My Grandmother's Garden

The summer of 2010 will always hold a place in my memory as a time of the highest highs and the lowest lows. In April 2009, my Grandma Remke went from living independently in relatively good health to living in a nursing home with declining quality of life. Overnight, it seemed, she became completely dependent upon the care of others.

When I was a little girl, my Grandma Mounts (lovingly referred to as "Gram" elsewhere on this blog) used to be the director of nursing at a nursing home in Bartlesville, and when I would go see her at work, my heart would break to see so many grandmas and grandpas sitting alone, staring vacantly out the window, longing for a visit from family. Their eyes always lit up at the sight of me, a gangly 12-year-old who had come to see her own grandmother.

I vowed at that moment that I would not ever allow such a thing to happen to someone I loved, and so, every weekend that I could, I would visit my Grandma Remke. Sometimes, I would take her out for ice cream. Other times, Jared would play the piano for her or Jade and I would take her outside for a bit of fresh air.

I looked forward to those visits just as much as Grandma did. This past spring and summer, my Dad got the brilliant idea to load Grandma up into the car and take her home where she could sit on the patio and enjoy her flowers. It made us all happy to see her so happy.



Grandma had an amazingly green thumb. The woman could grow anything, but mainly she grew irises and day lilies. Her backyard was awash with color this year and Dad didn't want Grandma to miss it. A woman was hired to tend Grandma's flower beds, and every week, she would bring Grandma a bouquet of flowers to enjoy.



One afternoon in early June after I'd stopped to see her, I went by her house to photograph her flowers. I had gotten the idea of having the photographs blown up and framed so that Grandma could enjoy those beautiful blooms of 2010 all year round.



Sadly, I never did get to complete my project, as Grandma passed away in early July.



A few days ago, I was looking through old photographs on my computer and found the pictures I'd snapped. I smiled as I paged through them...knowing that Grandma's garden in heaven has flowers even more beautiful and vibrant than these.



Heaven's most abundant blessings upon my Grandma, now and always...

The Best Soup I've Ever Tasted (Catherine's Tea Room Cream of Tomato Soup)

This post originally appeared September 4, 2008.

Autumn made an early appearance today. It was a crisp 60 degrees this morning at 6:15 when I finally got out of bed. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl as I scanned the sweater possibilities in my closet this morning. So, in the spirit of the season, it wasn't too much of a stretch to add soup to the menu for dinner tonight.

And not just any soup. None of that canned schlop, thank you very much. Campbell's may be good when you're fighting the common cold, but not when you're celebrating the start of fall!

I decided to make the best soup I've ever tasted. It's my favorite and my family's favorite. My mother and I discovered the soup in the 1980s when we used to eat at a small hole-in-the-wall tea room in Tulsa known for its chicken salad sandwiches, quiche, cakes, pies, and other yummy goodies. The owner knew my Poppy from having worked with him at J&L Pipeline Supply, so Mom and I were always warmly welcomed and treated as honored guests.

Catherine's Tea Room was located at the dead-end of a strip shopping center just off of 41st Street between Yale and Sheridan and when Mom and I would eat there, I never failed to order a cup of the Cream of Tomato Soup. It's so good, I had to resist the urge to lick the inside of the bowl. Often, the promise of dessert was enough to hold my tongue at bay. That and my mother would have been appalled. She was big on good manners.



When the tea room closed in 2003, I nearly had heart failure. Mom and I made one last visit to our favorite lunching place and after finishing my cup of Cream of Tomato Soup, I mustered up the gumption to ask for the recipe. Now, Catherine used to publish a little "newsletter" that she placed on each table. Each monthly installment contained homespun quotes, news from the tea room, and a recipe, usually one of the sinfully decadent dessert recipes from the menu, but I'd never seen one for the Cream of Tomato Soup.

After hearing my request, Catherine disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a back copy of the newsletter. She had published the recipe, but I had somehow missed it. My heart beat with excitement as I placed the prized recipe into my purse. I went home that night and made it and I've made it many times over since.

Trust me when I say that the only thing better than the lusciousness of this soup is how easy it is to make. Here's the recipe: one (15 ounce) can of tomato sauce, one (15 ounce) can of crushed tomatoes, one cup of half-and-half, 1/4 cup of sugar, one teaspoon of basil leaves, 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all ingredients together, heat through (but do not boil) and serve with Club crackers and cheese. I've heard that it's also good with bacon bits and caramelized onions, but I wouldn't know. By the time I get my crackers and cheese into the bowl, I'm ready to dig in.



Why mess with perfection?

Career Goal: Girl Sleuth

This blog posting originally went live May 2, 2008


If you had asked me my career goal in the third grade, you might have been surprised to find the answer to be Girl Sleuth.

That's right. Angela Henderson - International Woman of Mystery. Austin Powers, watch out!

This interest in sleuthing and all things mysterious stemmed from my obsession with Nancy Drew Mysteries. My mother, who remembered reading the books as a child, introduced me to them and even enrolled me in the Nancy Drew Mystery Book Club. Each month, like clockwork, a new installment of the series would come in the mail. And, I would be waiting by the mailbox, ready to retrieve the brown cardboard box that transported me to the world of my favorite titian-haired, convertible-driving mystery solver.

It was not unusual for me to devour the entire book in one evening. The books were only 180 pages or so and they were so formulaic as to nearly read themselves. As the last page hovered between my fingers, I would be left hankering for another 29 days until the next delivery arrived.

Each evening before going to bed, it was my father's custom to make his rounds checking in on each of his children. God forbid a kidnapper might snatch one of his precious offspring! When he got to my room, the faint glow of a flashlight under the covers accompanied by the sound of pages rattling would alert him to the fact that his oldest daughter was still awake at the ungodly hour of 11:15 p.m., reading Nancy Drew!

I am sorry to report that I did not achieve my career goal to become the next Nancy Drew. I suspect there wasn't a whole lot of money in the enterprise anyway. One thing I did take away was a lifelong love of reading, and for that, I will ever be grateful to the inimitable Miss Drew!

My First Blog Post: My Baby Boy's Heart

This blog posting first appeared February 22, 2008 on Vox. I found it this morning, thanks to my dear friend, Sara.



MY BABY BOY'S HEART

My dear husband informed me at 9:45 last night, as he's headed to bed and I'm folding a load of laundry, that he will be leaving at the crack of dawn to travel to a client meeting in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Hidden message: I get to get myself and the kids around all by my lonesome in the morning. Oh, goody, goody, goody. I live for these days! Not.

So this morning, I rousted myself out of bed, got showered, got breakfast ready for our children, woke them up, urged them to eat, reminded them about getting ready five times, and then proceeded out the door to start the car. Because last night, while we were sleeping, it iced and snowed and became so frigidly cold I could have sworn we had teleported ourselves to the Polar Ice Cap.

Coming back into the house after starting the car, I noted that my son, Jared, is standing in the kitchen with no shirt on, the Roosa Student Telephone Directory in one hand and the phone up to his ear. Oh, and it's 7:30 a.m. Here's how the conversation went from there:

Me: (barely contained shout) "Jared! Who are you talking to at this un-Godly hour of the morning?"

Jared: "Uh, my friend, Brayden."

Me: "Give me that phone." (grabbing phone, shooting disdainful look at my oldest child).

Me: (into the phone): "Yes, hello, this is Angela Henderson, Jared's mom, to whom am I speaking?"

Brayden's father: "Yes, this is Brayden's dad."

Me: "I am so sorry about this. I went out to start the car and Jared must have thought that this was a good time to get on the phone without my knowledge. You all must be trying to get ready for school just like we are."

Brayden's father: "No. No, we're not. Brayden won't be at school today, because he's staying with his mother. Brayden's grandmother passed away last night."

Me: (light breaking through cloud, everything coming clear, becoming the proverbial cartoon jackass) "Oh. I am so sorry for your loss. Can you ask Brayden to call Jared back sometime tonight or this weekend? And I'm really sorry for the interruption."

Brayden's father: "No problem. I'll have Brayden call Jared back."

As I hung up the phone, I realized that my sweet baby boy was just checking on his friend whose grandmother was a really sick lady yesterday and as of this morning, is no longer with us. And then, it hit me that my own sweet baby boy knows precisely what his little friend is going through because a little over a year ago, he too lost his grandmother to cancer.

My fury melted away as I explained to Jared that it was very kind of him to call and check on his friend, but not during a time when I need him to be getting around for school. We also discussed the etiquette of phone calling before 9:00 a.m., meaning that we don't call anyone before that time unless someone has died or it's a real emergency, and that his father and I would prefer to know who he is calling before he uses the phone.

And I learned a very valuable lesson about my precious boy's heart.

Heartbroken

ClareMom is absolutely heartbroken tonight. Every single one of my blog posts from the past two years, which I posted on Vox, are now gone. Vox apparently closed in the wee hours of this morning, with nary an email to alert me to the situation.

All of the stories about the cute things my precious children have said and done over the past two years are gone. All of my recipes have disappeared. Treasured photos and comments from friends have vanished.

I began blogging in 2008 because I was falling further and further behind on my scrapbooking efforts and I wanted to give both of my children an album of stories and remembrances of the things they did and said as children. I also wanted to hand down cherished family recipes and stories of my childhood, particularly stories about my beloved mother and grandparents, all of whom are gone now.

And now, everything is gone. Stupidly, I saved nothing on my computer. All I have are the first few lines of each post, saved on Facebook. I will spend the next several weeks rewriting each post, trying to reconstruct precious mementos from tiny snippets.

I am so sad. I have tears in my eyes right now. Worst of all, I feel so dumb. I should have backed everything up on my computer!

Learn from my mistake!