Cooking

One of the best (or maybe only good) things about really cold weather is the dishes I can and should make. As a hard-core environmentalist, maybe now called a survivalist or a sustainability supporter, for 50 years, I don’t use the oven when it’s really hot. I look for overcast days to make something early on that I can eat later. But as it gets cooler, I really lean into the baking, bread for myself and my adult daughter and her family, cookies so I can supply everyone I see with a variety, and oven-cooked meals that I’ve been missing all summer. The grill should be a mainstay, but somehow, it seems like too much trouble. And somebody has to stand out in the heat. Sometimes, it’s just starting to be cool and I’ll cook with the windows open, so as not to heat up the house for later. When it gets really cold, I make sure to open and close the blinds in keeping with the sun’s whims, never opening the north side unless it’s very mild. I love a fire in the fireplace, but it doesn’t make sense if it’s too cold, because the heat from the rest of the house goes up the chimney, so I save it for the milder cold and gray days. But I digress…pot roast! Is the number one thing I cook in winter, and it doesn’t even use the oven. It is the simplest recipe, the way my mother made it (as I remember it). Buy a relatively cheap roast--they are often on sale, and usually labeled pot roast--although there are several options. Sear it in the big pot, salt and pepper generously, then add water, or even stock, to cover. After a few hours, add some cut-up carrots and potatoes and cook another hour or so. There are Italian pot roasts with canned tomatoes, and once I added some thyme. Somebody in my family is allergic to onions (isn’t that insanely unfair, how can I cook for her without using onions or garlic?), but I think you could add them too. Meatloaf with baked potatoes is my husband’s favorite—also something my mother made, without really consulting a recipe, throwing things into a pound or two of ground beef and mixing it with her hands. There are gazillions of great sheet-pan dinners at NYT cooking as well. You could roast a chicken, but DH is persnickety about the tendons, etc., on the bones, and there are only two of us now, so we usually buy boneless skinless parts. I will often have soup in the fridge, so good with a grilled-cheese sandwich, sometimes incorporating the turkey stock or leftover meat from my oversized Thanksgiving turkey. I’m not a vegetarian anymore, but we eat a lot of meatless meals or a small amount of meat with other good stuff. This week, I made apple cake, something else my Mom would make as a treat when we came to visit. PS Charlie enjoyed tumbling a lot more this week.

Waiting for the End of the World

I am waiting every day. I check when I wake up to see if it happened overnight. A catastrophic explosion, a nuclear attack, an asteroid hitting the Earth. The collapse of our infastructure. People shooting each other in the street for no reason. No internet, no electricity, no health care. Plunging birth rates. A pandemic more deadly than the last and no lessons learned. And then, against my better judgement, hope somehow slips through. More and more solar and wind power contributing to the electric grid, in our state, in our country, in the world. Occasional outbursts of bravery by judges, individual citizens, and elected officials. Increased demand for an electric car that seats 8 passengers. A baby smiling and learning to talk. (Do not tell him of your fears.) Maybe today is not the day the world will come crashing down.

Happy Birthday to me

I'm 70 years old, and I don't feel much different from when I was 30 or 40. My father said he hadn't changed since he was about 12. The world feels different though. It feels sad and scary. I have spent a lot of time trying to help other people, through work and volunteering and donations. It doesn't feel like I have achieved much at all, although I hope there is someone out there who disagrees. Like the starfish story, did I make a difference to that one? I feel like there must be a solution, something big I could do that would help. But, of course, that's wishful thinking. Can I lead a group of grandmothers (and fathers) to insert ourselves between the two sides of a war? Well, no one would care, they would just shoot us all. And wars are not really like that now, where would we position ourselves on the front lines? We would need a huge number of people, how likely is that? I spend some time listening to live interviews on Substack. I have heroes there. I see that most people, although they may be concerned, live busy and mostly happy lives. They do not feel the need to rise up yet over some distant people dying or abstract principles being trampled on. They will wait until there is no food. For many, there is already no housing, but they feel powerless and hopeless. The time to act is now, and yet, my life is relatively safe and happy. My grandson is the joy of my life and my children are a source of pride as well. I am fortunate that my children want me in their lives. I am so lucky to care for this baby boy 2 days a week and it helps my daughter and her husband as well. I like to think it is good for him, too, although the day care center seems to be doing a great job. One of the things I should be doing is cleaning out old stuff and simplifying my life, for myself and for them. And yet, it does not feel significant. I want to do something big and meaningful. I sign petitions, I go to protests, I donate and volunteer, but there must be more. Getting myself killed or even arrested would upset my family and be pointless. One thing I could do is write something. On Substack? Letters to the editor seem a bit archaic, I don't read them. Could I write a novel, or even a story, that inspires people?

Tomorrow

I spend most of the morning with my baby grandson, smiling at him, feeding him, reading to him, holding him while he sleeps. It is amazing to watch him as he learns about the world. And I vow never to let him know how terrible a place it is. He will not see me cry or hear me curse. Then I go home and get angrier and angrier as I think about what his world will be like. I cannot believe I was once again so foolish and naive and hopeful. I believed in the innate goodness of every person. Now I do not. My heart breaks for my children and all the citizens of the world, who will know less and less of the beauty of life in the future. It is unbearable to think that we could have saved it and we were too short-sided, too greedy, to do the little that it would take. As human beings, we have the brains to figure out solutions to the problems of the world, but we do not have the will. We cannot imagine that each of us working together could make the small changes that would add up to a better future for everyone. And now it is too late. Humanity will not die out right away. It will take many generations. We will try to adapt, living underground perhaps, wearing suits that protect us when we go above ground and masks that let us breathe the poisoned air. But all our solutions will require more of the Earth's resources, and we will dig ourselves deeper and deeper into an economy that is dependent on the things that are causing our ruin. Perhaps some think AI will save us, assuming it does not turn on us. AI, it turns out, needs huge amounts of electricity. Even though we know using fossil fuels will doom us, we feel we must have them to grow--and apparently growth is more important than life. Every society will have to make decisions on how to spend their dwindling resources. Perhaps one country will decide that they cannot afford to keep old people alive. Perhaps they will want to limit the population to fewer and fewer--only those with money? Will they be tested and only the most scientifically gifted will be allowed to live? Who can we do without? Health care workers, ministers? We need laborers to run the machines to harvest the Earth's dwindling bounty, and soldiers and policemen to make sure it gets to the "right" people.

Planes are flying overhead, making a screaming noise as they take off. I think Ray told me that means the wind is from the South. It's nice to be near a major airport when we want to go somewhere, but I did not notice the sound of the planes when we were thinking about buying this house! When we lived in Georgia, we could hear trains not far away, but

Monday morning

the sun follows me around all day; actually I follow the sun. I start my day in the library, which is on the eastern side of the house. I am usually up before it, although today I slept until almost 7. It is cloudy and there will not be a lot of sun, but even a little bit warms up a room. This time of year, it is not bitter cold out, so 10 or 20 degrees makes a big difference. I put the heat on too, sometimes, but the sun somehow feels warmer. The library is a grandiose name for a small addition on this 100-year-old house. It does have books and computers in it, but so much more. The sewing machine and all the boxes of fabric and supplies that go with it. wrapping paper, a dresser stuffed with shawls and old sweaters. a keyboard I haven't used in years. old family photos, slides and vhs tapes that I plan to organize and throw away. The room has faux wood paneling and dropped ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights in the middle. The floor is plastic laminate that looks a little like blond wood. Most of it is covered by one of my grandmother's braided rugs that has held up for maybe 100 years itself. Near the door is a clear patch of plastic floor, good for taking off boots if it's wet outside. The back door is in the adjacent hall, and we have a boot tray in front of the bookcase. The desk, my fancy desk from Levenger that my Mom helped pay for, is buried, of course, like most desks. There is an inbox, full of random things that do not really belong in an inbox: a New York Times Sunday paper from a few weeks ago, that I thought I might read, but cleared from the dining room when guests were expected. A laptop that I use very occasionally, when we are traveling or for a remote yoga class. Early in the day, the sun is streaming in the east windows, bathing me in warmth as I sit at the computer, back to the bookcase, catching up on the emails from the day before and slowly, grinding away at the backlog from 6 years or more. I delete and delete and unsubscribe. But I also sign petitions and donate money and buy things, so I keep getting added to more and more lists!

Solitaire

Gray and damp, but not actually raining. I played a game of Spider, the solitaire that my Dad always played on vacation. It uses two decks and is hard to win. I figure it's good for my hands to shuffle 104 cards 10 times at least once a day. I often play more than once--my rule is I can play as many times as it takes until I win! So if I win the first game (rare), I only play once that day. It is hard to define why the game is so appealing to me. One part is tradition--the game reminds me of watching my Dad play and of showing younger people like my daughter or my nephew how to play. It's fairly complicated to explain and is available to play on line as well. There are advantages to that, like no shuffling and hints, but I only play with real cards. My favorite deck is getting pretty worn out. I know which card is the four of spades from the crease in the back, but that's not much of a help and sometimes I forget when I'm concentrating. After shuffling the decks 5 times, I deal ten cards face down. Then I repeat that 3 times, so there are 4 cards face down in 10 piles. I deal four more cards face down on the first four piles, to make the numbers come out right. Then I deal 10 more cards face up. If you're counting, that's 54 cards, so I have 50 left. I study the 10 cards I can see and put lower cards on higher cards--a Jack on a queen, a five on a six. They don't have to be the same suit, but it's better if they are, so I place the ones that match first, if there are any. If the cards are the same suit, they can be moved as a unit (unto another, higher card). So the Jack and Queen of diamonds can be moved together onto the King of diamonds. Then the card underneath can be turned up and played if there's a place for it. If you play all the cards in a pile, you have a space. A space is very handy, critical to winning the game, so I move cards from piles with fewer cards before the piles that still have 5 or 4 cards in them. You can put a card (or run of matching cards) in a space to rearrange something or turn over a card. When everything has been played that can be (or that you want to play) and all the spaces are filled, you deal 10 more cards face up on top of the 10 piles. It's a mess. Now you have a King in your space (Kings can only be removed when all the lower cards of that suit are piled on it; you win when all 8 suits are complete) or a 5 on a 4. By planning and thinking, you decide how best to resolve the chaos. Sometimes that leads to more cards being turned up and played and more spaces opening up, but sometimes there are few or even no cards you can play. They mysteriously seem to come in groups. I had 4 Kings in my first deal (not a good sign). Later, there were lots of Jacks. Perhaps it is the sense of following rules and making order out of chaos. Or the satisfaction of solving a complicated puzzle. I start each game naively hoping that it will go well--oh great, there's a two of Spades I can put on the three! As it devolves into a mess after 3 more deals, I say, Yeah, this one's not coming out...Usually I can tell within the first few deals if it's going well, but sometimes a really great deal will be followed by a deluge of kings or a deal with no moves...and sometimes I can pull out a surprise win on the last deal. I think I'll go try again!

asparagus tart

This is a great make-ahead recipe because you do it in parts. It uses a whole wheat crust (well, part whole wheat) that does best if you make it over a few days. Mix the flours and salt and butter (NYT Cooking recipe) and divide the dough in two, flatten it and let it chill overnight. The next day, roll it out and put it in the pan and chill overnight again. Meanwhile, sometime during those 2-3 days, you roast the asparagus. Rinse it and dry it and roll it around on a baking sheet in olive oil, then cook it for about 15 minutes. Saute some scallions in oil and add them to the asparagus with some herbs.

The third day, you mix up the eggs and put it all together and bake it. You can eat it hot or room temperature, so make it when you like (if it's hot, bake early in the day and eat later).

Happy New Year!

The first day hike was amazing, but it was not peaceful. There were people everywhere. I was afraid of the hanging bridge, but I went across it. I wanted to wait until no one else was on it, because it bounces so much, but they came out of the woods and walked on behind me. They didn't know I wanted to be the only one on it, or they didn't care. They were just going on with their walk. We signed up and we were a little later getting there than we had wanted. You know, someone had to use the bathroom just as we were leaving. There were three of us. It's harder the more people you have to wrangle. There were signs and volunteers directing us to the parking spots that were left. There was a crowd visible through the woods. I truly think there may have been 500 people there. There was a long hike and a short hike. More people went on the 4-mile hike--maybe 300? We waited for the second group. It was supposed to be about 2 1/2 miles. There was a line at the bridge. We chatted with other people waiting. We could see people ahead of us, behind us, across the river. Splashes of color, noise. It was a beautiful sunny day, not warm, but not bitter cold. We were all there for the same reason. Some people left because it was too crowded. Ray and Amy went to look at the rocks. I stayed back. I could see them most of the time, a red jacket, a hat. Near them was a small group getting ready to go in the water. A teenage boy and his younger brothers or smaller friends. He stripped down to his striped underwear and waded in. One of the others ran in and out, splashing, but he was calm and unhurried. On the way back, I saw another group in the water. The bare skin contrasted with the layers of clothing the rest of us were wearing. Is this a tradition I don't know about? We turned back, enough walking for us today. I was out of breath and didn't want to push myself too much. There was hot chocolate with marshmallows in compostable cups. Ray made a donation.

Yup, it's Fall.

The geese are gone; I did not hear their racket this morning. We live near a pond and they are quite noisy. They are also really messy, their poop is disgusting and it's everywhere around the pond--even sometimes in my fenced backyard (since they can fly). The only sad thing about them being gone is that I need to accept that Fall is really here--not the early sunny Fall days with pretty leaves and visits to historic sites. No, it is solidly mid-Fall and that means winter is coming. We have managed to avoid putting the heat on so far, but today might be the day. If it is sunny, the house warms up nicely. And it helps if I bake some pumpkin muffins (well, this batch will be squash, but they taste at least as good if not better). Right now, it's 64 in my house and the sky is a little cloudy. I might hunker down in my library (it has one wall of books) and turn the electric heat on just in here. Or I can take a nice warm bath and see if the sun has done its work when I come down again. I have a nasty cold, although I'm past the worst part. We went to the Topsfield Fair a week ago and I bet that is where I caught it. I usually wear a mask when I'm in a crowd, but didn't do it. Of course, I had to eat some funnel cake and French fries and drink Coke, so would have had to take the mask off then. I love the Flying Wallendas. We have seem them almost every year when we go. The grandfather is the announcer, probably in his 70s and still standing on his head on the wire, and riding a bike. His son carries the 4 year old on his shoulders across and then the daughter-in-law. I often cry at the daring of it. There's a clown poised to catch them on the ground. "What could he do?" I ask, and Ray says, "try to keep them from landing on their heads." There's a 2-year-old as well, but I think she is not going to be joining the family business. They juggle together, too. There was a crowd, as usual. No screens, no special effects, just a traditional family act, maybe 8 generations of practicing from an early age, starting on a low wire, I presume. Tuesday evening at yoga class I felt great, no back pain, able to do everything the teacher suggested. But Wednesday morning i had a cold, starting with the drippy nose. I take my Dayquil and my Nyquil and drink lots of tea and eat a million Ricolas.

Seriously rainy today, been threatening for a few days. So gray, too bad I'm not good at sleeping in! It is cozy and dry inside, but dark unless you turn the lights on. We are delighted to finally have a working upstairs bathroom, although it is a tub only and really too low. I have tried it a couple of times, you just have to be careful not to fill it too full or splash. Now that there is a new floor, I feel a little better that some water won't seep through to the floor below. Hopefully the guys who installed it caulked around the edge well enough. The old floor was curling up by the tub, sheet linoleum. This is kind of cool fake marble vinyl tiles--yes, I am afraid it is not made of anything sustainable. If people would stop burning the petroleum, we could use it for things like flooring many more years. Although it is cooler without the sun, it is not cool enough to bake, and we don't really want to open the windows and let the dampness in (and the heat out). But I can mix up some cookie dough and put it in the freezer for another day. There are still some things in the storage unit that I need to deal with, unless I want to become one of those people who pays for storage indefinitely. I could fit everything in the basement, which is quite dry, thanks to our dehumidifier. Ray empties it every day. I think it was our painter who said, "Just dump it into the washing machine, it's clean water." Before then, he was carrying it up the cellar stairs and dumping it outside. This is a win-win. A funny thing (kind of): we were not able to get the box spring upstairs for our guest room bed (a queen). It's sitting in the library until we decide what to do with it: find someone who wants it, store it indefinitely, trail it to North Carolina...I think we can pay the city to take it away. Tamara got a new bed and Molli and Michael brought us the platform bed she was using. They brought it upstairs and Ray put it together; it was kind of a pain, but looks pretty good. Imagine our surprise when we tried to fit the mattress on it! It was a full or double bed, not a queen! So now we are in the position of having to buy a frame for it, even though we already have three other beds that we don't need.

The best laid plans

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry--I believe Mr. Robert Burns said it first, although in Old Scottish...and many others have said it since, including me, many times. Like the plan to walk every day or the intention to detail my meal prep ideas... the meal for today involved eggplant, but since I had leftover spaghetti for lunch, I can't have pasta, which is my favorite thing to have with eggplant. I also don't have any peppers or mushrooms, needed for the excellent Eggplant Scallopini. Or zucchini, which could make some variation on ratatouille, which I would then eat with rice instead of pasta. There is an eggplant curry I haven't made in a while, but it calls for peas and I don't think I have any in my freezer at the moment.

There's a paradox about cooking in the summer. I don't want to heat up the kitchen, so it would be good to grill outside. But it's really hot and standing over the grill cooking makes people miserable. So I think I will cook the chicken indoors after all. Just briefly, on top of the stove, with some vegetables and serve with couscous. Couscous cooks with boiling water, so doesn't add much to the heat in the kitchen. Sometimes, when it was hot, we might walk to the beach and swim. Now we have to drive (sad face). Even worse, the beaches have high bacteria counts so we can't swim anyway. I think maybe we'll drive a little further today to swim.

Too hot to cook: Pasta Salad for supper

Today's main ingredient is corn. We were lucky enough to get some early corn on the cob Thursday and somehow didn't get to cook it until Sunday. It was still delicious, surprisingly. I try to cook it the minute I get home but life interfered with my best-laid plans. I also have some leftover pasta. A recipe called for 12 ounces of pasta, which is dumb. I would rather have 4 oz of leftover cooked pasta than raw, so we cooked it all and reserved some. Fortunately, I have a favorite recipe for Mexican Pasta Salad (thank you once again, Moosewood!). It is even low-fat! It calls for a can of cooked beans--kidney, pinto or black. I usually have a can of beans around, although I did use the black beans a couple weeks ago. When I can, though, I prefer to cook my own, especially if I can do it early while it's not hot out. So, I have some pintos simmering on the stove that will be one and cooled before I need them. There is corn, a yellow pepper, some fresh tomatoes, and scallions--everything I need. I'll chop up some veggies soon and mix the dressing, so it will be nicely marinated before we are ready to eat it tonight. Meanwhile, I am thinking ahead to a quiche I'll make Friday--do I need to buy some Gruyere? We picked up a cantaloupe yesterday, which is really nice with blueberries, coming into peak season now.

What type are you?

Some people like to take on a job and stick with it until it's done. Sometimes that keeps them from ever starting... I prefer to break tasks into manageable bits. I like to cook, but I don't always want to get started. I'm sure you've been there, all of a sudden it's late (5 or 6 or 7) and you're hungry. Maybe other people are hungry too, but they would not ever plan ahead to make sure there is something to eat when they're hungry. Anyway, I usually know what I'll eat when I get up: cereal and milk with fruit, or yogurt and fruit and toast and peanut butter or a bagel with cream cheese. At least one of those options is almost always around. I could make an egg and bacon, but that doesn't usually appeal. Lunch is often leftovers, but there should be bread and cheese and maybe sliced luncheon meat--or a can of tuna if need be. And there are usually some marginally healthy snacks in the pantry if I need something in between times. Dinner is what I mean when I talk about cooking. I love to bake bread or cookies when the weather is oooler and I have the time and energy. But the evening meal (call it supper if you prefer) is the one that takes the most planning and usually preparation. Ideally, I know what that's going to be when I get up in the morning because I've been thinking about it the day before. If not, that's the first order of business, even before getting dressed or eating breakfast. What's the weather forecast look like? How many people will be eating? What's in the fridge? I usually plan around the ingredient that most urgently needs to be eaten. Today it is zucchini, but it is often meat--chicken I bought or thawed the day before, for instance. Today it's hot, so probably not anything that uses the oven, and preferably not a lot of time on the stove. Can it be made ahead, while it's cooler? I decided on a frittata for tonight. I have plenty of eggs and will use up some of the zucchini. I got some chard in my box Thursday and I have a half a green pepper left over from something earlier in the week. Is that pan I like clean? To avoid any last-minute problems and to do the work in small chunks, I check the recipe and make sure I have the ingredients. Maybe I can make it without the marjoram, but if I was out of eggs, I would have to make a different plan. Looking at the list, one of the first things I need is a small minced onion. I can do that. And mince a small clove of garlic and cut up the pepper. I put the olive oil in the pan. Now I've got a good start and I'm committed. I can take a break and do some sitting down "work" or read the paper. Sometime in the next hour or so, I'll be ready to wash and slice the mushrooms and zucchini. I'll get the eggs out so they come to room temperature. And when it's time to eat, I'll have about 10 or 15 minutes of work left to do. Sometimes I make a bigger dish, like lasagna, or rice salad, and then I have it for several meals, in case I'm busy or the weather is not conducive to cooking. Lasagna is one of many options that can be frozen in meal-size portions to keep a little longer. You know the drill, keep track of what you have in the freezer.

the closet monster

Michael's closet had a door in the back. There was another closet behind the door. It was spooky, there were no walls, just boards and the same on the ceiling. Daddy said it was like an attic. It was a place to put things you didn't use very much, like Christmas decorations or suitcases. Michael didn't live at Daddy's house all the time. He used to always live at Mommy's house and now he went back and forth. It was a little hard to get used to. At first, he woke up in the night and called for Mommy before he remembered he was at Daddy's house. He had a bunk bed here and lots of favorite animals to keep him company. Now that he was older, he didn't even call for Daddy anymore. He had Alexis, who would read to him if he woke up early. At 7, he could wake up Daddy and Molli. Molli was Daddy's new wife. It was strange that Mommy and Daddy weren't married any more and didn't live together. But Daddy was much happier. Molli and Daddy didn't fight very much, at least not when Michael was there.

It's 10:18 on Saturday. I'm just sitting down at the computer. Ray was using it when I got up. He completed one tax return before going to the office to do more people's taxes. It's 70 degrees in the house, just about perfect. Warm outside but very overcast and it was windy/gusty when I walked the dog briefly, and cleaned up after him. Sometimes I can't wait until I don't have to do that any more and other times I think I'll miss him. I'm looking forward to a visit from a young friend who is spending the night, giving her parents a chance to go to a comedy show that will be over late. Apparently, she has been asking to stay here. I'm adjusting to the idea of not having a home in Massachusetts for awhile. M&M&T are working hard to get the old house emptied and ready for closing on April 7. It's sounds like everything is on track and I am so grateful. I hate not being there to oversee everything, but can't physically do much.

Ice World

The feast was over. The fires were dying down. The people went back into their homes, closing the doors to be safe against the Wild Ones. The hunt had been good and they had meat to feed them for a while, until the next day. They would sleep and wake and nibble, but not open the doors until the sun came again. The homes were underground, dug into the ice, and connected with each other with doors. Going out in the dark was forbidden with good reason. Anyone who didn't come in before Closing was lost, never seen again. There were no remains found. If you wanted to scare yourself, you could huddle close to the door and listen. You would hear them snuffling, although you did not see them. Once she had heard a cry, like someone being taken, but no one was missing the next Day. It wasn't warm in the Burrow, not like sitting in the sun in mid-Day, but the fur kept them comfortable. They slept on piiles of skins and wrapped themselves in the fur of the Others. They ate the Other's meat to keep them alive. And they chewed on ice when they were thirsty. They talked about where they would go for the next hunt and remembered old hunts. They played games with bits of bone. When it was Day, they hunted the Others with sharpened pieces of their bones, and made ropes from their sinews for dragging them back to the Circle. Without the Others, there would be no life. The Others ate things that lived with them in the water, but the People never ate them. When the hunt was small, it was talked of, but the Eldest warned against it. If we are worthy and penitent, the hunt will be good again. We must make the music. The flutes were made of bone and the drums of skins stretched over bone. Every feast yielded one new drum-bone and the most worthy would receive it to make it their own. The only other way to get a drum was the death of a Drummer. Each Day began with the festival of death. Any who had died during the night would be laid out and mourned before the Hunt began. Sometimes there are no bodies to mourn, but the ritual is performed anyway. The Eldest leads the hunters on the path to the water. I have never been, of course, being underage by 20 days. It is not known yet whether I will be a hunter, or a drummer, or a birther, or a digger. In 20 days, 10 of us will be designated. I think I would be well-suited for digging, but there are fewer of us now, so less need for digging. Birthing is most needed, but that future does not call to me. Perhaps I will be a drumemr and one Day become the Eldest. When the hunters come back, all the drummers play the dragging song and we rush toward the weary hunters to take our turn pulling. This is how we become strong and helps determine our designation.

In the future

People will wear an outer layer when they go outside that protects against sun, pollutants, skin irritants and contact poisons. An inner layer that is comfortable and skimpy. Outer is uniform to not draw attention. Inner can be very personal but only vetted friends will see it. Temperature inside is constant. cooler at night. Lighting also uniform, ubiquitous. No windows. Meredith and her Mom were playing hide and seek, like they often did. Except this was not the time or place, as her mother said, calling to her. The city was dangerous, with strange people and places. Meredith was 4 and did not have a good sense of timing. Or maybe she did. Maybe she knew her Mom was worried and wanted to cheer her up. She always seemed to enjoy playing hide and seek. But now her Mom didn't seem to be able to find her. She was calling her, but her voice was getting farther and farther away. Meredith jumped out of her hiding place and ran to where she had seen her last. Mom, she yelled. Mommy! She ran down a street, looking everywhere and turned a corner. Now she was really lost and she began to cry. "I just wanted to play. I just wanted you to make you happy." Today, her Mom had seemed unhappy and they had gone for their walk in a different direction. Usually they went to the corner and got some coffee for Mom and a treat for Meredith. Then they would see what there was at the grocery store. Some days they didn't buy anything, but usually there was something Mom needed: flour to make muffins or something for Meredith to drink. Mom said there was a time when people just turned the faucet and drank what came out. But you couldn't do that now. A man was walking down the street toward her. She looked at him carefully. He looked nice, with a blue shirt and nice pants and shiny shoes. She got up and ran to him. "I lost my Mommy," she said. "Can you help me?" "I don't know." he said. "I"ll try." The man was a government agent, he was not someone used to helping children, but he was not a bad person. First, he called the police and reported the situation. "What's your Mommy's name?" he asked Meredith. "Susan," she said, but I call her Mommy." Do you know where you live? In a tall house with an elevator. On the eighth floor, number 801. Near the market. OK, he said, let's see if we can find your house." They could see a tall building a few blocks away and headed toward it. "Not this way," said Meredith. She seemed very sure. "Did you and Mommy walk here?" he asked. In the end, he left her with the police. He had to be at a meeting at 1 and he couldn't take her with him. She was very tired and hungry and he really didn't know anything about little girls. After his meeting, he went to the police station and asked, "where is Meredith? Did you find her mom?" The person who had been working when he dropped her off was not there and no one else seemed to know anything about her. She was not in the computer. There were no young girls named Meredith in the city records. Over the next few days, when he could, he checked out tall buildings, with apartments number 801. None of them were missing a little girl. Of course, there was not always someone home to answer his question. After about 10 days, he went back to some of the places he had gotten no answer. He found a man who said he had just moved in. There could have been a little girl living here before, he said, but I don't know. When Charles asked the manager, he said, "I can't give out information like that." Hmmm. That made Charles wonder. If there hadn't been someone there before, he could probably have just said no. He waited outside and talked to people who came out of the building. "I don't know," they would say, or "maybe so." Finally, he did talk to a woman who said, "Meredith?" she lived on my floor. She and her mothere went everywhere together. And now they're just not there. Do you know anything about them?" "I met Meredith the end of last month on Delaney Street. She was lost. I took her to the police station, but when I went back, they acted like they didn't know what I was talking about." He got the mother's name from the neighbor. She asked him to let her know what he found out and gave him her name and number. He looked for information about Susan, but found little. There was nothing about a partner or a daughter. She had worked in a shoe store for many years. He went to the store and asked about her, but the people there didn't know much. She had stopped coming to work about the time Charles had found Meredith. She was a good worker, but not very talkative. They didn't know much, although she sometimes mentioned her daughter, buying shoes for her once. The shoes had a built-in tracker, like parents sometimes bought for their kids. It didn't seem like that was important to Susan, she had picked them out because they were on sale and she thought her child would like them. They had rainbows on the side, but otherwise looked ordinary. "Can I activate the tracker?" Not really. The Mom would have the code to set it up on her phone. They didn't make the shoes any more, because some unscrupulous people had gotten access to all the codes. It was a long shot, but Charles wondered if some of the unscrupulous people he knew would be able to tap into that information. Did he want to owe Johnny a favor? Not really, but he felt a strong pull to find Meredith. He hoped she was ok and safe with her Mom...but where could they be? Meredith had said her Mom seemed worried that morning. He went back to the street where he had found her. Where had they been heading? Was she looking for a new place to live? Meredith's clothes were not a clue. He thought, the shoes. she was wearing the shoes with the tracker. Now he would have to call Johnny. Johnny knew a guy...he had to promise not to turn him in before he could get access to the system. When hea talked about Meredith to the men, it was clear that he was worried about her. "What's she to you?" they asked. "Why do you care?" "I don't know," he said. "I just want to make sure she's okay. It's odd how she disappeared.' "It would take you a while to check out all these shoes," the man told him. "But you can eliminate some of them. All these are in the same place--waiting to be incinerated." "There's about 50 pairs still active in different parts of the city. And we only know the building, not which apartment." He went to three buildings that day and tried to find out if there were any little girls living there. Then he realized Meredith could have easily passed for a boy, so he went back and tried again. If she was hiding, though, maybe he shouldn't try to find her. Maybe it would be dangerous for her--or him. As he approached the fourth building, he recognized a car parked on the street, a greenish sedan that he had seen before. Someone else was trying to find her--but why? What secrets could a four-year-old girl hold?