At Christmastime Carla's mother always made a red velvet cake, and now that her mother is dead, Carla makes it. The cake has some cocoa in it, but the chocolate flavor is mild; the main thing about a red velvet cake is that it is brilliant red, as red as Santa's suit, as red as a valentine, as red as a girl's red velvet dress. The frosting is thick and white, and when the whole frosted cake is sitting there, the uninitiated never suspect that when they cut into it, it will practically bleed.

This cake is sometimes called the "Waldorf Astoria cake." As the story goes, a woman visiting the Waldorf Astoria was served this red and white cake and asked the waiter for the recipe. She received the recipe and a hundred dollars was added to her bill. The woman paid the (to her mind) outrageous bill, but then made it her mission to hand out the recipe, free, to as many people as possible the rest of her life. Though the story is undoubtedly a lie, it is interesting that until recently the red velvet cake recipe has largely been absent from cookbooks and has been passed down through (mostly southern) families on note cards. Carla has her recipe printed out on a piece of paper; her sister copied it from their mother's note card.

Maiden names get lost over the generations. Carla's maiden name is Black. Her mother's maiden name was Muse, so before marriage to Carla's father, Mr. Black, she was Willa Ermine Muse. Carla's grandmother's name was also Willa, so everyone called Carla's mother Ermine (pronounced with a long "i" in the second syllable). "I've actually thought of taking the name Muse back--or just taking it, I guess, since I never really had it to begin with," Carla says. She's thinks it would be a good name for a writer; Carla writes fiction and teaches writing at Hope College. "And that middle name thing is pretty common in the South," she says. "Lots of people never go by their first name."

Carla grew up in Lansing, Illinois, in a working class neighborhood of closely-spaced one-story cedar-shingled houses, but both her mother and her father (a steelworker) were from Alabama, and many of their neighbors were from the south as well. Carla says she has always felt a little misplaced in the north, and she and her husband did move south for two and a half years, but came back. When Carla and Mr. Vissers married, they were still in college, and they are still married.

In Lansing, Carla's parents socialized a lot, especially on Friday nights. "People would stop by while we were eating dinner and if we finished dinner and nobody came by, we'd go out to somebody else's house. At Christmastime, people would stop by and my mother would serve them this cake," Carla says. "It really shocked me when we lived in North Carolina and I saw you could buy red velvet cakes in the store. I'd never seen one that wasn’t made by my mother."

Willa Ermine has been gone seven years now. "When we saw her that Thanksgiving, we knew we wouldn't see her again," Carla says. "The first time I made the cake was three weeks after my mother died, and it came out. I was so happy. The second time the frosting was a disaster. I don't know what happened."

"You know, it's actually a huge regret of mine that I didn't cook with her much," Carla says. "Hardly at all, to tell the truth. She was a terrific cook and I could've learned a lot--none of it healthy--but I was never pushy about being in the kitchen with her, and she was the sort who mostly wanted to do it herself and not have to suffer any interference. She wasn't mean about it, just not very welcoming. I did watch her make the red velvet cake every year because I thought it was so beautiful, and she sometimes gave me the job of sifting the flour. Another thing I liked to watch her do was singe the whiskers off chicken wings before cooking them. She did it with a lit match."

Carla has invited me to watch her make the red velvet cake a few days before Christmas, and so I drive an hour and a half to Holland, in time for lunch.

Both of Carla's children are afflicted with that languorous, sleepy, movie-star demeanor some teenagers have, as though all their energy is sapped by just growing and enduring life's stupidity. Carla's daughter Leah, fifteen, has been home sick from school for a week, and so that quality about her is exaggerated today. She drapes herself over a high chair, leans her elbows on the kitchen island, and sinks into the posture. Then she begins to cough.

"My mother always made Reuben sandwiches on Christmas Eve," Carla says."It was just something she always did." After a failed search for some sauerkraut, Carla sets about making herself and me corned beef sandwiches, and for Leah, a cheese sandwich.

Carla grills the meat before putting it on the bread, and I snap to attention. For years corned beef sandwiches and pastrami sandwiches have disappointed me. When I was young, I hung out mostly with kids from Tennessee, and their mothers always grilled sandwich meat, even bologna, and it was always good. Carla piles a generous amount of grilled meat onto rye bread with Swiss cheese and puts the closed sandwich in the Foreman grill. The finished product is greasy and delicious, and I could easily eat a second sandwich. When Carla offers me a second sandwich, I decline.

Leah, who is a skinny kid, as Carla was at her age, breaks her sandwich into little pieces and eats only a few bites out of the very middle. Momentarily, I am tempted to grab some off her plate, but she is coughing all over it. The harsh depth of her cough contrasts with her delicate freckled features. Leah's flu has developed into some kind of bronchitis, Carla says, for which the doctor has called in a prescription syrup to the pharmacy. Leah does not put her hand over her mouth when she coughs, and I know that a little bit of Leah will be cooked into this cake--I also understand why Carla is not going to kick her daughter out of the kitchen.

"We have to start with the frosting, because the milk mixture takes time to cool." Carla doesn't have a double boiler, so she uses a bowl on top of a pan."We're going to use a lot of bowls for this cake," she says. She stirs together milk and corn starch until it has the texture of instant pudding. This type of frosting is entirely new to me.

By the end we will have used seven bowls. There is the bowl for the milk and corn starch; a bowl for creaming the butter, sugar and eggs for the cake; then a bowl for what Carla calls the paste, the cocoa mixed with a full bottle of food coloring. There's a bowl for sifting the flour and salt initially, and one that you sift it into for the second sifting (it goes back into the first bowl for the third sifting). There's a little bowl for the vinegar and baking soda, and finally there's the second frosting bowl, in which Carla will mix the butter and sugar and vanilla for the frosting.

"Will I have to be the one who makes this cake in the future?" Leah asks, between raspy open-mouthed coughs.

"Yes, you will," Carla says. "So pay attention. You sift the flour." Carla produces not a bag of all-purpose flour but something I've never seen in real life, though some of my old recipe books call for it: a box of Pillsbury Softasilk cake flour, the same brand her mother used. On the side of the box there's a note that when the recipe calls for a cup of regular flour, you should use one cup plus two tablespoons Softasilk. Carla figures that the recipe was written for the cake flour, so she doesn't need to adjust the measurements.

Sifting the flour just about wears Leah out and she spills some onto the kitchen island and the floor.

"I don't know if I can learn to make this cake. I'm so lazy," she says. "Don't you think so, Mom?"

Carla ignores her question.

"Admit it, I'm lazy." Leah speaks slowly, languorously.

"Okay, you're lazy," Carla says, and I have to assume this is not the first time this conversation has taken place.

"See, you admit it, I'm lazy. I'll probably never accomplish anything."

"Watch this." Carla has the smallest bowl. She mixes the baking soda in vinegar and it hisses and bubbles. "What's weird about this cake is the chemistry."

Red Velvet Cake (according to Carla)

30 minutes at 350 degrees

1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1tbs vanilla
1tsp salt
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tbs vinegar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 oz red food coloring
2 tbs cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda

Mix vinegar and soda in small cup and let it stand.

Cream sugar, butter and eggs. Make paste from cocoa and half of the food coloring and add to creamed mixture. Add rest of food coloring. Sift flour and salt three times. Add 1/3 of flour mixture to creamed mixture. Beat thoroughly. Add half of buttermilk. Beat thoroughly. Add another 1/3 of flour and beat. Add rest of buttermilk and beat. Add remaining flour, soda and vinegar mixture and beat thoroughly. Add vanilla and beat.

Makes 2 eight inch layers.

Frosting:

Cream 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 cup butter until very fluffy. Add 1 tbs vanilla and 1/4 tsp salt and cream thoroughly. Cook 3 tbs cornstarch and 1 1/2 cups of whole milk until thick. Cool completely--VERY IMPORTANT. Add to creamy base in small amounts, beating well after each addition. Ice cake and store in fridge.

My own strict 4-H cooking teachers insisted I cream shortening into sugar with a wooden spoon, but Carla relies on the electric mixer at each stage, as she says her mother did.

Carla measures the buttermilk. "My dad always drank buttermilk," she said. "He'd break up cornbread into a glass and then pour buttermilk over it and eat it with spoon." Carla's dad now has Alzheimer's and lives with Carla's sister in North Carolina.

"Sometimes a red velvet cake is used as a groom's cake at a wedding," Carla says. "I guess that's not something people do up here, but in the south, there's always a second cake that's different from the first. It's not like the big one is the bride's cake, but there's something called the groom's cake." Apparently there was an armadillo-shaped red velvet cake in the movie Steel Magnolias.

Carla lines the bottoms of the pans with baking parchment, and she swears to me that she usually uses waxed paper. As she's getting the cakes in the oven, I wash a few bowls, and I admire Carla's cupboards. They are painted pale green and pale blue, and they look very clean.

"I painted them special for Clyde Edgerton, when he was coming to read at Hope," she says. "Then he didn't show up. His Mom had a stroke."

We run an errand while the two round layers bake and we get back with minutes to spare. I never would have dared leave the house with a cake in the oven, for fear that I might get in a traffic accident and then the cake would burn and possibly the house would burn, but Carla has that bravery that comes from raising children: if they survive to teenager-hood, then anything is possible. When we return, she tests to see if the cakes are done by sticking a butter knife into one of them. She lets the cakes cool in the pans for twenty minutes or so, then dumps them onto their tops on a dishtowel. She retrieves the corn-starch mixture where it's been cooling for more than an hour and begins to make the frosting.

I mention to her that I found an on-line recipe that suggested using regular cream cheese frosting.

"That's just wrong," Carla says, shaking her head. "It's not red velvet cake unless it has this frosting. It's cheating in the worst way."

I hiccup as Carla pours a cup of granulated sugar into a bowl. I am certain this frosting will be grainy--shouldn't she use confectioner's sugar?

Carla momentarily questions her own self, but then she brushes off my concerns and makes the frosting the same way she has made it these last seven years.

Leah drags herself off the couch and into the kitchen again, this time with a blanket around her.

"You have to frost it," Carla says when she finishes mixing, and she pushes the bowl toward me.

"Don't you want to do it yourself?" I ask. "For the tradition?" I push the bowl back toward her.

"This is the part I don't like." She pushes the bowl again toward me.

"Do you want to do it Leah?" I ask. I don't push the bowl toward her for fear she'll cough in it.

"No," Leah says. "I'm too lazy."

At the time I think Carla is just being kind by including me in the cake-making process, but later she tells me she doesn't like to frost the cake because she's nervous about making it look nice. She probably remembers how nice her mother's cake always looked.

As soon as I begin to frost, I realize Carla is right that this is the frosting meant for this cake. It has to be very white and very thick to entirely cover the redness of the cake, and if we were to spread cream cheese frosting as thick as necessary, it would be cloying. The slightly gelatinous texture of this frosting is perfect for spreading thickly, lighter than other frostings but not airy. It is easy to spread between the layers and all over without dragging red crumbs off the cake, which would spoil the whole effect.

When I lick some leftover frosting out of the bowl, it is indeed grainy, and I fear disaster.

"I'm lazy, and I'll never accomplish anything," Leah says matter-of-factly. "I have a friend who's a gymnast and she wins awards. She makes me feel like a failure."

It occurs to me that parents who actually listen to their children must daily experience heartbreak.

Carla and I take photos of the cake with a few simple green and red props, and I feel Ms. Black nee Muse fluttering in the background, perhaps frowning with worry, appraising critically my frosting job. Carla has said she regrets not having more sympathy for her mother near the end of her life, regrets not talking more about important things, whatever those things are. In reading Carla's bright stories, I feel this woman's presence: the mother in Carla's fiction is a duty-bound woman, somewhat brisk in demeanor, very likely depressed, at times fulfilling her obligations as if in a trance, as if a part of her has long been asleep.

Of course in Carla's stories, the mother usually wakes up, sees clearly and with a lighter heart, if only for a while. This mother even neglects her duties, much to the confusion of those around her, those who thought they knew her.

A few hours later, when I am home eating a piece of cake with my darling Christopher, who keeps calling it "red flannel cake," I am happily surprised to discover the sugar granules have dissolved completely into the frosting. The cake tastes delicious, and it is very rich and very red, and I feel fortunate to have the recipe.

News and Letters from Readers

Oct 2003 - Feb 2004

Carla writes: I love sitting here in my office eavesdropping on the two guys who have offices nearby. One is a religion professor whose students are always giving him their personal Jesus testimonies. The other is a philosophy professor. Just now a student asked the philosophy prof if he was satisfied with his life. The student asked it in a very grave, philosophy-student sort of way. The professor hesitated a minute then said,"I'd like to be taller." Heidi Bell writes from Aurora: Pancho (the cat) is drooling and has been for several days. Lefty was drooling, too, but he seems to be over it. Everything else about them is normal, and the vet says it's probably a reaction to a toxin of some sort. I'm just racking my brain trying to figure out what it could be/have been. Did a radioactive waste truck drive past our house last week? It's really disturbing to see saliva dripping from a cat's mouth.

Auntie Vera Magson of Coventry, England has passed away this January; she was seventy-seven. Matthew Schwartz won a talent contest at the Blue Gate Theater in Shipshewana, for singing and yodeling his rendition of the traditional "Chime Bells." Matt writes:"I got a very nice trophy plus about 500.00 worth of gift certificates to different places. Then I got a call yesterday from a guy at the Bluegate Theater and he wants to have me on a WakeUp show on Fox 28 TV one day next week. They also want me to do a 1 1/2 hr show at the theater on May 11 at 4 PM for a tour bus group that'll be in town."

Tom Campbell and new sweetheart Heather Raleigh vacationed in Mexico for two weeks, and sent nary a postcard, but upon returning home got a marriage license and on February 24, tied the knot at the Kalamazoo County courthouse. Really.

From Wayne Beebe in Oklahoma: "Jan and I took a river cruise in August. We started in Vienna and ended in Bucharest, visiting 6 countries in all. We had to wait 2 years to get tickets on the Oltenita, the Romanian dictator's former yacht. I really wanted to ride on it after our 2 trips to Romania. It was thrilling and romantic to me. Treaties had been signed and history made on the ship. The ship was built in Romania in the 60s. It didn't have radar nor GPS. It had two captains. One steered, the other took charge of the ship. There were about 100 passengers, 12 of us English-speakers. Announcements were made in 5 languages. Serbia was Jan's favorite country. Did you know that Belgrade claims to be the oldest city in Europe, and that 50 flags have flown over it in historic times? 35 percent of its area is parks. It was very pretty, but some of the bombed out buildings haven't been replaced. They had a party for us there in a farmer's home, where we ate, drank vodka and wine, and danced to music provided by the owner's 4 sons. That's why Jan liked it.

Jennifer Razee checks in from Vermont: "I'm keeping busy, working three or four jobs (only one full time, and there I get to proofread T.C. Boyle, V.S. Naipaul, Sara Paretsky, and Samuel Delaney) and not thinking about my dissertation, feeling lucky that I have a boyfriend who'll fix my van (even if my friends do keep warning me about him), and signing up for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Laleli Lopez writes from Curacao in the Caribbean at the end of January, announcing she's taken part in "another triathalon."

Lynne Meredith writes from the end of the road: "We have 6 deer that come to the feeder regularly, and one really big buck we saw down by your house. He was bigger than the ones here. We have the 8-point buck that comes every night with a big doe, maybe the ones you see, and then there are 3 little ones that come when they are gone--one of these is really small. I swore I wouldn't get into feeding any more animals, but darned if I'm not putting carrots, corn and apples out every day. Mike's deathly afraid I'll have them living in the garage before winter is over. I just feel sorry for them since there is so much snow and it's hard for them to find food. I didn't realize, though, that they like to eat evergreens. My blue spruce is looking pretty sorry thanks to them.

Anne Sjostrom writes from Oz: Spent last week in China. The university where I work has a center at a college in Wuxi (about 1.5 hours west of Shanghai). The Ozzies there took very good care of me. Amidst preparing and giving 12 hours of lectures, I managed to pack in several activities including an acrobat show, a silk museum, lots of great meals, massages, visits to lovely gardens and markets, and even a bicycle ride. All the same, I was ready to come back at the end of the week. Would definitely need to learn a few more words of Mandarin if I were to stay longer. During a long stopover in Japan, it worked out to visit Kyoto--a city filled with old temples and shrines and many traditional architecture buildings--well worth the visit despite the hordes of tourists. Somehow having a decent map and a sense that Japan is more organized and orderly than China made the short foray much less nerve-wracking than a similar, solo jaunt in China would have been. Am now nursing a cold--can't possibly be SARS!

From Jaci Dillon, back in October: Happy Happy Halloween! I plan not to go to Sue's farm this year, and not to make apple crisp, and I especially plan not to call 911 and report a dead guy in the back room, and thus I will not be not spending the entire night with a house full of EMTs and cops (some of whom remembered me from when I was younger). In fact if a little kid with so much as a cold shows up at my door I will slam it in his face. Oh, I guess I will throw some candy at the perp.

Melissa Fraterrigo writes from Ohio in November: This year Pete came to Indiana with me to celebrate Thanksgiving. We christened his visit by letting him us help us make cardon, an Italian vegetable (think celery) that we de-string, boil, dip and fry and serve alongside the turkey. It's an extremely unhealthy dish with absolutely no nutritional value but we love it. We let Pete do the frying and he did an okay job unlike my brother in law who kept moving the pieces around like they needed to be disciplined.

Rachael Perry and husband Steve Showerman announce the arrival on our planet of Grace Marie Showerman, born eight days late on November 17. Rachael writes in February:"My routine is just beginning to slow down--I'm assured a shower every day now, if I should choose to take one, and I manage to gulp down most meals without fear of indigestion. The baby is powerful and charming; she has her own unique vision of the world that has absolutely nothing to do with me...which is interesting since everything that makes her up, including her snots and her poops and her fingernails that we need to clip again, all are nourished by me."

Aileen Phillips Schloerb writes from Chicago's south side: Baby has arrived! Little Jonah finally decided to come out on his own on Jan. 15th after keeping us waiting for two weeks and letting us make the final plans for an induction the following morning. I think it was just a reminder to us about who is really in charge. Since then he has been eating up a storm so is growing fast. So far his disposition has been sweet and peaceful.

I want you to know how much I appreciate your defense of clutter. I come from a long line of pack-rats and have long struggled with the need to throw out clutter-with-questionable-potential in order to give priority to truly essential clutter. I will even go so far as to preserve the answering machine message of a dearly loved far-away voice that I don't get to hear very often. It's often traumatic to press the delete button on the machine in order to make room for it to function again. I salute your keen ability to see potential where others might perceive only space-occupying waste.... And still, I think there is also an argument to be made for letting go and letting (SOME) preciously saved things go on their way to fulfill other destinies than those I might choose for them. May we not also speak of the joys of cutting loose our attachment to things for the sake of greater freedom of movement, room for new attachments, empty space and simplicity? I also like to savor those joys.

Janie Boer (Yanie) writes from near San Diego, post-fire: We've got Santa Ana winds blowing and I'm getting seasick in the marina. We have to live very Spartan-like and my brain is reeling with the vision you gave in your last LP of canning jars and that crepe pan. You gotta remember we live on a 37' boat--the beam is 11'6" at it's widest girth, I would say our living space isn't even 30 sq. ft. There are still ashes landing from all the fires that have been out for about a month, they make it in through the hatches too. And then there's always bird shit. I keep waiting for a no wind day so I can hose her off. ...Well, I think I'll cook up some beef stroganoff in 2 of my 4 pans: one pan for the noodles, one for the sauce, on my 2 burner propane stove. I'll make a teeny salad, and under the stove top is the attached toaster oven (where I store a frying pan) so I can toast some garlic bread (there's no regular oven.) All I can say about the holidays, other than bah humbug, is I sure hope 2004 rings in with some sanity for this election year.

Nate Lipson writes from Tijuana, during the fires: The smoke reached here on Sunday morning. The sun burned red through a ghostly yellow haze, and it started snowing ash. By 2 PM it was getting dark, and the street lights came on. I've never experienced anything like it. I closed all my windows even though it was 95 degrees in my apartment. Monday was similar. Less ash, but it was even harder to breathe. I had to go downtown to move my car from a parking lot to a mechanics garage. The alternator had failed again; the charge they gave in San Diego got me just outside a parking lot in downtown TJ before the battery went totally dead. There was enough charge on Monday to get me to the mechanic's (where the car died again), but they had closed shop early because of the smoke. A third of the people downtown were wearing masks, as the local authorities recommended to those who couldn't stay home.

Today it was much better here--there was a bit of a sea breeze--but I had to go back downtown, over the mountain. The guy said the problem was the alternator, that I need a new one (I had left a note in Spanish explaining that I hoped he could repair the old Bosch, that I have a second Bosch, and a third alternator, made in the US, on the front seat.) He said to give him 2 hours to reconsider. I returned 2 hours later, but he said no, he wouldn't attempt to fix it, I should get a new one. I made unfavorable comparisons between mechanics in TJ and the rest of Mexico. Everyone seemed have a headache, watery eyes and sinus problems. I took the two alternators and walked around looking for another automotive electrician. Two automotive electrical shops had closed early; another guy with a hole in the wall, but no parking, said he could do it tomorrow.

The weather is changing so that most SD/TJ residents will have considerable relief by tomorrow or the next day; but new fires are starting in Mexico, and the biggest one is charging up my beloved Cuyamaca Mountains. I'm afraid it will devastate the only large stands of forest in far-southern California. Everything in my apartment is coated with soot, and all my clothes stink. If the VW were working I'd have left the area for a few days. As it is, I became acquainted with several TJ mechanics at the worst possible time.

(Nate sends this post script: "They didn't give us a post-mortem until months later, and even now it's only slowly sinking in: most of the forest in far-Southern California was burned to the ground, and it won't be the same in the this millennium, because the climate has changed.")

From Alicia Conroy in Minneapolis: My b-day was yesterday and it was the big four-oh and Christopher and I cleaned leaves out of my mom's high gutters, then went to the zoo and saw tigers in the light snow (two of 'em, probably brothers, were tussling and bitch-slapping each other). All was great until we got into a car accident on the way to dinner when the young, un-licensed driver in front of us made a sudden turn. We skidded, Chris managed to miss his car but hit the stop sign. However, everybody fine. We came home and made spaghetti and real champagne. The other b-day present was that my new story was selected by Ursula K. Leguin as one of four runners-up in a contest bearing her name at Rosebud mag. Found out yesterday that there's room to publish mine, too...

Last night, the local PBS station aired a public affairs show talked about MegaCities (more than 10 million people), featuring Bombay, and focusing on the influx of population who live in shantytown slums. There is one public toilet seat per about 800 people--one activist's goal was to get toilet facilities built to a ratio of one seat per 50. Water is turned on infrequently and people pay a quarter of their income for it. Then the reporter asked a dean at the U of M, why should people in Minnesota care about booming mega-cities across the world? (well, one answer is humanitarian reasons and the other is that hopelessness breeds revolution and terrorism.) I'm going to try to tape the repeat on the UHF station tonight because it would sure be great to show to my students (if I ever teach again) who may feel like they are struggling, but have newer cars than me.

Jesse Green writes: I just flew in from Austin. Saw Molly Ivins at a book signing (just missed Jim Hightower) and spoke with Wayne Slater (of Dallas Morning News and co-author of Bush's Brain). Slater spoke at our meeting and autographed my copy of BB. He told this great story of W head-butting him at a campaign stop. W grabbed Slater--they know one another--after a especially well-received speech full of enthusiasm and excitement and said,"Now THAT's Presidential!" and head-butted him. Slater's point was that as horrible and mean as most of Bush's policies are (and they are) it is tough to dislike the man in person. I'll remain skeptical.

Angie writes from the other side of Kalamazoo: I bought another horse. He is a 7-month old Belgian-Thoroughbred cross and is a byproduct of the Premarin mare urine collection process. Many of the foals end up as horsemeat but some of the farms try to sell the better quality ones as riding horse Premarin, by the way, is a drug that I will NEVER use. I don't care if I get so much testosterone in my system that I grow a penis out of the center of my forehead--I still will not support the Premarin industry. Okay, now I'll get off my soapbox. This colt I bought weighs about 500-600 lbs and is not even halter broken. I was going to buy a couch with the money I spent on him. I decided that if I bought a couch I would sit on it and gain weight, but who ever heard of anyone gaining weight while they tried to teach a 500 lb "baby" to walk on a lead rope? I am expecting the colt to arrive the second week of December. At times I am questioning the wisdom of buying a 500 lb un-halter-broke "baby" but then I remind myself how much better he will be than those nasty two-legged babies some people get. His delivery will be painless with no blood and gore--at least I hope there won't be any. I can curse in front of him and he will never repeat what I say in public, I can sell him if he annoys me too much and once he gets to be 3 years old, I can make him carry me around on his shoulders. I'd like to see someone try that with one of those two-legged babies and not end up in jail!

Farm News: Jenny the donkey, age 37, has worn a waterproof pony parka all winter, because the donkeys currently have no barn, only a pathetic 3-sided structure built by yours truly. New chickens were hatched in January and are living happily in Susanna's kitchen. Linda Green Metzler visited from St. Louis and writes: "I am considering chickens as a good painting subject. I am fascinated by the pastel eggs that could make a wonderful element of a watercolor. The shots I got of Susanna's chicken yard are great and I have ample material to work from. At the moment I am working on another application of the flower art. Using the images of the wild flowers for tops of small 3"x3" boxes to hold flower seeds that people gather and want to save, season to season. I am decoupaging little prints onto natural colored stiff cardboard boxes and will put them at the gallery to see if they create any interest."

Writing News: All of you who are interested in the Midwest, you should get your hands on a copy of the new book Middle of the Middle West, (Tell your library or bookstore to order it: ISBN: 0-253-34375-5) a collection of essays about the heartland, including one from yours truly, one from Jaimy Gordon (about a local pervert), and one from Stu Dybek, among others. If any of you are looking for me you can find me at Rally of Writers in Lansing in April--I'll be the keynote speaker (info at: http://www.misctakes.com/Rally/rally03.htm.). In local writing news, Darling Christopher and yours truly will each have a poem (yes, a poem) as part of a temporary Kalamazoo Museum exhibit; mine is about the celery industry and Christopher's is about the disabled veterans statue in Bronson Park. Presentation of poems is March 14 at the Kalamazoo Museum. And writer friend Lorna Cook of Holland, Michigan has got her first novel published, Departures, available everywhere. Big congratulations, Lorna!

Donna Deal writes from Petoskey: I am a new woman! I am no longer, legally, Donna Elaine Deal. I am, as of this date, Donna Deborah Deal. Why did I legally change my name? Because when I married Richard, my initials spelled DED. Which sounds like "dead" and I didn't want to be dead any sooner than necessary! So why Deborah? First of all, my birth name was Donna Elaine Barker, or DEB, which is short for Deborah. More importantly, Deborah was about the most powerful woman in the Bible. She didn't derive her importance from her husband; all we know about him was his name. She didn't derive her importance from someone whom she gave birth to; we don't even know if she had children. She didn't derive her inclusion in the Bible from being a bad girl with a good heart; she was not an adulteress, a prostitute, a woman living in sin with a guy, or otherwise in need of some sort of redemption. Deborah was the most important Judge in Israel. She was also the only woman prophet in the Bible. She planned military endeavors, accompanied the soldiers to the battle grounds, predicted military success and had a woman be responsible for the actual victory, even though victory wouldn't have been possible except that the men followed her orders. She was also the only woman songwriter recorded in the Bible. Who knows what other accomplishments she had that were not recorded?

Speaking of baseball: October 16, 2003 Sam Lipson writes: A dirge-like state. Can't believe I just witnessed a baseball tragedy of those proportions. Wow. It's almost exquisite. Can't somebody be arrested for mental cruelty? The light is almost gone now in the dark valley of Red Sox Nation. A frozen fog has descended since last Thursday and the only relief we feel is in our embrace of the simple things: warm hemlock cocktails, the hot bite of a flame against the deadened skin of the hand, and the sweet forgetfulness of sleep before the visions creep in again. These small gifts will have to keep us going for awhile.

I am aware of my hands and feet, but I am not able to move them. I dream of lying in a hammock on a humid shore, but wake up to realize that I am lying on the bare rocks of the North Atlantic coast grasping at seaweed to resist the pull of the ebb tide.

You get the idea. This last few days have brought meaning to the phrase from King Richard III: winter of our discontent. While some sophomoric souls are trying to numb the pain by calling for the manager's head (already labeled "Gump" when things were going well, this man has no idea what world of pain he has entered), others are taking stock of the good things in their lives, finding new wonder in a spinning leaf of yellow and orange, in the kindness of another driver yielding without menace, in the dim smirk of a weakening sun. Other fans lose (or win) from time to time. Sox fans seems to get eviscerated. And always it comes to this: if we didn't care so much, if we hadn't let our guard down it might sting, but not this deep gnawing.

I became a Sox fan in 1978 at age 14. There was never anyone in my family that cared for sports, so this was a very personal and eccentric choice. It was the same year that I was first damaged by my chosen team. On a splendid early October afternoon I watch the first-pathetic, then re-born Sox fall in an excruciating one-game playoff to the NYYs on a popped-up, wind-blown home run by the light-hitting Bucky Dent (who then became a disco poster boy in a dark conspiracy to prevent Sox fans from ever forgetting this horrible game). This, of course, was only after blowing a 14.5 game lead over the same pin-striped pariahs over a 2 month period. A month earlier, in early September, I had even attended my very first Sox game, one of four straight games between these two team immediately dubbed the New York Massacre wherein the Sox lost 4 straight at home in a lop-sided, almost violent fashion in a shocked and silent Fenway Park. These 4 games conveniently took the Yankees from 4 games down to tie for first place (though it seemed so much worse). What most forget is that the Sox arose from the ashes of their season that September to win 8 straight and something like 12 of 13, from 3.5 games down, to force the one-game playoff on that beautiful day in early October. Like this year's team they would never be remembered for their grit and resilience. Only for losing in the most knife-turning and dramatic way possible. Only after raising previously scorned hopes for one last deafening thud.

I won't even go into the Sox implausible collapse in games 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series. Most baseball people can remember the relevant details without being prompted. Suffice it to say that no writer of fiction would get away with this plot. No editor would put up with such a cheesy and outrageous abuse of narrative plausibility. Millions of Sox fans can only wish that this was the stuff of pulp fiction.

So this was a magical season. Near disaster turned into survival at the last possible moment over and over again. A deeply flawed pitching staff pitched barely well enough for the Sox to squeak into the playoffs. A tragically erratic bullpen was transformed inexplicably into a juggernaut against Oakland and NY while their formidable offense stalled. Omens that were supposed to haunt teams like this began to turn in their favor: strange bounces, obscure baserunning calls, late-night brawls involving the opposing team's ace (seemingly) causing him to pull himself from a (seemingly) unwinnable elimination game against the A's. Bruce Springsteen played the first concert ever performed in Fenway last month, a moment that seemed to signal that a change had come. A new ownership was here. The wicked, mean-spirited crony-ism of the past was no more. The Sox came back from 0-2 to win 3 straight elimination games from the A's in dramatic fashion. Damn that was good.

The New York series was less quirky and more a testament to the Sox ability to get up off the mat against (seemingly) staggering odds to force a 7th game after losing 2 of 3 at home. It all came together then in a fearsome and controlled domination of the Yankees in front of a stunned Stadium crowd. Oh how sweet was redemption after nearly a century of stinging insults that could not be rebutted. The generations of childhood taunts. The retractions of the smug Yankee-ass-kissing analyst on Fox. After all the pain it seemed worth it. Five outs remained and their bullpen was ready. A bullpen that had given up only one meaningful run in the series. A pitcher who had given up ONE HIT in the entire post-season was waiting, along with millions of followers, for the inevitable. It never happened.

So winter started early this year. The burnished orange trees never seemed so sweet and sad. What might have been. So now you Cubs fans can begin to imagine what it's like. To live in the shadow of New York. To absorb hundreds of thousands of pampered, impatient, smug New Yorkers in our colleges only to hear the unending complaints about Boston. No subway open all night. No good bagels or pizza. Parochial town. Second-tier. Losing to these guys is like watching a fat, rich 14 year old win the lottery for the fucking third time. I never felt closer to Chicago and their fans than I do this year. Welcome to our nightmare.

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