kitchen with a delectable fragrance, you should dish up huge full ladles into big bowls. Forget about small bowls.

This is a main course soup eaten with crusty, white bread or other breads of your choice. I can imagine a dark rye sliced into thick slabs smeared with soft butter. Never mind if your bread is a day or two old. This soup is made for dunking bread in.

The finishing touch is a large dollop of sour cream, sprinkled with cayenne pepper and more dill. This soup quickly became a staple in our household even though the children wouldn’t eat it. Why, I’ll never know because they’re advenurous eaters and have always been. Even to this day they turn their noses up in disgust when I offer to make a pot of borscht.

So, I’ve kind of roughly given you the recipe for what I learned to make from Magdalene. While living on the Island, we would often go to their house after church to eat with them. More often than not, there was the delicious pot of borscht on the stove. I could always eat bowl after bowl after bowl.

I was so enamored of this soup, I asked Magdalene one day for the recipe. She gladly told me how to make it just like I’ve told you here. She would say things like, “pork short ribs or spare ribs or left over roast, whatever you have”. And the same for the vegetables with the exception of the beets and she always used saurkraut and so when I began to make my own pots of borscht, of course I always used pork short ribs and there was always the saurkraut. I wanted mine to taste just like hers.

The theft of the borscht recipe

As I mentioned before, even though the kids didn’t like the soup, I still made it often enough to make them complain. I didn’t change a thing that Magdalene had taught me.

It seemed only natural when a morning TV show, that I watched almost daily, had a cooking contest. They were asking for recipes with a $25, or was it a $50, prize for the one chosen as the most delicious and desirable. Within a month my recipe had won the prize and a check arrived in the mail and the recipe connected to my name was announced on the morning show. To me this was just good fun. And even though I knew how good the soup was, I wasn’t really expecting to win, so it was a wonderful surprise to hear my name and the name of the recipe announced.

Excited, I called Magdalene to tell her and to tell her I would share the money with her or that I would give it all to her since it was her recipe. She responded in a way that I never expected. She was mad. She was offended. She wanted nothing to do with it or with me. She hung up on me right then and there.

From then on there was a rift between us. We never saw one another again even though she had moved to the eastern part of Washington and we had moved into the Gorge. We never even talked to one another on the phone again.

Occasionally, I saw her posts on Facebook. She had survived cancer and had grandchildren. She looked wonderful and I missed her as a friend. This morning, another mutual friend told me that Magdalene had died 2 years ago after a fight, I assume, from another bout with cancer.

Then the memories of the borscht theft came rushing in. Without doubt, every time I make borscht, I remember Magdalene and the infamous theft. Thank you, Magdalene, for the wonderful unintentional gift of borscht. I’ll never forget you.

I Just Want to Stay Home.

I’ve done alot. I’ve risked a lot. I’ve escaped narrowly alot. I’ve survived alot. And through it all, I have the scars to show for it.

Now, I just want to stay home.

I just want to be peaceful. I am done with adventure. I’m done with drama. I’m done with conversation. I’m done with contention. I’m done with fear. I’m done with succoming. I’m done with overcoming. I’m done with doing anything by the skin of my teeth.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to win. I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to debate. I don’t want to do the research. I don’t want to tell you my point of view and I don’t want to know yours. I don’t want to convince you of anything and I don’t want you to try to convince me of anything.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to hear your voice as it becomes shrill. I don’t want to yell at anyone anymore. I’m not interested in your drama. I can’t help you. I can only take care of myself. I don’t want to give you advice and I don’t want to hear your advice to me.

I just want to stay home.

I’m not interested in traveling anywhere anymore. I’m not interested in observing other cultures or learning other languages. I don’t want to become saddened and heartbroken at the poverty and needless, needless fighting and war. I don’t want to observe cruelty to animals or to children or to old folks. I don’t want to witness genocide anymore. I don’t want to witness the senseless bombing of churches and hospitals and museums and neighborhoods.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to see islands of garbage in the ocean and the senseless beaching of whales and seals and other ocean life because of sonic vibrations created by ships, submarines, fishermen’s boats and exploration and drilling for oil. I don’t want to watch netfishing that destroys the bottom of the ocean and that kill sea creatures that they’re not even fishing for. I don’t want to observe the destruction of coral reefs and see ships and boats sunk to the bottom of the sea because of storms.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to go to zoos and see caged animals. I don’t want to see dogs and cats and other animals suffering because they’re unwanted. I don’t want to see photos or videos of animals that have been mistreated and are found under trucks and locked in basements and dying on a short chain out in the rain and the snow or left on the side of the road, pregnant or with a litter of babies. I don’t want to see farmed animals suffering being raised for human consumption in unthinkable conditions.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to continue to try to figure out why anyone at any time would create weapons of war: guns, bombs, poisonous gases, nuclear weapons that could wipe out our entire Earth and all of its species. I don’t want to think about why drugs are being developed that kill people. I don’t want to see drug addicts lying naked on the street or sleeping out in the rain. I don’t want to hear the news announce how many overdoses took place this weekend.

I just want to stay home.

I can’t understand why we have developed chemicals that we spray on our food and create GMO food stuffs that make us sick and ultimately kill us. I’m tired of hearing about farming practices, like monoculture, that are destroying our ability to feed ourselves. I don’t want to see anymore clear cutting and burning of forests that destroy habitat for the wild creatures that live only to eat and procreate. I don’t want our only option to be to eat farmed fish.

I just want to stay home.

I don’t want to hear about children killing other children in schools. I don’t want to try to figure out why automatic rifles are being sold to children. I don’t want to watch bullying. I don’t want to cry for children who are unclothed, starving, without love, right in our own neighborhoods.

I just want to stay home.

And the last thing I want you to tell me is that I need to rely on politics and politicians when that is the most corrupt of all systems in the world. There is only one exception to what is worse and that is to rely on religion. I don’t want to talk to you about religion or about your god or anyone else’s god/s. I will be the first to tell you that I enjoy myth and legend and fairy tales. But there is nothing good that will come of believing in any thing a or faith based religion. If that’s what you want to talk about, may I encourage you to just leave me alone.

I just want to stay home.

And I especially don’t want you to tell me that if all of this bothers me, I should do something about it. It bothers me yes, but I know that it is not for me or for you to carry the burden of the world on our shoulders. That’s why…

I just want to stay home.

Tortilla Españole for Mother’s Day Brunch Instead

We planned on going to the beach today. It’s going to be 95ﾟ here in Portland and 87ﾟ on the coast.

Why would we decide to go to the beach this weekend in particular, I don’t know? Being 3rd generation Portland resident I know what going out to the beach from Portland to any of the beaches on the Pacific coast looks like.

It means that on the 1st hot day of Spring, it will be most assuredly bumper to bumper traffic on both highway 26 and 30. If there’s an accident it will surely make a 90 minute trip and push it into 3 or 4 hours.

When it’s a sunny and warm day in springtime after a long, dark and wet Winter, everyone will be heading to the beach. Well, not everyone but a lot of people. On top of that, its Mother’s Day weekend.

So we decided to stay home. There will be plenty of time for us to go to the beach when it’s not going to be a major holiday.

Also I’m born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. We’re not used to hot and sunny days on the coast. We’re used to waking up to a thick fog or mist hanging on the Coast Range and burning off… maybe, later in the day. In the summer we bring sweatshirts to the beach and long pants to change into after we venture out into the ice cold Pacific Ocean. Even putting your toes in this water can cause them to turn blue, as well as your lips.

So because we didn’t want to fight traffic, we stayed home. Jesse came over, Hannah bought groceries and Jesse put his chef talent to work on a Spanish tortilla. As you see from the photos, it was a beautiful sight to behold and a marvelous gastronomical experience.

Jesse, with his extraordinary knife skills, cut potatoes to bake partially in the oven and broccoli to par boil and onions to caramelize. These ingredients were layered in a cast iron skillet. Then he mixed eggs and almond milk and all sorts of herbs and spices to pour over the layered mixture. While we’re all waiting, he cooked the bacon and the sausages in the oven.

It was well worth the wait. Since Jesse is a chef you can’t say that breakfast would have been better in a restaurant. We had our own restaurant type brunch right here at home.

I love being with the family: my two children who are here in Portland minus Tracy who is in Phoenix and my 2 grandchildren. And to my surprise they ordered me a new pair of Birkenstock sandals.

I don’t think we missed out going to the beach at all. No one was the least bit disappointed.

We ate all but one slice of the tortilla but I’ve noticed, when I looked in the refrigerator, that that one piece is disappearing bite by bite.

Mother’s Day Daisies 2023

For my wedding day,

I carried the lovely garden variety daisy,

All dressed in white.

They’ve always been a favorite.

But the exuberant Gerber daisy,

Leaves nothing to be desired.

Color riot.

Beautiful bouquet of Gerber Daisies.