After France was liberated in 1944, my grandfather demobilized from the maquis, and went to work for the French government, putting his engineering skills to use, helping to rebuild and repair buildings damaged by war. They even provided him with a car to use, and gasoline rations so that he could get around. He was in charge of the Valence area, so they moved from Beaumont-lès-Valence, into an apartment in Valence, at 9 Rue du Parc, 26000 Valence, France. Today, there is a city building right across the street, but it was built later.
The street was very narrow, and my grandfather didn't park the car in front of the apartment. Rather, he kept it about 1/2 mile away (0.8 km) under a carport.
Number 9 is the dark tan building on the left, with a balcony.
I don't know exactly when they moved into this apartment; I'm guessing around January of 1945. They were living there when my mother was born that December, and my Uncle Paul visited them there at least once.
I also don't know exactly when they moved out of this apartment - I have letters sent to that address dating from May 1946. I suppose they might have moved out of the apartment before then, and the letters forwarded to their new address, but that doesn't seem likely. Right after the war ended, it was hit-or-miss getting letters into or out of France (right after their area was liberated, my grandparents sent seven postcards to my Uncle Jake in America, letting him know they were OK). But this was 18 months later, and I believe that by that point, it only took a couple of weeks for letters to get across the Atlantic.
We established our camp in a rich and huge château facing the plain at the foothills in Combovin ...
The 4th Company returned to the château in the foothills. The château belonged to a “collaborator” with the Vichy government and we did not care too much about the annoyance we caused to his family. I have rigged up my radio in a huge ball room, among marble statues and columns in front of a picture window overlooking the fields gently sloping toward the Rhone River 10 miles to the West.
The next day a patrol brought four Americans, who escaped after their tanks were destroyed in a battle. Thereafter Americans, became everyday visitors in the château. Intelligence officers, airfield building engineers and many others used to come and see us.
--Arthur Lubinski, c1974
We cross PEYRUS and will settle in the farms south of CHATEAUDOUBLE ... We return to Chateaudouble where we arrive around 10 p.m. and receive the first contact of an American car machine gunner.
--Michel Planas, 1955
My mother found a handwritten account of his time in the maquis in Grandpa's personal effects after he died in 1996, and filed it away; 25 years later when I started on this project, she passed it to me. I believe he wrote it during the summer of 1974, while his oldest child was dying from complications of multiple sclerosis. During the war, he and my grandmother had worked so hard and suffered so much in their struggle to survive, and they won; saving themselves and their daughter from the Nazis. But, 30 years later, in the midst of safety and prosperity, he couldn't protect his little girl from a deadly disease. It was obvious even to five-year-old me that losing her wrecked our family.
Grandpa never told his children about the castle, and when I recorded him in 1988, he didn't mention it then either. I'm guessing he didn't find it relevant - it was just a place to sleep, albeit much nicer than most of his FFI accommodations.
It took me a while to figure out which chateau it could be. For one thing, I had assumed "château" meant mansion, when a closer translation is actually "castle." Additionally, there are two towns in France named "Châteaudouble": one in the Drôme Department and one in the Var Department, both located in southeastern France. Dr. Michel Planas's map above confirmed it was the one in Drôme. The term translates to "double-castle" or "two castles," which has a certain amount of romance. When I remembered to use French search terms, and did an image search for "chateau de chateaudouble drome," it came right up.
The castle in question is square with a courtyard in the center, and two square towers and two round ones. You can see it from Chateau Road which runs just behind the stables/gatehouse:
The gatehouse (the building immediately adjacent to the road) is called "La Salle des Dragons" or "Hall of Dragons," which is evocative of a George R. R. Martin novel. Dragon is a cognate between the two languages, but in French, "dragon" refers both to the mythical animal and to dragoons:
Originally, dragoons were mounted infantry that carried firearms, but unlike traditional cavalry units, they dismounted to fight. The term "dragoon" originated from a type of blunderbuss pistol called a dragon. Because the gatehouse was originally the stable for the castle, I think a more accurate translation would be "Dragoon's Hall," or perhaps "Dragoon's Barracks."
Based on my grandfather's description, I think the ballroom must have been situated between the two round towers on the back of the castle, which faces west:
Google Maps Round towers are on the west side of the castle, and it is 10.61 miles/17.1 km to the Rhone River.
For the longest time, I couldn't find any photos of the interior, but eventually I stumbled upon real estate listings for the castle when it was put up for sale in the fall of 2023. The asking price was a cool €3.0 million ($3.4M).
As I went through the real estate photos, I kept Grandpa's description of westward-facing picture windows, marble columns, and statues in mind, paying particular attention to what was visible through the windows, and the dining room seems like an excellent candidate for Grandpa's ballroom:
The view from the door/window looks like it might be westward.
That looks like it overlooks "the gently sloping fields toward the Rhone River, 10 miles to the west." I'm not concerned with a lack of statues, which can be moved. I don't see any columns, though they may not be visible in the picture, or perhaps he was referring to the vertical gray wainscoting. My guess is that he would have set up his radio in the window on the right. Good lord, those polished stone floor tiles are lovely.
Here's a view of the west side of the castle. I'm fairly certain the exterior doorway in the ballroom (dining room) isn't the one nestled against the right tower, but is just to the left of that. I think the radio window is the one to its left, located in the middle of the three that are easiest to see.
West side of the castle. Note the mountains toward the east. Grandpa always talked about how exhausting they were. Source: Patrice Besse Real Estate
Other details in the above picture: a significant retaining wall is visible in the foreground, with a few statues along its length. There is also a pit or pool (possibly a fountain?), and nestled against the building, there is a terrace or patio with some (probably modern) lawn furniture, though I'd guess something like it existed at the time.
Here's a little YouTube video with a photo collage and some AI-generated narration, but it gives a pretty good sense of what the place looks like, both inside and out.:
I could be wrong about this being the castle Grandpa described, but there is pretty strong evidence that supports it:
This place is almost exactly 10 miles (10.61 miles using the measure distance feature in Google Maps) from the Rhone River, just like my grandfather said.
There are picture windows with a westward view that matches his description ("in front of a picture window overlooking the fields gently sloping toward the Rhone River")
According to both Grandpa Arthur ("A few days later, on August 31 or September 1") and Michel Planas ("17 août-31 août"), they were in Châteaudouble during the time period in question. They also both describe returning to the castle or town, and American visitors.
The "ballroom" of my grandfather's description seems to fit the quite large dining room in the modern photos, and it has picture windows like he described.
The evidence against it is pretty weak:
The (apparent) lack of marble columns and statuary inside the ballroom, though there are statues on the property and many other trappings of significant wealth, and Grandpa could have been speaking poetically. Other features of the room could match his description if he misremembered the details after 30 years (columns vs. wainscoting), or if the columns were there, but not visible in the photo.
I'd love to know more about the owner of the chateau in the 1940s who may have been named Bourg (some sites call the castle "Château du Bourg," though that name could be much older -- or newer -- than the name of the owners in the 1940s). According to my grandfather, the castle was commandeered from a Vichy collaborator, and if I could confirm this, it'd be another very strong piece of evidence in favor of this castle. However, I have no wish to harm the descendants of the 1940s-era owners, so I doubt I'll bother to research their political leanings.
My grandfather described the place where my grandparents and aunt lived in hiding for several years to me, and it didn't sound like a very pleasant place to live:
In Beaumont-lès-Valence, we ... were living in a house, a home several centuries old. Which was not used for a long, long time. It had one room, and the floor was hard dirt and the roof was covered with straw. Well it was a thatched roof; very primitive. Of course no water. There was a well outside, where you had to turn a lever, had a chain to go down pick up water. So we didn’t have any hot water. We had hardly cold water which we took from the well. And one time Roma pulled out of the deep well, a rat. It was not pleasant. We boiled the water before drinking.
And the non-threshed [grain]… I don’t know how to say it in English. We put in our old, centuries-old home; we took it in the attic, and in the attic, I was threshing it with a stick. Then, at nighttime, the grain which I got, I put in a buggy, which I pushed by myself a couple of miles to the mill, and the miller took half for himself, and half he gave back to me in form of flour. And I got flour to Roma, and Roma made bread by herself ... And there was no range, no electric range, no gas range. She baked it on a stove in which wood was burning.
And to get wood, I was cutting the trees, and with an ax, I was getting sufficiently small pieces to be burned. And then they were not burning very well because they were not dry. I had no time to wait a year before using them.
So, in winter, our temperature inside was eight degrees centigrade in our small room – if I take eight degrees, and I multiply it by one point eight, and add 32, I will get the temperature – 46 degrees [Fahrenheit].
--Arthur Lubinski, 1988
The cottage was owned by Léon and Élise Auvergne, and I'd always envisioned that it was tucked on some forgotten corner of their farm, but I think that it was actually just across the yard from the main house, though I can't be sure. After the war, the farm was sold and developed into a town neighborhood, and now looks very different than it did in the 1940s when it was rural farmland.
Michel, my French historian friend was able to track down the address: 11 Rue des Faures, Beaumont-lès-Valence, France.
The cottage was torn down, and I'm not sure which of these houses is the main house, but the stone well mentioned above is still there, which you can see in the picture below:
When Aunt Lilly was a teenager, she wrote down some of her early memories of France, and her stories do describe the area a little bit:
I remember two of my many revolting hobbies. The first was finding, imprisoning and later torturing huge snails. The second and more worthwhile hobby was raising rabbits. On a warm afternoon while I was walking through the sunlit fields behind our house, gathering various plants to feed my nine rabbits, I heard a terrible explosion nearby. Upon arriving home in hysterics I was told that a bomb had been dropped a few miles away. We quickly sought shelter underground and before long the attack was over with no harm done in our immediate vicinity.
She would have been only four years old when the rabbit story took place (I believe it occurred during the bombing of Valence on August 15, 1944)
I looked through my grandparents' photo album for images that might show the cottage or at least the yard, but my grandparents, like all first-time parents, focused on their child so there are few strong clues in the photos. Click on any of the photos to enlarge.
I'm guessing the dog belonged to the Auvergnes, as none of my family's stories mention a dog
Toys! That picture would have been taken around Aunt Lilly's 4th birthday.
Playing in the dirt. Is that the Auvergne home, or the cottage in the background?
Grandma and Lilly outside. That looks like a picnic table?
Playing in the grass. Lilly raised rabbits, and collected herbs to feed them, so maybe that's where she did her foraging?
I don't know precisely when my grandparents moved into this apartment, but they moved out on August 24, 1937, in order to move to the apartment on Avenue de Mai, where they were living when WW2 broke out in western Europe.
There are family stories surrounding what I believe is this apartment: Arthur and Roma lived together before they got married, which I suspect was pretty scandalous for the time. Grandma had returned to Poland for a year (probably due to a lack of funds?), but she returned to Belgium in the fall of 1934 to complete her final year at University, and I think that's when she moved in with Grandpa. It made sense - he had graduated a few months earlier, and was presumably working and could afford the rent.
When they eloped on January 12, 1935, their landlady gave them a little reception when they returned from the Brussels Town Hall, with a nice spread of wine, cheese, and sausages, and as a further wedding gift, told them they could take as many hot showers as they wanted for a week (evidently she complained about my grandmother's overly long showers as it was expensive to heat the water). Grandma graduated with a degree in accounting six months later.
Despite living together in this apartment to reduce expenses, they were quite broke when they got married. According to family lore, they couldn't afford rings, so their parents gave them some gold jewelry to be melted down to create their simple wedding bands.Grandpa had wanted to give Grandma a diamond ring, but that was just impossible, so she told him to never mind, that someday in America, he could buy her a big diamond.
Decades later, on a trip back to Belgium to visit family, they did buy a biggish diamond, and as a child, I was always fascinated by Grandma's ring. After she died in 1999, I inherited it, and I still wear it today.
"Revolution, wars, rape, brutality, intrigue, it was difficult to put the book down."
S-----, Goodreads reviewer.
The year was 1983, and I picked up my first romance novel from a rotating wire rack near the check-out lane at Aldi. It was Highland Velvet by Jude Devereau, and while not the book reviewed above, the description is actually pretty spot on for Devereau's Velvet series.
I was 14 at the time, and loved the book despite a domineering, jealous hero who forces his bride (whom he's just met) to wear a different wedding dress, spanks her (and not the sexy kind), and beats her dog (who understandably doesn't appreciate someone hurting its person), before seducing her, taking her virginity while giving her a mind-blowing orgasm, all in one day, very early in the book.
The book gets much better, though. The hero grows, overcomes his jealousy, and realizes she's a better leader of her clan than he is. Eventually, he steps into a role not unlike the King's Hand in the world of George R. R. Martin and follows her lead, acts in her stead, ensures her orders and plans are carried out, stuff like that. He remains an aggressive man, but rather like one of Elizabeth I's generals, loyal to his queen.
I was well into adulthood before I realized just how fucked up many romances were, and how most of the time, I'd just accepted it all and didn't question the tropes of the time. Later, I was able to recognize the brutality for what it was, not just because I was older and wiser, but also because modern trends in romance had mostly moved away from brutal heroes, which made it easier to recognize just how terrible many 1980s "heroes" and plots really were.
But in the 1980s, it was common for books to include:
Teenaged heroines (most commonly about 17). Seriously, they would have been considered too young for marriage even at the time. It is a myth that women typically married younger than about 20, at least in European households or colonial America. A quick internet search suggests that other cultures were similar, but that there have always been exceptions where girls married younger.
Heroes who were about 30, give or take a couple of years. Nice age difference, huh?
Paternalistic, controlling heroes who spank their wives, and we're talking domestic abuse here, not kink, and yeah, such abuse probably was realistic in the context of historical romances, but ... gross.
Drop-dead gorgeous main characters with perfect bodies and intact white teeth. Heroines had tiny waists and flat bellies, slender arms and legs, big boobs, perfect heart-shaped asses. Male characters were just as impossible. They had wide shoulders, narrow hips, good cheekbones, and a thick head of hair. Lots of heroes had dimples and cleft chins, but they all sported heroic-sized penises with excess length and girth. Their chests also rippled with muscle, and only rarely did they have lifestyles that would account for such bodies (medieval romances were an exception - knight-heroes had to train to manage fighting in 50 pounds of armor, and that did tend to build muscle).
Sexual assault either by the villain, but foiled by the hero in the nick of time, or by the hero himself. A couple of decades later, I tossed one book aside when the heroine was almost raped for the third time (such lazy writing). I suspect rape was more common historically than it is today (though it's still far too common), but I don't really want to read about sexual violence in my romantic fiction. When I immerse myself in a book, I either become the heroine or she becomes a beloved friend, and it's painful to read about brutalization in either circumstance. As a trope, sexual assault has thankfully become far rarer.
Sex trafficking. I've read several books where the woman was sold into marriage or a harem, and several more where the man kidnapped the woman and forced her into a sexual relationship (and later marriage).
Forcible seduction. She doesn't want it or like him, but he -- against her will -- aggressively kisses her, then grabs her butt to pull her in close enough to feel his erection, then she ... is overcome by lust and gives in. Sexual assault with a happy ending, I guess?
Modern romances include heroines who are at least 20, but frequently in their mid-to-late 20s. They are less likely to be perfect and more likely to be quirky scholars, outcasts, or wallflowers. Heroes might still be dictatorial (at first), but are unlikely to assault their lovers. Fewer pure alpha jerks and more true partners and friends. Heroes still have muscular physiques, though modern authors are slightly better about including training and exercise to account for their six-packs. They also still have hero-sized cocks. Some things never change, I guess?
The first 80s trope to lose its sexiness was the aggressive-against-her-will kiss, because it actually happened to me, and the reality of it ruined the fantasy. I was 20, he was 18, and after walking me back to my dorm, I unlocked and opened my door. I turned back around to face him and say good night just as he dove toward my face. It wasn't sexy or romantic; it was kind of scary -- it would have been easy for him to push me into the room, kick the door closed, and then ...? I reflexively shoved him away from me with both hands before his lips touched mine, though it was a close thing. I'd pushed with enough force that he stumbled back a step, and I saw the surprise cross his stupid, drunken face. He departed a few minutes later without attempting any further unwanted actions, and I was careful to pick only sober people to walk me home after that.
Anyway, there was one book that was so egregious that I recognized its terribleness even when I was 15 or 16. I did finish it, but I was so offended by one scene in particular that I took the unprecedented step of throwing the book away. Decades went by, and I eventually forgot the title and author or the characters' names. What I did remember included:
Takes place in the 1700s or maybe 1800s.
Heroine is a Russian princess smuggled to the USA and raised in secrecy (presumably for her protection, maybe?). She has no idea of her background as she was an infant when smuggled out of Russia. (I now know that is a "lost princess" trope.)
I think she had blonde hair, and he had black hair, maybe?
Book cover was a pretty classic bodice-ripper, I think.
Hero is a Russian prince (I think?) who comes to the US to fetch her back to Russia.
Their ship was attacked by pirates in the first half of the book, toward the beginning, I think.
She is taken prisoner/hostage by the pirates. All the women but her are raped by the pirates, and she is traumatized to the point of incoherence that it will happen to her.
When the prince rescues her and the surviving members of their party from the pirates, he, um rapes her with a belaying pin to teach her a lesson that rape is survivable, and to “help” her get over the trauma, that she is strong. To quote Resident Alien, "this is some bullshit."
At some point, they become intimate (in a non-rapey way), but she (I think?) returns to the USA to have their kid, and he has to find her again. That’s when the happily ever after part happens.
I only rarely thought about the book (maybe every year or two or five), and occasionally I did internet searches to try and identify it, but was never successful until yesterday, when I hit upon asking AI the following question:
I'm looking for a historical romance book published in the 1980s that features a lost Russian princess. It takes place in the 1700s or 1800s, and it includes an attack by pirates.
It responded:
"Based on your description—a historical romance novel published in the 1980s featuring a lost Russian princess, set in the 1700s or 1800s, and including a pirate attack—Yankee Princess by Maggie Osborne appears to be a strong match. Published in 1988, this novel follows Nicole Duchard, a young woman from colonial Boston who discovers her true identity as a Russian princess. During her journey to Russia, her ship is attacked by pirates, leading to a series of adventures involving court intrigue and personal transformation."
Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner!
It was actually first published in 1982, not 1988 as it says above. You can read the entire AI answer (along with several other suggested possible books) here. My memory of the cover and the physical descriptions were spot on, though:
Note how she is leaning away from him, and her arms are behind her, not around his neck.
From reading the page on Goodreads (and the top review), I had forgotten a bunch of the plot after the pirate attack and its aftermath:
She was "forced to suffer the degradations and ravages of an auction-block marriage."
She was a "long-lost, secret royal love child," and her "lineage threatened the throne of Catherine the Great."
She landed in the midst of bloody serf uprisings and cruel Siberian exiles.
I also didn't misremember the "for her own good" rape aboard the ship. More than one reviewer obliquely mentioned it, with phrases describing Dimitri as likable, "with the exception of one incident on board the ship." Another reviewer said, "There are lots of wtf moments." The quote at the top of this article was also from a review of this book, though I strongly disagree with her four-out-of-five-star rating. That's all right, though - and I'll try to stop yucking her yum.
It's worth noting that I don't recall thinking the book was poorly written, exactly. The author's prose must have been decent, or I wouldn't have bothered to finish it. I was more hardcore about finishing books when I was a teen (nowadays, I'm too impatient to waste my time finishing bad books) but bad prose, and scenes not properly leading to the next would have been enough to quit a book even then.
In the end though, the plot contained too many invisible hypothetical exclamation marks: Secret love child! Catherine the Great and the Imperial court of Russia! Pirates! Auction-block marriage! Serf uprisings! Revolution! Brutality! Intrigue!
It's as if the author asked, "What's Going To Happen NEXT?!?" instead of just, "so, what happens next?"
I can forgive a crazy plot (William Goldman did a wonderful job with his 1973 book The Princess Bride, because it was delightfully satirical, funny, and didn't take itself seriously), but I couldn't accept a "hero" that rapes the heroine, and I just couldn't believe that the heroine would forgive him. Stockholm syndrome aside, how does someone forgive that?
And his actions are not heroic; they are violent and perverted. We (rightly) lock people up for doing what he did.
I know that women do sometimes love men who mistreat them, readily forgiving even the most brutal of treatment, but usually it takes a fair amount of grooming, isolation, and abuse. But the book doesn't bother with the necessary long-term manipulation that would allow for that forgiveness. He kidnaps her from the only life she's ever known, assaults her, and then they fall in love. I'd more readily believe she'd ... Stab him in the eye with a fork! Or slip some poison into his brandy! but that would shorten the story considerably. In the end, I suppose that grooming, isolation, and abuse just aren't romantic enough.
Prompt - The Coffee Shop (20 minutes): Go to a local coffee shop, order your favorite drink, and write a story inspired by an incident in the coffee shop before you finish your drink.
***
The coffee shop had that industrial look with a warren of exposed ductwork and lights dangling here and there from suspended tracks.
There were the usual tall tables that let my short legs dangle uncomfortably, and my feet fall asleep if I left them too long. It was May, and the fake Christmas tree was still up, though it was decorated with plain white lights and white silk roses.
As I sat there alone, facing the counter with its display of baked goods, I watched the people come and go in groups, urging the women in their parties to go first, getting their treats and coffees, and moving along. One man accompanied his wife, pushing an oversized baby carriage with a bored toddler who looked at me and grinned. I gave the child a half-smile and waved. She waved back. The wife carried an infant in a sling. Two babies in two years. I didn’t envy her.
“You first, honey,” the man said, placing a hand lovingly on her lower back, gently nudging her toward the counter.
She smiled tiredly but nodded. “I’ll have a latte and a caramel roll,” she said, speaking loudly to be heard on the other side of the plastic barrier.
“Two percent or skim?” the barista asked.
“Do you have whole?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s what I want.”
Her husband ordered, though I didn’t hear his choices because the toddler had decided to escape the giant baby stroller and was squirming out from straps that held her in place. The parents didn’t notice as she climbed out and wandered toward the Christmas tree. She gently reached out a finger to touch the twinkly lights.
“It’s hot,” I told her.
She ignored me and reached out a finger and touched a light, then jerked her hand back.
“Put it in your mouth,” I said and poked a finger in my mouth to demonstrate. The toddler followed suit, but to my surprise, she didn’t cry.
The barista handed the coffee and treats to the husband, and he paid, then looked down and realized his daughter had flown the coop. There was an instant of fear in his eyes, then he relaxed when he saw the little girl at the Christmas tree.
“Happy Mother’s Day,” I told him.
--May 14, 2023
Notes: I was indeed at Duluth's Best Bread bakery and coffee shop in downtown Duluth on Mother's Day that year. The family I observed really did come in, but in real life, the kid stayed in the stroller. I also embellished a lot of the details (like what they ordered, and how tired the mom was).
Prompt - Prism Light, White Hot (three minutes): Write a stream of consciousness without stopping, for three minutes, using the quote below as an initial spark of inspiration. “Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.” – Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (1990). Allow your thoughts to flow with complete freedom. Don’t be concerned with spelling or grammar (that can be taken care of later). Often the first line is the hardest to write, before flow fully kicks in. Don’t be afraid to just start writing - you can always erase the first line anyway.
***
“Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.” – Ray Bradbury
I sit at the kitchen table, listening to my daughter mutter and tap at her computer. The chair is beneath me, but I’m sitting up straight.
Coronavirus keeps us penned in like animals in our homes, though we seem to have a little more freedom than they do because we can still get outside if we want to or to the store, even if we have to endure glares from people who think we should be home.
I want to help so much, so I’m going to sew and clean my sewing room to find elastic for masks for doctors, masks, and nursing homes.
The kids are taking it harder, I think, because this is supposed to be spring break, a time of freedom and fun, while the older people are a little more content to just stay in. The college kids are especially bad, converging on beaches with no thought to who they might spread the virus to, should they catch it.
Grow up, little men and women, and have a care for your mothers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, grandpas, and the workers who keep you comfortable.
I may be older and more content to stay inside, but even I’m getting stir-crazy.
--March 29, 2020
***
Notes:
I wrote this one in early 2020 - my daughter was finishing her senior year in high school and we were sitting at the kitchen table together when I wrote this.
I never quite know what to do with these. Is it a poem? Is it a paragraph? Vignette? Do I edit it into something more?
Prompt - The Wrong Number (350 words): Someone answers their phone but the caller has the wrong number. Write a story in which the call, rather than ending there, continues. What might the consequences be?
***
It was March 15th, the day of the year I dreaded most. The day my son was born and the day he died, 21 years later. I’d never see him marry, have children, or have a happy life. I’d been an older mother, so no other kids. A lonely only. And now I was a lonely only, too. Ten years lonely.
I hadn’t yet dragged myself from bed when my phone rang.
Who was calling on this of all days? My friends knew to leave me alone. I considered sending the call to voicemail but decided to answer. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mom?” It was a girl’s - no, a young woman’s - voice.
A pang. “I’m sorry, but I think you have the wrong number.”
“Mom, just listen to me. I know we haven’t spoken in years, but … I need to tell you something.” The wariness in her voice would tug at even an ogre’s heart.
I sighed. I wasn’t her mother, but damn, I wished I were. “I don’t know quite what to say, but I don’t have a daughter.”
“Mom, don’t you think you’ve taken this far enough? I know you disapprove of my lifestyle, but I’ve got news.” The hurt was oh-so-clear.
I wouldn’t ask. I shouldn’t ask. “What news?” I heard myself ask.
A heartbeat. A second heartbeat. “Jenny and I got married 18 months ago. And … we decided to start a family.” A third heartbeat. “I’m pregnant, Mom. You are going to be a grandmother.”
Tears. “That … that’s lovely news, dear.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. “Mom … Wait, am I speaking to Rhonda Jameson?”
“No. My name is Callie Kaiser. But … forgive my asking because I know it’s none of my business, but when is your baby due?”
I could almost sense her desperate wish for a reconciliation. “October 15th. It’s a little girl.”
“Oh, hon … I’m so happy for you. I wish you and Jenny all the best.”
“Thanks, Callie. Do you have kids?” I could tell she was smiling. A little.
“I had a son.” Another pang.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…” The smile was completely gone from her voice.
“It’s OK. He’d be 31 now.”
“That’s how old I am.”
Our call continued for an hour. And we made plans to grab coffee at a local coffee shop. I’m not sure why it worked, but perhaps it was because she was a girl desperate for a mom, and I was a mom desperate for a child. And on October 15th, Julie named her baby Callie.
-- October 19, 2022
***
This is very much a work of fiction, and I have two (living) kids. :-)
Notes from the prompt: To draw out a story from a scenario, such as a wrong number, start a line of inquiry like a detective would. Follow a series of questions and answers. For example: why does the wrong number caller continue speaking? Because they recognize the voice on the end of the line. Why is the voice recognizable? Because it is similar to that of the caller’s deceased mother. As the line of inquiry continues, a narrative will emerge.
The Q&A I used to write this:
Why does the wrong number continue speaking? Because they think you are their mother who has disowned them.
Do you recognize the voice? No
Why did the mother disown them? Because the girl is gay
Why does the girl keep talking? Because she’s getting married to her girlfriend
Why do the narrator keep talking? Because she lost a child
"Make a list of ways to enjoy your OWN company. Complete three and collect your prize."
This one left me befuddled because I'm a total hermit and introvert, and being alone is kind of my natural state. I'm married to my best friend, so I'm not actually alone, but let's just say it's a good thing my husband is around to pull me out of my bubble because otherwise, I'd get really weird.
In other words, this is just too easy, and it seems to me that the point of these challenges is to stretch our boundaries. So I decided to flip the task a little to this:
"Make a list of ways to enjoy your PARTNER'S company. Complete three and collect your prize."
Making a list of ways that I enjoy my husband's company is easy because I like the guy an awful lot, but arranging for them will take a little stretching because despite being a lifelong fan of the romance genre, actually being romantic has always made me feel awkward.
So, here's my list (in no particular order)
Cooking together
Hiking
Road trips
Playing board games
Sharing crafts
Cuddling before and after sleeping
Eating good food
Exploring new places
Watching excellent movies and talking about them
Reading books and wiki articles together
I didn't - ahem - include sex in my list, because intimacy is private, and while I'm no prude, I'm just not going to blog about my sex life.
We'd planned to head up to Grand Marais on Valentine's Day for Fiber Friday at the Northern Folk School, but snow was forecasted, and the roads would have been iffy on the way home, so instead, we ate the picnic we'd planned for at the kitchen table: chocolate-covered almonds, lemon Italian soda, potato-leek soup, and mozzarella, arugula, and pesto sandwiches. We played the new-to-us two-player board game Undaunted: Normandy, and Chris taught me how to use his pin loom while trying out the new circular loom I'd gotten him.
It was a pleasant, low-key weekend spent with my best friend. Highly recommended.
When I started researching candidates for this category, one book came up over and over (plus some online friends recommended it): Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, first published in 2019, and it's won a bunch of accolades including:
NYT bestseller
Goodreads choice award winner for Best Debut and Best Romance of 2019.
2020 Alex Award Winner
Best Book lists in 2019 for: Vogue, Vanity Fair, NPR, Bookpage, Kirkus, Shelf Awareness
Best Romance lists for 2019 for: Entertainment Weekly, Library Journal, She Reads
It's even been made into a movie, with a sequel in the works (see the note at the end for more on the movie).
The book proved well-written and a lot of fun. Imagine that in 2016, a woman was elected President of the United States (no, not Hilary Clinton; the fictional Ellen Claremont). Now imagine that her son Alex, the FSOTUS (Get it? First Son of the United States) falls in love with Prince Henry, the younger grandson of the Queen of England (no, not Elizabeth II; the fictional Queen Mary). And the love story takes place in the year leading up to Claremont's re-election in 2020.
The sex isn't especially explicit, instead focusing on love and intimacy and emotions, and there was a lot of joy and pain, and sometimes horror at what people will do for political ambition (the older I get, the more I realize I have zero interest in living my life in the public eye).
Would I read it again? No, I don't think so, for the same reasons that I find Frankenstein and the Hunger Games a little tiring - the main characters aren't grownups. While Alex and Henry are in their early 20s, it was like reading about emo adolescents. Think Dead Poets Society crossed with The West Wing. I do recommend it though - it's a lot of fun, and if you enjoy a heavy dose of bildungsroman with your love stories, you really should give this one a try.
Note:one thing I've learned is that if there's a movie based on a novel, I really should start with the movie because if I read the book first, the movie is nearly always disappointing by comparison. So, even though it would spoil the plot of the book, I tried watching the movie, but it kind of dragged, and I gave up on it after 30 minutes. But the acting/casting is good, so you might enjoy it more than I did.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been making tortillas in various forms for nearly 15 years.
Coincidentally, it was twelve years ago today, that the very last bites of food my Dad ever ate were from a taco I made for him on a homemade tortilla. I will always remember seeing his eyes widen as he chewed and hearing his raspy, "Oh, it's good!" He died four days later of a long-term illness, and that dinner remains a treasured and bittersweet memory. But I digress.
So, anyway ... the hardest part of making tortillas (or any corn-based product) is grinding the corn. Turning partially-cooked corn into a meal is a lot of work. When I started experimenting with making tortillas from actual corn (instead using a dried corn flour product called Masa Harina) I immediately rejected using a metate - I just knew it would kill my back. Besides, where would I keep a very large stone mortar and pestle?
For those curious about metates, here's a longish video demonstration if you'd like to see it in use. Skip to about the 4-minute mark and watch for a few seconds to see the motion:
Pretty cool, huh? But definitely not for me.
For my first attempt at fresh masa, I milled the corn with my food processor, but it's a terrible way to grind masa - it dulls the blades and results in a wet concoction that is more batter than dough, and you have to amend it with masa harina to soak up all the excess water. That felt like defeating the purpose of making fresh masa, and I really wanted my food processor blade to remain sharper than a butter knife.
My next grinding tool was an inexpensiveVictoria Molino ($50) that I ended up using for the next six years. But hand-cranking partially cooked corn is enough work that it limited the amount of masa that I was willing to make. I tried out the Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe, and while it's a very nice dry grain mill, no amount of retrofitting makes it actually good for masa-making (it's even more work than the Victoria!).
Amazon has tons of electric wet mills for sale, but they were $200-$300 and had terrible reviews, so I doubted their durability. There were a few mills intended for dosa- and idli-making that looked like good products, but they had a very small capacity, requiring grinding in waves or produced a very wet dough requiring masa harina to dry it out.
The next step up was the Nixtamatic. One thing I liked about that unit was that it was specifically designed for masa. It was just expensive enough at $500 that I questioned whether it was a good idea for a hobbyist like myself. Plus there were no US-based distributors, so I would have to import it myself by purchasing it directly from the company and having them ship to me. But, due to the distance and language barrier, support for the product would be limited and expensive. But they've been in business for many years, so if I do need support, it's there. But the price was high enough that I hesitated, and kept making do with the Victoria.
Then my beloved Masienda released the Molinito, an $1800 grinder with stone burrs. The damn thing weighs 100 pounds (45 kg) and is about the size of a really large microwave, but taller. I really wanted one, but that was just a huge amount of money, and really out of our budget, and I'd have to give up a lot of counter space. And, the shipping from Los Angeles to Minnesota was pretty expensive - about $200 all by itself. Here's a little video (skip to about 7:00 to see it in action):
The Molinito is rated for commercial use, so ... overkill. I could sell it if I didn't end up using it, but still... it was huge. And heavy. And expensive. I hesitated even more than with the Nixtamatic, and years slipped by while I continued to use my Victoria.
Then came time for this year's bonus, and I suggested using it to upgrade the Victoria. My husband also likes masa-based food, so we decided to go for it, and I started researching molinos yet again. I found out that Masienda was discontinuing the Molinito, and I had strong misgivings about buying an expensive discontinued product - how would they support it once they ran out of replacement milling stones, for example?
I decided that the Molinito was not in my future, and went back to the Nixtamatic. There are very few of them in the United States, and the reviews are mixed. Steve Sando (of Ranch Gordo beans) got one back in 2008, but says he doesn't use it much anymore. At least two guys on Reddit deemed it crude, and stated that the grinding burrs were made of badly-cast aluminum (they are wrong - more on this later). Others complain that it doesn't grind finely enough.
Some people seem to like it, but no one is raving about it. But it's been around for at least 20 years (if not much longer), and it's still being made and sold, so it's probably a decent product, right? It's also a mere 31 pounds (14 kg), so if I need to move it myself, I can.
So, I ordered one. The shipping was painfully expensive (almost as much as the unit itself) because transporting a 40-pound (18 kg) package from Southern Mexico to the Northern US is just not cheap. UPS got it to me in only two days, and I don't have an unboxing video, but Nixtamatic did a GREAT job packing it - it was double-boxed, with sturdy baffles between the layers of cardboard.
Now, let's talk about what it is, so any of my readers who are considering one have their expectations set appropriately: it's basically a Victoria Molino, but with POWER. If the Victoria is a 1-speed bicycle, the Nixtamatic is a Ford F150. It has a hopper with an aggressive auger ("worm") that pushes the corn between two grinding plates, and the output is exactly the same quality as what comes out of the Victoria. If you want it more finely ground, you must put the masa through again, and you have to kind of push it through that second time. It's easier to clean than the Victoria, and it's FAST. It grinds 2 pounds (about a kilo) of nixtamal in less than ONE MINUTE. Holy sh-t.
Yes, the hopper is made of sand-cast aluminum, but that's not a bad thing - it's massive and would be very heavy if it were steel or iron. But the grinding plates themselves are made from cast iron (a magnet sticks nicely to it). I'm not going out on much of a limb when I assert that they've always been made from cast iron. No one would ever use aluminum to grind, well, anything - it simply isn't durable enough.
It lives on a wheeled stainless-steel table. Out of the way when not in use, easy to get it to an electrical outlet when it is.
You can make tortillas with one pass of the Nixtamatic, but you'll get a puffier tortilla that has more pliability upon reheating if you grind the masa a second time. But if all of the tortillas will be eaten in one sitting, I wouldn't bother running it through again. A single grind results in tortillas that are delicious and pliable enough to not break when served immediately.
Here's a short video we made showing it in use. Yes, it's just as loud as it seems in the video (though you can keep the sound off if you like):
One of the benefits of easy nixtamal-grinding is that I'm making a lot more masa-based recipes. In the month we've had the Nixtamatic, we've made tamales, tetelas, empenadas, tortillas, and arepas. Before we got that beast, I made tortillas maybe once a month. Now I'm grinding corn every week.
And yeah, I love it.
If you want to acquire a Nixtamatic of your own and don't live in Mexico, reach out to the company directly and fill out their online contact form here: https://www.nixtamatic.com.mx/contacto.php. They will provide the price and shipping estimate (based on your zipcode). I paid via PayPal, though they may be take other payment methods. You can also call them directly, but if you are calling from within the US, you will need to append "011-52-" in front of the phone number listed on their site. If you don't speak Spanish, when they pick up, say "Buenos días. ¿Hablas inglés, por favor?" and they will transfer your call to someone who speaks English.
For aficionados of corn tortillas, I offer this analogy: eating a grocery store tortilla is a bit like driving a Chevette*. It'll get you where you are going, but it's uncomfortable and not much fun to drive. And here's the weird part - people are driving Chevettes around but think they are behind the wheel of a BMW.
I've been making my own tortillas for nearly fifteen years, and early on, I used masa harina (corn flour made from nixtamalized corn that has been dried and milled to a very fine consistency) to make the dough, and tortillas made from masa harina offer quite an upgrade over commercial corn tortillas (think a nice new Toyota Camry, reliable and pleasant to drive, but not exactly fun).
But tortillas made from fresh masa, now that's the true BMW of the tortilla world. They are pliable (you can crumple them in your fist, and when you let go, they flop open again without splitting), and if they are made right they are pliable even when reheated. They also have a wonderfully strong corn flavor and aroma. But making them is undeniably a lot of work, particularly if you don't have the setup for it.
I started making my own masa about 6 years ago, after my daughter got back from a school trip to Costa Rica and had tortillas made from fresh masa during a homestay with a Costa Rican family. She urged us to try making them, because they were justso good (she was right).
You start by nixtamalizing the corn, and that part's easy - you just cook the dried corn in an alkaline bath (about 1:3 corn to water by weight, plus a couple of heaping teaspoons of cal/pickling lime) for 30-45 minutes, then let it sit overnight.
Then you grind it. That's the hard part.
Over the years, I used the following methods:
The food processor (terrible - it can be used, but it dulls the blades, and to get the masa finely ground enough, you have to add a lot of water, and that results in a watery dough more akin to oatmeal in consistency. To turn it into dough, you have to add masa harina to soak up the additional water.
An inexpensive Victoria molino (Spanish for mill). This has been my workhorse for the last six years. It's been around forever, and was designed specifically for making masa.
Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe, a very nice hand-cranked mill designed for dry grain that claims to handle masa, but it really doesn't work well for wet corn. Yeah, you can swap out the auger for one designed for masa, but the gloopy, cooked corn clogs the narrow throat, and you have to really shove the corn through. It produces a nice enough masa, but it's much slower and far harder to crank than the Victoria. Do yourself a favor, and if you want to make masa but don't want to spring for an electric mill, skip the WMJD and just get the Victoria, which is much cheaper anyway.
The electric Nixtamatic molino, which I ordered from Mexico. It's basically just like the Victoria but with POWER, and after 6 years of using hand-cranked mills this thing is a (very loud) delight to use.
Once the partially-cooked corn is ground, you add water to the masa until it's the consistency of play dough, then you roll it into balls, squish it flat and cook it. Make a stack of them and keep them wrapped in a dishtowel so they can steam a bit, then you are ready for Taco Tuesday.
Anyway, not long after I started making masa from scratch, we did a taste test: I bought a pack of grocery store tortillas, made a small batch of tortillas from a masa-harina-based dough, and also made some from masa, and the difference was startling.
I once heard that the James Beard award-winning chef Ann Kim tasted masa-from-scratch tortillas that were so good they made her cry, and I believe it. And here's the weird part: I was one of the people driving a Chevette but thinking it was a BMW. Even the very best grocery store tortillas, which I loved for so many years, now taste like cardboard - but if you look at the ingredients, they have very nearly the same list as my from-scratch tortillas: Corn, lime, water (plus some preservatives and gums that I don't use).
* Yes, my first car was indeed a Chevette. It had a four-speed manual transmission and no air conditioning.
Prompt - The Bridge (2–30 minutes): Two people are walking together across a bridge. Have one of them recount a story to the other, starting at the foot of the bridge and ending as they step off the bridge. Imagine the length of the bridge and how long it might take to walk across. Write your story in the time it would take to cross the bridge. A small footbridge – over in a couple of minutes. The Golden Gate bridge – 30 minutes. It may be wise to avoid the 100-mile Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge in China, but the choice is yours!
***
Kivi and I parked next to the Minnesota River in the little state park outside Jordan. The river was swollen from the spring thaw but hadn’t yet washed out the bridge. Instead of taking the trail, though, I led her back up to the Jonathan Carver Parkway and started walking across the bridge.
“Mom, where are we going?”
“I thought you’d like to see the giant whirlpools.”
“I’ve seen them.”
“Yeah, but it’s been a long time since you saw them up close,” I responded.
“Ok…” Her voice made it clear she thought I was being a little silly but that she was planning to humor me.
“So, the first time I saw them was back when I was teaching at Chaska, and I was driving this way every day. I told you and your dad about them, and then when we had a chance, I made us stop and take a look. They were enormous - maybe 4’ across, and I’d never seen anything like them.”
“I remember.”
“You were eight or so and not terribly foolhardy, but I tried to make it clear to you that if you fell in, it probably meant you’d die. You’d get sucked in, and if you were lucky, you’d go shooting through the culvert, but more likely, you’d be pinned across it, and we wouldn’t be able to get you out.”
“Mom, I’ve told you for years that I didn’t have any intention of going in.”
I shrugged, “I know. But you were edging really close. And you may not have planned to go in, but you might have fallen in accidentally. Remember how I used to take an extra change of clothes for you whenever we went up to Lake Superior?”
Kivi laughed. “Yeah, and I usually did get wet.”
“So, I insisted on holding your hand despite your objections.”
“That made me kind of mad, I won’t lie. I thought you didn’t trust me.”
I shrugged a second time, “I know - and you were right. I didn’t. But I was less interested in soothing your feelings than in making absolutely sure you didn’t fall in.”
We stepped off the far side of the bridge and continued alongside JC Parkway on our way to see the giant whirlpools again.
--April 26, 2020
***
Note: This is a blend of fiction and non-fiction. The scene is set in the present, and the conversation between my daughter and me is made up, but in the imagined conversation, I described a real event (taking her 8-year-old self to see the whirlpools created by drainage culverts connecting one side of the road to the other).
There will always be movies nominated where I think, "What was the academy thinking?!? How can anyone think this movie is the best of the year?" (2023's Triangle of Sadness, I'm looking at you). I have mixed feelings about this year's slate of nominees, as it was considerably weaker than last year's. Last year, the top eight movies were all worthy contenders, and even with the bottom two, I can see why they were nominated, even though I myself didn't like them.
This year, the best movies were only very good, and most didn't rise to great. The slate was characterized by wasted potential and the failure to kill the director's darlings:
The Substance was on track to be the best movie of the year and perhaps the best horror movie of all time. It built the suspense and dread through the first 3/4 of the movie until it fell down in the final act, with its blood-drenched crescendo that suddenly and massively violated suspension of disbelief.
Nickel Boys took a great story about good kids but ruined it with experimental and distracting film techniques and head-hopping.
The Brutalist needs to cut at least 30 minutes but perhaps as much as an hour, particularly if can't be bothered to close its plot holes. What happened to Van Buren? How did Laszlo rebuild his career after the fiasco depicted in the movie? When did his niece overcome her trauma? The list goes on.
Anora failed to make me care about any of the characters. The character I liked best and identified with, was hired muscle who inadvertently assaults the main character (though she was so annoying, who can blame him?)
Emilia Pérez was actually a pretty good movie, but the director's lack of research was kind of insulting and played on everyone else's ignorance of the difference between Spain and Mexico.
Wicked was imaginative, but like Anora, failed to make me care about the characters. Worse, it was a musicalwith not very good sound design.
The only movies that didn't disappoint me in some way were Conclave, Dune 2, and A Complete Unknown (I haven't seen I'm Still Here, which hasn't yet come to streaming and is unlikely to before the award ceremony).
So, here's how Chris's and my ranking of the movies fall out:
Interestingly, except for Anora and Nickel Boys, we remained in perfect lock-step. That's pretty rare, as we are both pretty opinionated.
I also try to draw conclusions about interesting cross-movie themes:
Four movies take place in modern times (The Substance, Anora, Conclave, Emilia Pérez)
Four movies are historical period pieces (The Brutalist 1947-1960-ish; A Complete Unknown 1961-1965; I'm Still Here, 1971; Nickel Boys, 1964).
Two movies take place out of time (Dune 2, Wicked)
One movie deals with genocide, or more accurately, its aftermath (The Brutalist).
Six movies contain a language other than English. Two were mostly or entirely not in English (Emilia Pérez, Spanish; I'm Still Here, Portuguese). The others were mostly or almost entirely in English but contained other languages as well (Conclave, with Spanish, Italian, and Latin; Dune 2, Fremen and sign language; Anora, Russian; The Brutalist, Hungarian and Italian).
One actor (Timothée Chalamet) starred in two of the nominated movies (A Complete Unknown, Dune 2).
I'm hesitant to offer predictions or opinions for other categories because I haven't seen all of the performances, but here are my opinions in spite of my ignorance. I underlined the one that I thought should win. Bold indicates the winner.
Note: There should be five nominees per category. If I don't mention a nominee (or indicate a winner), it's because I haven't seen the performance. If I didn't mention a category, it's because I have no opinion.
Best Dirctor: Coralie Fargeat/The Substance, James Mangold/A Complete Unknown, Jacques Audiard/Emilia Pérez, Brady Corbet/The Brutalist, andSean Baker/Anora.
Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet (for his Bob Dylan role), Adrien Brody, and Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes successfully made me sympathize with a Catholic cardinal, a person I have zero in common with.
Best Actress: Cynthia Erivo, Karla Sofía Gascón, Mikey Madison, and Demi Moore. No question -- Moore's performance in The Substance was fantastic.
Best Supporting Actress: Monica Barbaro, Ariana Grande, Felicity Jones, Isabella Rossellini, and Zoe Saldaña. Saldaña held Emilia Pérez together.
Best Supporting Actor: Guy Pearce, Edward Norton, and Yura Borisov. He is the ONLY person I sympathized with in Anora. I also loved Ed Norton's turn as Pete Seeger.
Best Writing (original screenplay): The Brutalist, Anora, andThe Substance. Extra kudos for it having been written in French and perfectly translated to English.
Best Writing (adapted screenplay):A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, and Nickel Boys.
Best Sound:A Complete Unknown, Dune 2, Emilia Pérez, and Wicked.
Best Production Design:The Brutalist, Conclave, Dune 2, andWicked.
Best Cinematography: Dune 2, Emilia Pérez, andThe Brutalist.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Wicked.
Best Costume Design:A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Wicked.
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