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Hot Toddies and Blathering

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

You had to drink beer. I didn't matter that you didn't like it.

I lived in the great frozen tundra of Milwaukee for seven years. I did, rather painfully, eventually acclimate to the winters, but it was slow process. The first year I was sure I was going to die. The second year I just wanted to. By the third year, I grumbled more than the natives, but could, on occasion, set foot out of the house between October and May without long johns.

Compared to the buckle of the Bible belt that is West Virginia, folks in Milwaukee drink a lot. I think by anybody’s standards, they drink a lot. The cold has something to do with it. Nevertheless, beer is a perennial favorite. No kidding, I went to a church social one time and they served beer.

Milwaukeeans drink beer year-round, but in winter, usually at the holidays, the hot drinks start appearing. Another Milwaukee passion, schnapps is poured into hot chocolate when not drunk straight. Schnapps in one guise or another will appear all year, but Christmas and New Year’s is the time for Tom & Jerrys, hot buttered rum, eggnog and assorted warmer-uppers with a buzz.

Me. Cold and liquored up on something.

I’m not a fan of eggnog, but a nice Tom & Jerry on a cold winter night is sublime. Below is one recipe – for whatever reason, the drink isn’t popular around here and I don’t know why. It’s so ubiquitous up north that you can buy the “batter” in just about any store.

6 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:  Separate eggs, beat whites until stiff, add sugar. Beat yolks until foamy. Fold together and add spices. Refrigerate until serving. To serve: fill mug with hot water. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of mix per mug and 1 oz. liquor (brandy or rum).

Now folks in Milwaukee are also the biggest consumers of brandy in the nation, so anytime I had a T&J it was always made with brandy and not rum. The “not rum” part was important. I once got raging drunk on rum & cokes while eating popcorn and it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t drink or eat either for years.

In order to keep up with all that drinking, there’re a lot of bars in Milwaukee. In quiet, otherwise staid neighborhoods, there’s often a house on a corner where the owners have turned their living room into a bar. These little places were scattered all over the city and put the hop in bar hopping.

One time, on a bitterly cold night, my date and I popped into one to try and get the feeling back into our feet. I had a bad head cold and the barkeep, entranced with my southern accent, was determined to doctor me. He insisted I needed a hot buttered rum. I protested I didn’t drink rum. He insisted. I demurred. He sat one in front of me. I was new enough to the town that I hadn’t yet learned how to impose my will on strong-willed Germans. I couldn’t stand rum and the idea of putting butter in hot rum really turned my stomach. I decided to take a sip to be polite.

Hot damn, that was good stuff. It didn’t just involve rum and butter, but included spiced cider. Knowing my history with rum, I stopped at one and, later, convinced myself the head cold disguised the taste and under normal circumstances rum was not going to go down my throat without bringing up the contents of my stomach.

Years passed. Twenty-five or so of them. My boycott of rum continued.

A few years ago, I arrived in Massachusetts with a bad head cold. Between sniffles, coughs, achoos, chills and general unpleasantness, I told HMOKeefe the rum story. The next thing I knew there was a hot buttered rum in a large mug in my hands. I had several. – muchly much better than Nyquil and I slept all night.

We branched out to mulled cider, which near as I can figure is a more heavily spiced version of hot buttered rum minus the butter.

I’m a fan of mulled cider both with and without rum. The other night the first really cold snap of the year arrived and I pined for mulled cider. I couldn’t find fresh cider, but I did find an old bottle of cider in the pantry. I had a very fine rum on hand (Appleton Estates) and some old, half-stale mulling spices. I decided bad mulled cider was better than none.

I made way too much of the spiced cider and ended up freezing the leftovers in ice cube trays. This was genius! I can now have spiked spiced cider anytime I want. With the cold and rain of the past few days, I have enjoyed my less than stellar cider although freezing did much to improve it.

I'm fixin' to snuggle with Babette and read a novel.

I’m getting used to having a hot toddy in the evening. This weekend I may play around with hot chocolate and brandy (Schnapps is just hideous.)  But right now, Babette and I have a date to curl up on the sofa and enjoy some quality time together.  She’s one happy puppy these days and is no longer shy about demanding attention.

Warmth and Sun

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Morning Daydreams

It’s getting to be that time of the year when I switch my living arrangements. It’s winter and in the interest of not paying Appalachian Power more than my mortgage, I’m moving upstairs.

The only way to keep the downstairs bearable is to crank the heat to 75 or 80 which turns the upstairs into the Sahara. In fact, I turn the heat down to about 55 at bedtime so that I can enjoy the cool bedroom I like while sleeping. It’s so delicious to burrow into the down comforter and feather bed without fear of heatstroke.

The barn has two temperature zones – cool downstairs and warm upstairs. During temperature extremes one floor of the house is insufferable while the other fluctuates between uncomfortable and pleasant. The reasons center on the cement slab the barn sits on along with the multitude of windows sans draperies.

By January, sometimes earlier, the downstairs carpet will be cold to the touch radiating proof that the slab is frozen. I abhor so the multitude of windows in the barn will also radiate unchecked cold. Indeed, my windows are dressed only in my dressing room so as to protect the mailman, the trash guys and the electric company’s meter readers from my brazen nudity. The airy lace panels do little to insulate. Nevertheless the dressing room is one of the rooms I will decamp to – that and the study with naps in the guest bedroom. Setting the furnace to a reasonable temperature keeps the shivering windows at bay most of the winter. On particularly frigid days, a space heater actually warms the room unlike its behavior on the first floor where the open floor plan defeats its abilities.

With the cold, dark days of winter I go upstairs not just in search of heat, but also light.  The upstairs is much less stingy with natural light than is the first floor.

Along with my dressing table, the dressing room is furnished with the completely ridiculous and much loved chaise. Oh how I dithered before plunking down a silly amount of money to buy it. I kept trying to justify the cost and couldn’t. While it was logical to think the room required something other than the vanity bench to sit on, the chaise was not the best choice.

One cannot just sit on the chaise. With its graceful s-curve, it invites a languorous and prone lounging. One is seduced by the comfort of the upholstery, there is no choice but to surrender and sprawl particularly since that s-curve makes just sitting uncomfortable. So the chaise is completely useless in facilitating the donning of socks or hosiery – my one feeble justification.

A chair would have been far more utilitarian, but much less fun.

Mmmm, sun-warmed silk.

Even with the lace panels, the dressing room is aglow with morning light. The winter sun hangs low in the sky streaming rays that make the chaise all the more irresistible. Its sybaritic splendor is further enhanced by a heavy silk kimono a dear friend gave me. There is a magic about silk that no other fabric comes close to imitating. I wrap myself in the kimono, lounge on the chaise and drink my morning coffee. I can lose hours on the chaise.

The study is also kissed by that morning light, but it’s a brief kiss. The mature oaks standing close to the house that give the room a tree-house feeling in the summer still manage to block most of the morning sun. At sunset, the study glows with the low hanging sunset sauntering in through the room’s one western window. The light is silky amber that compels the room’s furnishings to glow. The grain of the heavy oak twirls and preens while the metal of knobs, handles, stapler and ornaments shimmer. If not for the brevity of a winter sunset, I would lose hours sitting in the study’s outrageously comfortable chair.

The guest bedroom with its one window is the warmest room of the house. After the sun begins it rotation to the west, that room holds the afternoon light in clearly defined beams. The canopy draped over the bed holds the light in a web of glimmer. The bed is like being inside a prism. It’s a glorious place to nap.

In winter, I move room to room to follow the sun – the dressing room for daydreams, the study for deep thoughts and the guest bedroom for illicit naps.

Now and again I think I would love living in a small cottage – less to clean, less to maintain, and less to heat. It would be practical and free up a lot of time. It’s hard to justify one person living in this multitude of rooms.

Ah, but I am a space junkie – usually an unapologetic one. I love all of my single purpose rooms, nooks and crannies. From my son’s old bed tucked underneath the stairwell’s eaves to the tiny book nook under the stairs, each one has not just a purpose, but provides this hedonist with the pleasures of the well-defined ambiance of each.

It is winter and I’m in nesting mode. Besides a thorough cleaning, I plan to use these months to tackle the painting of the stairway and the living room/dining room. These two areas of the house are among those that most irritate my hedonistic self. While I do abhor draperies, I am thinking of installing some in the living room/dining room The planned ambiance of that room may require substantial ones that will wrap around the windows rather than covering them, yet can be pulled closed when winter sneaks up on me. It would be nice to have a winter-livable room downstairs.

Between glorying in morning sun, napping in afternoon sun, and marveling at winter sunsets I’m going to need razor-sharp discipline to excise my predilection for sitting around doing nothing for hours at a time. [I was genetically predestined to be one of the idle rich and something went terribly wrong.]

It will be a war of wills with my hedonist me waging battle with the industrious me. I’m already alternatively nagging and promising my hedonistic self that a few months of industry will provide years of sitting year-round in a room that provides splendid sunlight from noon on. A room for reading and gazing out the atrium doors. A room for fine dining on fine china with friends and family. A room to adore a Christmas tree. And a room to watch summer rainstorms and winter snowstorms. .A room in which the pleasure of those activities is not diminished by the sight of needed work.

Chili Today, Clean Tomorrow

/ wvfurandroot / 9 Comments

First sock of the season!

I have on socks AND a sweatshirt.

There are rain puddles, as well as leaves and acorns, on the patio.

I have closed all the windows and doors. Put the fans away.

The remains of chili and cornbread litter the kitchen counter.

I am happy.

After the horrible winter last, I vowed not to complain of summer’s heat. I made it about 6 weeks before that vow was trashed. In my defense, it was one of the hottest Junes on record. The rest of the summer didn’t relent. Oh how I have whined.

I never complain about spring or fall lest they’re too wet. I love both seasons – one for it’s advent of outdoor living; the other for domestic nesting.

Years ago I read somewhere that it’s more efficient to do heavy cleaning in the fall rather than the traditional spring cleaning. The reason centered on the fact that most of us spend a great deal of time outside in the summer and track in dirt and sand followed by pressing our sweaty bodies into the upholstery. That is certainly true of me. Couple that with window fans, a dirt road, and my general disdain for cleaning, and one might understand how flippin’ grimy my house is.

This is especially disheartening given the work I did last fall and spring to clean. Except for the kitchen, the house was cleaner than it had been since before the car accident. All summer I have tried to summon the gumption to tackle the kitchen. It’s just been too hot to attack cupboards, walls, and appliances with bleach and caustic substances. Hell, it’s been too hot to do damn near anything.

Besides the filth, there was the invasion of the spiders. An arachnophobe would need a straitjacket should he or she wander into my home. While all the varieties common to this area are represented, Daddy Longlegs have had a population explosion.

I have giant Daddy Longlegs and baby Daddy Longlegs and teenagers, old folks and middle-agers. It’s the cat’s opinion that they were imported for her amusement.

Periodically, I suck some of them into the vacuum cleaner, but my ethnic cleansing did little to stem the tide of uninvited immigration. Since they don’t bother me and they do keep the other insect population down, I adopted a principle of peaceful coexistence provided webs weren’t built in doorways. (Nobody likes a face full of spider web.)

Today would have been a good day for fall cleaning other than the fact it was a perfect day to snuggle in blankets and read a trashy novel. The day was cool and rainy; and Babette was cuddly. I should have slung bleach around, vacuumed spiders, put the summer clothes away, and so on and so forth ad nauseam infinitus. But I didn’t. And I’m not sorry.

I’ve got on socks and a sweatshirt. It’s chill in this house and I’m fixin’ to make hot chocolate. Viva la Fall.

Frontier – Rooting for the Underdog

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

Reviewing my notes while on the phone with Frontier's Customer Service Call Center.

I meant to post Part 2 of the Frontier Saga before now, but my life kept getting in the way.

When I left y’all, it was 3 p.m. and I’d raised hell with Frontier Customer Service which ended in a promise that a technician would be at my house prior to 8 p.m. At 8:05 p.m., I entered into chat with yet another Customer Service Representative who was anxious to get me off of her screen. She was exceptionally polite, but we went through rounds and round and rounds of linguistic gymnastics in which it became obvious she wouldn’t or couldn’t let me talk to her supervisor.

I settled in for the evening. We chatted. I used words like “unacceptable” a lot. I also used the phrase, “No. I’m not going to call that number – I’ve called that number several times already.” After assuring me it was both impossible and illegal for a Frontier representative to call me after 9 p.m., I settled into the sofa  even deeper and she and I stared at a blank computer screen for a good while – just under 15 minutes.

While sitting in chat, I sent an abridged email to Ken-The-President knowing full well I was spinning my wheels, but what the hell.

Apparently, tying up a CSR in chat for more than an hour gets one a lot of attention provided one is polite, but insistent.

My phone rang. A very nice gentleman from Frontier was on the phone and I disconnected from chat. I’m sure that poor woman Snoopy-danced all the way to vending machine for sorely needed chocolate.

Multiple phone calls later, the Very Nice Gentleman assured me he was on the case and I toddled off to bed right around midnight.

The next morning, I was astonished to find email from Ken-the-President. Said email was not of the “thank you for contacting Frontier where you can be assured…” Oh no. It was a real, detailed response to my email. Ken-the-President assured me he was On The Case.

All morning my phone rang with various people from Frontier. At roughly 3 p.m., I left my office to meet the service technician at the house. Multiple problems were found and Dan-the-Repair-Guy was surprised I ever had a connection that worked.

Since it was not raining, the connection was working. Nevertheless, Dan replaced my wiring, the box, and the modem. He gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him if it went down again.

It rained and I didn’t have a connection. I called Dan; Dan was puzzled.

Meanwhile, folks from Frontier are still calling me. I tell them all the same thing – the connection works fine until it rains. When it rains, I lose my DSL and acquire so much line noise that phone calls are nearly impossible. Some hours after the rain stops, whatever got wet dries out and the connection works perfectly.

Everyone is perplexed but On The Case. I still get multiple phone calls with questions that probe the exact conditions of the outages.

In my spare time, I surf the net for stories about Frontier’s acquisition of Verizon in West Virginia. The stories are Not Good. There are widescale outages that go on for more than a week. Fibernet, who use Frontier’s backbone, are especially not happy. The Public Service Commission is not happy. Lots and lots of people are not happy.

I search some more. I read business analysts who said before the acquisition that Frontier cannot possibly pull off West Virginia given Verizon’s mess.

I challenged Ken-the-President to “prove it” with respect to Frontier’s web page statement which reads as follows:

Welcome, West Virginia.

We are excited to be serving you.

Over the next few months, you will see that we do things a little differently than your previous Service Provider. Because for us, serving you is more than just a day-to-day operation. Our work is all about you, our customer. We have an ongoing commitment to servicing the communities we work and live in. It is about giving back, growing with our communities and supporting your needs.

It is remembering that you are a person, not just a customer.

As I told Ken, once I got in contact with a technician, I’ve been absolutely tickled by Frontier’s service, but that the call centers still need a lot of work.

I'm never going to pull off a back flip, but it's the thought that counts. Right?

I don’t pretend that any customer of any business should have to fire off an email to the president to get all of Customer Service on the same page, but I’m enormously impressed nonetheless.

I continue to read the news stories. Frontier is getting hit with just about everything that can go wrong going wrong. Powerful thunderstorms are wreaking havoc on an already havoc-ridden infrastructure.

Almost always, I root for the underdog in sports competitions (including politics).

I’m now rooting for Frontier to pull off the impossible – restore the communication infrastructure of West Virginia to a reliable state and, eventually, improve it without going bankrupt. Lots of professionals say it can’t be done. (Go Team, Go!)

My DSL still goes up and down like a yoyo. I still have the same problem – we’ve merely eliminated some potential causes. I fully realize that in terms of fixing the problem, I’m exactly where I was. But after years of Verizon’s nonsense, I have every reason to believe that Frontier does, in fact, care that my service is unreliable and is, in fact, Trying To Fix It.

In terms of the greater good, it is probably ridiculous that they stopped what they were doing elsewhere to work on my silly-ass little problem. On the other hand, they created an enormous amount of goodwill with me.

Welcome to West Virginia, Frontier.

[Connie dons a bizarre set of clothing which she hopes approximates that of a cheerleader and tries to think of a clever rhyme that will go well with pompoms and back flips.]