legacy writing – Page 22 – beckycochrane.com

Legacy Writing 365:213

Tuesday was a mellow day with Jim at The Compound. There was a lot of sitting around the table reminiscing and making one another laugh. It was also spaghetti day (Jim’s favorite). Tim and I polished the introduction (his) and the afterword (mine) to Foolish Hearts, and it’s officially been sent to the publisher. And yet with all that cooking and book finalizing stuff, I still managed to make time to watch Breaking Dawn: Part 1 with Jim and Tom. Jim pretended that he wasn’t crying over Bella’s travails, but I know inside he was.

For many years, we’ve kept a Compound guest book. It includes photos of and brief notes from all of the visitors here. Sometimes I forget to ~~force~~ ask people to sign it. Such was the case when Jim visited last year, so I dragged that thing out and helped him remember what we did on his 2011 visit. Actually the guest book has proved invaluable when we say, “What year was it Jim said Greg could eat the dog-gnawed roll?” or “When was that time all the TJB writers were here and had publicity shots done and Becky’s hair looked like crap?”

In April of 1999, Jim came to Houston from his mountain in California (yes, his very own mountain!) and Steve C came from San Diego. They happened to be here on April 28, which is my late friend Steve R’s birthday and the day I always bake and decorate a cake in his memory. That day, Jim and I were listening to country music while I was cooking and baking in the kitchen. Steve C borrowed my car and left to work out at a Houston branch of his gym. When he came back, I was in the dining room. Steve joined me.

“How was the gym?” I asked.

“It didn’t really work out like I planned,” he said. “But…I did pick someone up.”

My mouth dropped open. I mean, I want to be a great hostess and all, but I don’t remember that chapter in Miss Manners about what to do when a house guest brings home a stranger he picked up at the gym. So I finally managed something like, “Uhhhh…”

And then Tim followed him into the dining room. They’d been plotting all along for him to visit from New York and managed to keep it a secret. It was the first time Jim and Tim had ever met in person, as well as the first time Steve had met Tim in person–and he had to pick him up at the airport. Steve still swears I practically pushed him through the window to get to Tim and hug him. I don’t usually like surprises, but that one was thrilling.

Legacy Writing 365:212

Our friend and writing partner Jim is visiting The Compound. Each year when he comes, we make an agenda (this is his request because otherwise he knows we’d never leave the house), and on the agenda is “The List,” which is an ongoing list of movies we’ll all watch together one day (if not this visit, a future one). And of course, he knows he’ll get to catch up on the latest Twilight franchise release–so far, that hasn’t kept him away.

Monday I had a big pot of homemade beef and vegetable soup simmering most of the day (someone at The Compound is a little under the weather, and soup is good food, even when it’s hot outside*). After Jim arrived, we sat down to soup and the fixings for sandwiches. I gave Jim a special plate for his sandwich.

After we finished eating, he noticed that the knife he’d used to cut his sandwich had sliced between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. IT’S A SIGN!

The first time Jim came to Houston, in December of 1998, I assured him he could pack for mild weather, that it’s almost never cold in Houston through the Christmas season. Jim doesn’t like cold weather, so this suited him just fine. Of course, it was freaking freezing that year, and he’s never believed anything I’ve said about Houston weather since.

No problem keeping warm this visit–we’re giving him plenty of heat and humidity.

Here’s a shot of Jim with Sweet Li’l Amy Sue outside Baba Yega restaurant on that first visit. I’d say something about how adorable they are, but I’m distracted by Jet behind them. My car was only an eight-month-old then.

*Kudos to anyone who gets the “when it’s hot outside” reference after all these years.

Legacy Writing 365:211

This is one of the earliest photos we took of Margot after we adopted her in 2000. Anyone who’s seen pictures of her through the years or who’s ever met her will probably doubt she’s the same dog, because almost immediately her saddle turned from black to blonde.

This is the photo I sent out to our friends because I loved the look of utter mischief in her eyes. She came to us named Margo, but Timmy mistakenly referred to her as Margot in his emails. We adopted that spelling because we said the “T” stood alternately for “terrific” and “trouble.” Even at her age now, she can still romp hard, but what she mostly loves is food, and her expressions when she’s on the alert for possible handouts are priceless.

Also, as you can see, we knew from the beginning she was the dog for us because she was undertaking a bit of heavy reading.

Legacy Writing 365:210

At some point when my sister and brother were here in April/May, we were sitting in a hotel room when Debby, for reasons I don’t remember, walked across the room in an odd way. We were all on an emotional roller coaster anyway, so when this struck me as funny, I got nearly hysterical laughing and could just manage to gasp, “You look like the Keep on Truckin’ guy!” They immediately knew who I meant.

When I was browsing through a photo album and rediscovered this photo taken of me by The Boyfriend in the spring of our senior year of high school, that visual of Debby returned and caused the same near-crazed laughter. I love my siblings.

The Keep On Truckin’ Guy, as I called him, was Mr. Natural from a counterculture comic drawn by the sometime-controversial artist Robert Crumb. I was just a girl wearing her boyfriend’s T-shirt back then, but I figure if an artist has people denouncing him, he’s probably doing something right.

Legacy Writing 365:209

Way back in March 2007, I was bold enough to share all my school photos from first through twelfth grades, and in the comments to that post, I also published this photo:

It can ONLY be the fumes from that Lilt perm making me grin like a fool, because WHYYYY did my mother give us home perms? So our hair could look like this?

Dopey looks a little noble with his head up like that, though it’s possible he’s trying to communicate to Debby: The young one: She is strangling me.

Meanwhile, David (holding Daffy cat) sports a smile that’s almost a grimace. I don’t know what he had to be distressed about. Oh, wait. We’re in our PJs and he’s looking all cool kid. Probably he was forced to pose for this photo with his little sisters as a condition of going on a date. Could have been worse. He could have had his scalp tortured with Lilt perm rods.

Legacy Writing 365:208

Ticket stub, tour book, and sheet music from Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk tour in Birmingham (Alabama) in 1980.

Stevie Nicks recently announced that Fleetwood Mac will do another reunion tour in 2013. Through the years, I saw Buckingham Nicks before Fleetwood Mac (Tuscaloosa), Fleetwood Mac with members Billy Burnette and Rick Vito and without Lindsey Buckingham (Houston), and Stevie Nicks solo a time or two (Houston), but to my mind, nothing can compare to the lineup that is Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham. That Tusk concert was one of the best I’ve ever seen in spite of all its growing pains involving relationships and drugs. We were all so young and foolish then.

It was a thrill to me when that version of the band reunited to perform for the U.S. presidential inauguration in 1993, and a few years later when they put together The Dance.

The Internet says Christine McVie retired from the music business in 1998, but she did put out a solo album in 2004, and she did some backup vocals on subsequent Fleetwood Mac albums. The times Fleetwood Mac toured without her after her “retirement,” she saw their London performances but didn’t join them onstage.

I’m just selfish enough to want at least one more chance to see my favorite five on stage together–if she’d ever come back, I’d pay the crazy ticket price. Unless I’d have to sell a kidney. I draw the line at giving up body parts for my favorite bands. I guess I’m not so young and foolish anymore.

Legacy Writing 365:207

Since I like mysteries with amateur detectives and sleuths, it’s surprising that I’ve never read Dashiell Hammet’s The Thin Man. I’m putting it on my list. Back in the age when VCRs were the thing and you actually went to a store and rented VHS tapes for them, Tom and I spied the movie one night, rented it, and fell hard for Nick and Nora Charles (as played by William Powell and Myrna Loy) and their funny dog Asta. In the novel, Asta is a female schnauzer. But when the film was made, the best available actor was a male wire fox terrier (also called a wirehaired terrier) named Skippy. Skippy was hired for the role of Asta and was actually renamed Asta. A relative of Asta’s was hired to play the part in the Thin Man television series. You can learn a lot about Asta’s film career and why the Thin Man films were so popular at the I Love Asta website.

One Christmas I gave this DVD set to Tom, so we can laugh at Asta, drink vicariously, and listen to witty banter anytime we wish. I gave a little nod to the Thin Man franchise in The Deal in a conversation between characters Aaron and Heath.

Wirehairs are a high-energy breed who need good training from a strong human companion. They are super smart and love to perform for praise and rewards. Two of them were reasons why I loved to visit my college roommate Debbie’s parents’ house: Their names were Habebe and Sabe.

Petite Habebe and her son Sabe at full attention because they know Debbie has treats.

They had a wide range of actions they performed, including sit, stay, lie down, roll over, and BANG! which of course meant playing dead, all four paws up in the air.

Sabe would get so greedy for a treat that he’d often run through his entire repertoire without waiting for commands. He also would do this if Habebe was a little more relaxed with her follow-through.

Habebe comes from the Arabic *habib*, meaning “beloved.”

ETA: I went back and corrected the spellings of the dogs’ names after I asked Debbie about them. She said my memory is pretty accurate. She also recalled that Sabe allowed her to dress him in silly costumes and played hide-and-seek with her.

Legacy Writing 365:206

Sitting in line at Starbucks, palm trees behind me, dreaming of red trucks…

If you’ve read here for any length of time, you know it’s one of my dreams to someday have a red pickup–not necessarily a shiny Toyota, but maybe one more like those at the end of this linked post from last year about this time. But what you may not know is what began this craving.

I think it was in the Triassic period when my friend Kathy L helped me get a tech writer job with her company. Oh, how I loved that job. It was one of the first places I felt my skills were really valued, and I was treated like a professional. Sadly, as is wont to happen with space and defense contractors, work ebbs and flows, and my position fell to downsizing (but the HR guy helped me get my next also-great job, so it all worked out). Anyway, while I was working there, I burned out the engine of my car, and for a while until I could buy a new one, I was given the use of Big Red, which was sort of the company’s truck.

Big Red was an ancient pickup–I can’t remember if he was a Ford or a Chevy, but he was beat up as hell. He’d been part of a working ranch or farm (Kathy may remember more details), so he’d earned every dent, scratch, and faded bit of paint he wore. Every time I clambered into the cab, slammed the door, and cranked him up, I slipped inside the pages of a Larry McMurtry novel. And I love Larry McMurtry even more than red trucks, so I am talking BLISS.

I know that one day, somehow, another Big Red will come into my life. If he’s not pretty, I don’t care, as long as what’s under the hood will keep us on the run. And if it doesn’t happen before I check out, then I can’t think of a better way to be imagined: tooling through the universe–make me young and thin again, with long brown hair whipping around me, and all the dogs who went before me taking turns riding on the seat next to me. Whenever you’re sitting at home or inside a place of business, and you hear a bit of music as someone drives by–and if you know me, you’ll probably know what music is likeliest–then think to yourself, There goes Becky. Or, you know, Aunt Becky, Beck, Becks, Beckster, or any of the BettyPeggyBetsyDebby names I’ve been miscalled through the years. It’s all good in a red truck.

Legacy Writing 365:205

Because of Aimee and Kate and their homemade laundry detergent, I made a batch a while back, and it worked out so well and has lasted so long that I decided to do it again.

This is one version–Aimee’s. Half a box of 20 Mule Team Borax, four pounds of baking soda, and two bars of pure castile soap (I chose bars scented with essential oils of lavender and tea tree, but there are other scents and unscented, if you prefer). I use the grate/shred plate on my food processor to flake the soap, mix it all together, and presto! A detergent that not only does a great job with clothes, but managed to get some ink and other stains off of surfaces in my kitchen. I liked it so much I’m making a kitchen cleaner without the soap because I think the Borax and baking soda will work well enough.

Next time, I’m making a batch using Kate’s recipe just to walk on the wild side.

Mother rarely used a detergent other than Tide. If she ever attempted to save money or try something else, she was inevitably disappointed. I don’t have brand loyalty to a detergent; I just want something that doesn’t smell too sweet and doesn’t make me itchy.

What I remember liking best about laundry as a kid was playing at her feet or trying to climb into the basket while she was hanging clothes and linens on the line. Or sleeping on line-dried sheets and loving their crispness and fresh-air scent.

I tried in vain to find a photo of my mother at the clothesline. But I did mention on here once before that in our Army quarters in Ft. Benning, the clotheslines were in fenced enclosures at the ends of each building. Here’s a photo of David outside or inside that area–I’m not sure. But I’m certain he’s working hard to keep Daddy from burning whatever’s on that grill.

Legacy Writing 365:204

For the past few weeks, I’ve been importing some old photos into my iPhotos for various reasons. I found this one from 2009: one of Tim’s early foster dogs, Tyson, with the late Rexford G. Lambert and Tim on the couch with a mystery. Remember the Reading Is Hot Campaign? Whatever happened to that? You don’t send me photos anymore…

I would like MORE PHOTOS, please. Do I have to do all the work here just because it’s my blog?

You, your favorite animal, your child, a sexy stranger at a table in a sidewalk cafe–I want to see what they’re reading. Because READING IS HOT. And my email address is right there on my sidebar.