I’m too old to be a triathlete!

Good­ness, what hap­pens when your daugh­ter and her house­guest have a dull moment? You set up a triathalon, of course, on the lawn. And then, heav­en save you, you try it YOUR­SELF. Even though a tiny voice is telling you, “Sit down and let the younger gen­er­a­tion at those pony jumps before you tear a ten­don and force the chil­dren to run six miles to find help.” But no. I had to run the race.

So the triathalon went like this: jump the first pony jump going UPHILL, then around the tram­po­line and over anoth­er jump then… throw your­self onto the slip ‘n slide KNEES DOWN and slide toward the well-water-tem­per­a­tured FREEZ­ING pool of water at the bot­tom, then jump up (assum­ing you’re still ambu­la­to­ry at this point), and run toward the bad­minton net and get two birdies over, then hit two fur­ther pony jumps and let’s see, five non-iden­ti­cal jumps on the trampoline.

I can tell you that by the end of this regime, one par­tic­u­lar 43-year-old com­peti­tor was lying on the ground howl­ing at the pain in her knees, but she did fin­ish the course!

Thank good­ness lunch cooked itself. Because din­ner the night before had… cooked itself.

Ulti­mate Cooks-Itself Brisket
(serves four for din­ner and four for leftovers)

1 brisket, flat end
1 large can tomatoes
5 cloves gar­lic, sliced
1 white onion, quartered
1 bot­tle of beer
1 slug (per­haps 1/2 cup?) molasses
2 soup-size cans beef broth

Place the brisket in a large soup-size stock­pot or casse­role for stove­top use. Cov­er with EVERY­THING ELSE. Cov­er and bring to a boil.

Now. Turn the heat down REAL­LY LOW, like a bare sim­mer, and leave it for four hours. If you’re home you can turn it now and then, if it makes you feel like you’re cook­ing. But hon­est­ly: if you keep the heat low enough and keep it cov­ered, it cooks itself. You can break up the toma­toes if you’re near­by, but cov­er it again right away.

About hour three, I can guar­an­tee you’ll be hang­ing over the pot with a fork and some lame excuse like, “I should test it to make sure it’s OK to eat,” and start shred­ding away choice morsels. I’d say you should resist this inevitabil­i­ty, but why? You’re the cook, you deserve it.

At the end, put the brisket on a cut­ting board and slice it against the grain as thin­ly as you can. If you have a sug­ges­tion for the rest of the cook­ing liq­uid, I’d love to hear it. It’s beer, toma­to, molasses, gar­lic ambrosia. But I throw it away, for lack of any oth­er ideas.

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For the left­over brisket, how­ev­er… I have no such hes­i­ta­tions. I offer you, mid­dle-aged triath­lete with sore knees but game spirit:

Ulti­mate Brisket Sand­wich­es With Gor­gonzo­la and Red Onion
(serves four for sandwiches)

good chunk of left­over brisket
8 slices toast­ed rye
a good chunk of Gor­gonzo­la or oth­er blue cheese
1 red onion, sliced
(mus­tard if you like, or butter)

Slice the left­over brisket thin. Then sim­ply build your sand­wich in the pro­por­tions you like. UNBEATABLE.

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Through it all, Avery and her beloved friend Cici made… bead rings. I can­not explain except to say that… they made rings of cop­per thread and tiny, tiny beads. We are all wear­ing them now, and the girls turned them out like… well, like bead rings. So peace­ful in the sun on the tram­po­line, after we all tired of the triathalon, which took awhile.

I can­not describe the peace of the land­scape! Avery sighed in exas­per­a­tion at me, final­ly. “OK, OK, Mom­my, ‘the blue of the sky, the red of the barn, the green of the grass.’ Enough!” But… how about the red of the gate? And the white of the fence, and the green of the tiger lily bed? Pret­ty nice. And just take a look at the wildlife who gath­ered around that after­noon: Gary the ground­hog, the car­di­nal, chip­munks, who knows who comes to eat at my house.

Final­ly poor John who had been pay­ing some sort of ter­ri­ble life dues at the DMV reg­is­ter­ing the car and get­ting a Con­necti­cut license returned… not on his shield after all, but safe and sound and ready for a trip to the pool! We all con­curred, and were ready in a split sec­ond. It was one of those pool after­noons that looked like a poten­tial dis­as­ter: clouds over­head, was that a sprin­kle? Sure­ly not… then we got in the pool… FREEZ­ING! Scream­ing, dar­ing each oth­er to go under, final­ly a cou­ple of laps, and we were good to go. A Hel­lo! mag­a­zine straight from Lon­don, a Soap Opera Week­ly from the super­mar­ket… two hap­py girls and a hus­band whose nov­el­ty had not worn off. We were all in heav­en. The pool’s unof­fi­cial social sec­re­tary, Bar­bara, was back from her Alaskan cruise. “My hus­band does­n’t like to fly and he did­n’t want to go any­where. But I was an ele­men­tary school teacher long enough to know how to phrase the ques­tion. ‘Hon­ey, do you want to go to Hawaii, or Alas­ka?’ And he said, ‘Does­n’t Hawaii have an ocean between us and it?’ and I said yes, and so it was Alas­ka!” They had a won­der­ful time and saw Mount McKin­ley which, as it tran­spires, only 20% of vis­i­tors get to do. AND her grand­daugh­ter still refrained from being born pre­ma­ture­ly dur­ing their absence. That does not sur­prise me AT ALL. It’s good to have Bar­bara back.

At home, show­ered and rel­a­tive­ly braced to face the ele­ments, I repaired to the kitchen final­ly to watch my beloved “Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal” and get din­ner ready for… John’s mom’s arrival! It was, self­ish­ly, my favorite sort of din­ner: lots of dif­fer­ent things, and you can choose what you like. I’ve giv­en you all the recipes already, but here’s what I fixed: Pan-Fried Salmon, Red Gate Farm Bean Sal­ad, Scal­loped Corn, Roast­ed Beets with Bal­sam­ic Vine­gar. Just lovely!

And then, sud­den­ly with a crunch of my pre­cious grav­el, there was a car. “I won­der who that is?” I asked stu­pid­ly, in denial that I might have to give Cici up. “That looks like my par­ents, oh no,” Cici said… And it was. But there was Rose­mary too, in her icon­ic white shirt, black skirt, sum­mer tan, gold bracelet and neck­lace so shim­mery in the ear­ly evening, her smile, tight hug, “Sweet­ie…”

Cici depart­ed and it was sad but all right because we had Non­na to show around, give presents to, intro­duce to Hast­ings! Of course he won over John’s mom right away, who car­ried him around as we led her to the cozy guest room with its barn-red cov­er­let, the pitch­er of hydrangeas I had put by her bed, the books and mag­a­zines and news­pa­per bits I thought she could not live with­out… I want­ed noth­ing more than to stop the clock, stop the cal­en­dar, and stay RIGHT THERE: a sum­mer evening at Red Gate Farm with crick­ets start­ing to chirp, the tree limbs over Stillmead­ow turn­ing black while Anne switch­es on gold­en lights across the road, din­ner aro­mas steal­ing through the house, presents being exchanged, Hast­ings leap­ing after wrap­pings and rib­bons, John bring­ing cock­tails and wine, me stop­ping to look through a per­fect new cook­book… I gave a deep thought of grat­i­tude to John’s dad who paved the way for all these reunions, smil­ing over us all, full of qui­et joy at our being togeth­er, lug­ging in suit­cas­es, accept­ing a Scotch with plen­ty of ice, his deep voice echo­ing through the house, “Rose­mary…” What a mirac­u­lous sum­mer we had last year, and none of us took a moment for grant­ed. I will hold that in my heart for­ev­er. And he was with us, for me, that first evening with Rose­mary here.

Well, pathos nev­er lasts long around here, and it was but the work of a moment to wake up and wend our way to West Hart­ford to be reunit­ed with MY side of the fam­i­ly! To hug my dar­ling moth­er (more on her birth­day par­ty tomor­row!) and father and broth­er and Jill, to tour their gar­den with Joel’s unbe­liev­ably… how to put it… thor­ough anti-squir­rel devices on his toma­to patch. But before I gig­gle: those toma­toes looked pret­ty darn healthy, and unscathed, too. From there, with the usu­al fam­i­ly con­ver­sa­tion­al depar­tures into “Remem­ber when…” and then the var­i­ous voic­es of dis­sen­sion, “That’s not how that hap­pened!” or even more like­ly in my side of the fam­i­ly, “That is not what I said!” We are in a con­stant bat­tle over the truth as some­one remem­bers it, and the sto­ry as it’s bet­ter told.

I felt com­plete­ly vin­di­cat­ed when we arrived at our tourist des­ti­na­tion, the Mark Twain House Muse­um in Farm­ing­ton, to see his quo­ta­tion, “I start out telling the truth, but some­where between pen and paper it becomes fic­tion.” I felt such a kin­ship! Although now that I write that down… I’m not sure it’s a direct quo­ta­tion! How per­fect is that.

A gor­geous Vic­to­ri­an man­sion to tour, with the ulti­mate Tour Nazi shout­ing at John to turn off his phone! “It did­n’t even make a sound, it only LIT UP!” Avery said, always the first to feel per­se­cut­ed by author­i­ty. Where that comes from, I could not say.

Well, I must sleep. Today was my mum­my’s birth­day par­ty here and a glo­ri­ous time it was, but as a result I’m pooped. Every­one else is long asleep in my house, the can­dles are burn­ing in the front win­dows, and all is right with the world… just remind me, if any­one offers: no more triathalons, thanks. But on a tiny small-world note, can I just tell you that Avery’s beloved for­mer babysit­ter Amy’s dad (stay with me here) is the voiceover guy for the Olympics! The guy who tells you all about Bud­weis­er, and what’s com­ing next… that vel­vety, choco­latey voice. That’s my child’s for­mer babysit­ter’s dad! Hey, fame has to come from some­where… Con­grat­u­la­tions, every­one in Beijing…