Bunny Shmenkleman

Mrs. Beasley

Me, drawn on the board by the infamous Art Monkey, one of my talented students

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12.28.01

Despite various elixirs that have been working all winter, suddenly everyone including my wretched self seems to have this juggernaut-of-a-cold. My sinuses are now a labyrinthine catacomb of mucous. My chest wheezes. I'm wearing a T-shirt on my bald head which gives me a vaguely Egyptian look. The wave of self-pity has passed, and now I'm getting down to work, studying, trying to wrap my soggy brain around arcane scripting languages. It's a glum, rainy day, just the kind I like. Perfect for being house-bound.

I let the dogs out to eat their noon kibble in the rain, and expected Mrs. Beasley to come running back into the house immediately after inhaling her food, but she didn't appear at the door. Checked a few minutes later. Nope. And I know she hates getting wet. Went to the window and looked out to see her entwined in the pile of grape vines I trimmed yesterday, oblivious to the rain, busily eating dried grapes off the vines.

12.24.01

It's Christmas eve and I just finished baking traditional Springerle, small beige cookies, hard as rocks, with pictures embossed on them from the old carved wooden cookie molds I've had for years. They keep forever, and are wonderful dipped in tea. They have a subtle flavor of lemon and anise, and even non-anise lovers like myself become quite enamoured of them. I'm getting up early tomorrow to start the yeasted Swedish cardomom bread that I'm making into cinnamon buns to take to friends.

Even though I gave up sweets almost ten years ago I still love doing 'show-off' baking from time to time. The things I make aren't from my modern L.A. childhood where food was often a TV dinner, but from a very formative time after college, when I lived on a farm in upstate New York, and was taught to cook and bake and garden. There were many Europeans living there, Swiss, Dutch, Ukranian, and these were traditions in their families. Later, I learned to make Streudel from an Austrian friend, who also taught me a wonderful phrase her own grandmother used whenever something went wrong in the kitchen, when something dropped on the floor or an ingredient wasn't available. She'd look towards her imaginary diners and say with great distain, "Hmph, You'll see how they eat it!"

12.19.01

I think I'm going to do some travelling. We'll see. It was fun doing a search for vegetarian restaurants. Here's one I found in Paris:

Man Ray

Owned by actors Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and John Malkovitch, this bar-restaurant just minutes from the Champs Élysées has all the majesty of a stunning Buddhist temple. Cancio Martins' lavish décor and the trendy nouvelle cuisine on offer have made it a favorite with the Parisian jet set. Chill out afterwards on comfortable floor cushions around the equally extravagant bar on the mezzanine level.

Here's another one that sounds custom made for me:

Le H36

On the Bordeaux quayside and a little way away from the town, this restaurant has an unusual décor—parts of submarines, wrought-iron ornaments, wisps of iron mesh—and the atmosphere is both strange and futuristic. The menu is divided into five types to suit all tastes. Try Fjord and Soviet Group for salmon and sturgeon, Survivants Gascons for foie gras, duck breast and cassoulet (a rich stew with duck or goose, sausage and haricot beans), Consortium Japothaï for sushi, sashimi and Thai fondu, or Guilde Méditerranénne for osso bucco (veal on the bone) and stuffed squid. There is also a vegetarian menu, SPA, with buckwheat pancakes served with camembert cheese and a polenta flan.

Got my passport photos today. The first photos I’ve seen since I shaved my head. And in the same perverse spirit in which the Addams family used to hire the photographer from the DMV to take their family photos, I liked how they came out. Uncle Fester goes to France.

Today I had Jury duty. I showed up and there was a former student, now 20 years old, crossing the street with a cup of coffee in his hand, heading the same direction. Yes, he was on the same jury. It took about 2 hours to find out if we would be needed, so he and I had a long talk. He told me a funny story that happened on 'senior slave day’ when seniors are auctioned off, and have to wear whatever their masters tell them to, and carry their backpacks, etc. This usually results in large football player-types showing up in drag, or, this particular year, in ballet tutus. So there he was in his tutu, when he noticed a student I called Thugboy, bullying his little brother. Still dressed in a tutu, he slammed Thugoy against some lockers, held him there and said, in his toughest voice, “You touch my brother again and this girl’s gonna beat the #@%!* outta you!”

Went out to dinner with three former students and then to see a school play, House of Blue Leaves, by John Guare. It was good. Got back to the car afterwards to find that Mrs. Beasley had eaten not only the dashboard, but totally shredded both floor mats. I didn’t speak to her for several hours, at which point she jumped into my lap and pointed out that I HAD left her in the car for five straight hours….I estimate a thousand dollars damage. Expensive play. I probably could have hired a dog sitter, flown business class to NYC, eaten deli and seen a play for less money. But the company wouldn’t have been as good, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed the play as much either.

12.08.01

It's Saturday, and the day is passing quickly, before I can really get a handle on it. I’ve spent hours trolling the internet aimlessly, doing NY Times crosswords online, just numbing out, and the day seems like a fog of randomness. I should be studying but I’m restless and exhausted and lonely and I want some outside force to entertain me so I can glean pleasure without any effort on my part, aside from keeping my eyes open. Guess that’s why God invented TV. Too bad I don’t have one. But if I did, I bet there would be nothing on. It’s that sort of day.

And as I whine I keep hearing My friend Robin’s voice saying, “Get the f#@! over it, you over-pampered ninny!” She was saying it to her twelve-year-old son at the time, but it seems apt in so many situations.

Back now from taking the dog girls (Mrs. Beasley and Bunny Shmenkleman) to Fort Ord, a local mostly-abandoned army base, for our nice relaxing walk. There is a road that has been closed off, flanked on both sides by softly rolling hills and live oaks. I stick to the road while the girls dart in and out of the scrub in a futile hunt for the pheasants, quail, wild turkeys and deer that never quite get caught but continue to tantalize. Once we ‘saw’ a skunk, but I’m really, really hoping that won’t be the case today.

Only moments into it, as we ambled along the deserted stretch of road barricaded with huge OFF LIMITS TO MOTOR VEHICLES BLAH BLAH BLAH signs, sirens began to wail, accompanied by urgent honking. And continued. And continued. My shoulders started to rise to meet my earlobes. More sirens. Three huge roaring, rude SUVs defied all roadblocks to tear past us. Finally, after ten minutes or so of screaming sirens, down the hill raced a bellowing, UNMARKED fire engine followed by three more rugged uber vehicles, spewing diesel fumes and testosterone in their wake. No, the pastoral euphoria thing was not unfolding as I had hoped.

Shortly after passing us the sirens faded into silence, allowing the subtle dancing and whispering of leaves and swaying of grasses to be heard once again, mixed with my percussive footfalls and the dainty tapping of dog toenails on asphalt. Soon we were miles down the road, far from the harshness of civilization. My tension level was almost back to barcalounger mode. My shoulders had left my ears and returned to join my back. Under my bald dome, pleasant thoughts were seriously considering a return.

Mrs. Beasley and I heard it at the same time. No... Yes. Machine gun fire. Ratatatatatatatatatat Ratatatatatata Ratatatata. They must be training. Mrs. Beasley is terrified of gunshots. Her ears went up, her tail tucked and she about-faced and broke into a run. Then the mortar fire began. Kabooooom. Kabooom. Ratatatat. How delightful, our own private war movie. It was time to turn back, very, very quickly. The sounds of battle followed us for another quarter of an hour. We made it back to the camp, er, car, exhausted and overwrought. And that concluded our healthful, tension-reducing constitutional for the evening. Next time I’ll just take the holodeck to Viet Nam and get it over with.

12.09.01

I was in deep procrastination mode, trolling the net and decided to do a search for my name. Came up with the usual mentions of me on various school sites, mention of one Susan Bein getting a promotion in the military which was amusing, kind of like finding the anti-Susan, and then, something I hadn’t bargained for. A list of survivors and their condition from Sept. 11. Yes, one Susan Bein survived the WTC collapse and was reported as OK. Creepy.

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