Who Cares About Cookie Cutters?

Who Cares About Cookie Cutters?

Well, I do. They're common enough tools, but I value those snippets of bent metal, from the early tin ones to the modern steel or aluminum ones. Don’t get me started on the tacky plastic ones; they have no soul.  I own about 300, and the collection goes on. Some are my great-grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, my mom’s, mine from my childhood. Others are  travel souvenirs: a moose from Alaska, a palm tree from Florida, a sea turtle from Hawaii, a crab from San Francisco, a snowflake from a magical December getaway in the mountains. Each has a memory, a story in its shape. 

When we designed our house, pushing out the bow window left a weird overhang, a flat wall about 15 feet long and ten inches tall. The builder lamented, “It’s holding up the roof. I just can’t fix it!” Fix it?! Clearly, that was designed for my cookie cutter collection to be displayed, part of it anyway. In the center is my family. I found a cookie-man, a cookie-woman, a cookie-girl, and two cookie-boys, one smaller than the other, representing my daughter and two sons.  I arranged them under a temple cookie cutter, and above a sideways broom. That’s a nod to my southern years; jump the broom, get it?

My latest book is a multi-generational  story told through the perspective of an elderly woman, the keeper of the antique cookie cutter collection. I’m enjoying the research phase! Did you know the most –expensive cookie cutter, called Running Slave, sold for nearly $8000 in a heated auction? As I bring the story from Queen Charlotte’s period to current times, my heart is drawn to the generations of women who baked cookies for their families. Some were servants in England, other indentured servants in the New World, some slaves in America through no wish of their own. Mothers made cookies for their children, early nurses gave the harder ones to fussy babies to teeth on. Some women made them to sell, including a couple of enterprising women who used their baked goods as a way to slip messages under the noses of King George’s troops in Boston, triggering the timing of the Revolutionary War.

My own mother always had cookies in the cookie jar.  Mom is an orderly soul; she likes identical cookies.  When I was a child, milk and cookies was a common way to sit with a  child after school and ask How Was Your Day, Honey?  One of my favorite memories was when my family was traveling when I was a child. We stopped for a gas in a very small town somewhere in the Midwest.  As soon as we stepped out to stretch our legs, we were engulfed by an overwhelming lemon-cookie aroma. The gas station attendant laughed and said Ma, the owner of Ma’s Cookies, always turned her vent fans toward the gas station when she noticed travelers stopping, and wouldn’t we like to go to her bakery across the parking lot? We drove away with warm lemon cuts outs, bags of them.

A simple tool, it’s unlikely many people count cookie cutters as anything worthwhile, just a faster way to make same-shape-same-size cookies in a hurry. I see the story in them, a memory tied up in each. And I find it hard to talk about cookies without wanting one, so here’s a recipe for you:  

Sugar Cut Out Cookies

·         1-½ cup butter  

·         2 cups sugar

·         2 whole eggs

·         2 whole eggs yolks

·         4 teaspoons vanilla extract

·         2 teaspoons almond extract

·         4 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon salt

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add in 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks and mix until combined. Mix in  vanilla and almond extract until combined. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly (about a cup at a time) add flour to butter mixture and combine. Just mix ingredients until they are combined, so as not to toughen the dough. Cover and chill at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out, cut out cookies, and bake for 6-8 minutes. Drizzle with a simple glaze or frost as desired.

Glaze:  stir one cup powdered sugar with enough orange juice or milk to make a pancake-batter consistency. Drizzle over cooled cookies with a fork. 

One Foot in Front of the Other

My cute baby granddaughter thought about Up. She watched her brothers running through the house, her little brow furrowed in concentration. How do they do that?  One day, at the ripe old age of eight months, Babykins pulled herself to standing, using the sofa for support.

 The first couple of weeks didn’t go well for her. She hadn’t learned how to un stand; when her little legs fatigued, she fell backwards. She quickly learned how to roll her spine so as not to whack her fuzzy head every time. Feet were another issue. Sometimes her little feet slid out from under her, and she ended up doing splits. They sometimes slid away from the sofa, leaving her at an untenable 45 degree angle, clutching the sofa, squawking for help. Her mother rescued her, picked her up for a hug, chuckling at the baby’s determination to get back and down and try again.

This all reminds me of the baby’s mother at that age. Once my daughter learned to stand and take two steps, she refused to crawl ever again. It was simply beneath her. That was fine once she could walk capably, but the first couple of weeks were rough. She’d stand up against a chair, take a few wobbly steps, invariably tip over, and scream as if she’d been attacked by lions. One of us would have to go stand her back on her little feet; she simply couldn’t bear to crawl the two feet to the chair. A pride issue, I think, along with early evidence of a stubborn streak wider than her head. She kept on practicing, and as other adults, she now walks without a thought.

No one criticized her when she was learning, and no one scolds Babykins for not doing it right, for falling over yet again. We praise her for trying again, clapping, smiling, telling her, “Good! Now try again,” knowing that, with practice, she’ll learn to walk like everyone else.

I’m an author of sixteen books. I suppose I know what I’m doing, to some degree, and I keep on learning daily, constantly improving my craft. Some of the phrases I string together are flat, hokey, even syrupy. Other times, I read over a paragraph in delight. Sometimes I kick paper wads in frustration, knowing what I want to convey, but unable to get my point across. 

I suppose what babies and toddlers deal with effects writers, too—the terrible twos are partly about being frustrated because you’re smarter than your motor skills or your mouth, you want to color the picture, ask for the toy, and you’re bumbling, incoherent and no one gets it.

My advice to writers is WRITE. Write a lot, good stuff, worthless stuff, keep on writing.  My baby granddaughter will be chasing after her brothers in no time, but it’s not only time that propels a child onward to more sophistication and skill. It takes effort and practice, and occasionally falling on one’s head. Write, write, write because the road to good writing is made of words strung together and not all of them are well-arranged words. With practice, it gets better.

We don’t scold a child for stumbling when learning to walk. We value their adorable attempts, and pick them up when they tip over. Do that for the writer inside you. Praise the good parts, encourage the weak parts, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

Prejudice

by Deb Graham

Racism is a hot-button topic in our society these days. I’m not sure why: I really thought we’d be at a place beyond that by 2017. I’m happy to report I failed utterly at teaching my kids about racism, just as my parents failed to teach me.

I lived for the first ten years of my life in a blue-collar town in New York, only seven miles from Niagara Falls. Quite a few residents were a couple of generations, if that, from the Old Country, wherever that was. I knew people had different backgrounds, and I knew that made them different. I learned our Polish neighbors made the best cabbage rolls. The Lebanese woman down the block was legendary for her paper-thin bread and baklava, and our German friends played music I didn’t hear at home. In my little-girl mind, I registered differences.

My parents neglected to teach me that other races were Bad or Less Than. I knew some people were not worthy of respect; lazy, cruel, mean-spirited people who wouldn’t rise about their raising, those who did not value their family, mouth-breathers who put sports or card-playing obsessions above their wives. They were Not Good People, and I felt the shame when I heard my parents speak of them.

But my parents neglected to teach me about race. At age ten, my family moved to a small town in Georgia. I learned it was where the Ku Klux Klan was established. The calendar insisted it was 1969; the people there acted more like 1949.  Segregation was in the rearview mirror, but not there. Signs reading “Whites and Coloreds” still lingered over drinking fountains and doorways.  Proprietors excused themselves with “well, I ain’t got around to repainting that wall yet.”  Mom was shunned at PTA meetings. It seemed wherever we went, we heard whispers of “Yankees. They don’t know their place.”

 School was hard for me. On my first day, I was faced with a classroom full of resentful eyes turned on me, children on the left, children on the right, empty row of desks down the middle. I was shy, and felt I had done something wrong just by walking in the classroom. The teacher barked, “Ya’ll take yer seat nah.” I slid into the first available seat, just to get away from those accusing eyes.

Before long, I noticed the teacher stood in front of the left side of the classroom, never glancing at the students on the right. Children from the left were always chosen to be classroom helper and office runner and to answer questions, as if the others were not even in the room. The only time the teacher moved to the right side of the classroom was to break her ruler over the desk of a child who'd committed an offense; leaning into the aisle to retrieve a pencil he'd dropped. Even then, she never spoke, as if the child wasn't worth the words required for a scolding.

 It finally dawned on me that the kids on the right side of the room were uniformly white, while the other side was made up of black children. Puzzled, I looked closer, to see what valid differences had caused them to be shunned like this. Both sides wore similar clothes, overalls without shirts, or cotton shifts, some barefoot, some in tattered sneakers with holes cut out for toes. A few wore dungarees, which I later learned was almost worse than wearing nothing at all. I felt terribly overdressed in my new plaid skirt and white blouse with rosettes at the collar. I kept my shiny penny loafers tucked under my desk.

Culture shock was awful at school, bad in public, uncomfortable even at church, and nothing we could do helped one bit. I learned never to speak up in class, because the teacher led the taunts of my Yankee accent. Reading aloud was torture. I could plan on being mocked every time. How was a little New York girl supposed to know how to pronounce "victuals"? I'd never seen that word in my life, and sounding it out was a disaster. The teacher screeched, "It's vittles, stupid girl! Vittles, like ya'll eat at home!" No clarity there; I still didn't know what a vittles was, Mom never cooked it for dinner. 

After the longest four years of my family’s life, Dad took a new job and we moved North, to a Chicago suburb. I think my first day in the new school was the first time I’d drawn a full breath in months.

I vowed that whatever prejudices I had witnessed and experienced would not define my life. And I determined to not raise my children to discard whole classes of people differentiated solely by accent, geography, or skin color. If you dislike someone, you have to get to know them enough first to make sure your opinion is valid, not just by sight.

Years ago, my young daughter was excited about me being Room Mother. Before my first visit to the classroom, she jumped up and down telling me about her new friend. Jill had the cutest little braids, she liked to wear yellow, her favorite item was a ruffled sweater, and she had a pompom on her backpack. I looked forward to meeting Jill, and getting to know the rest of the class. 

I chuckled as I politely shook hands with Jill later that morning. My little girl had neglected to mention Jill was the only black child in the whole first grade. That detail completely escaped her. As they've grown, I've listened to the way my kids talk about their friends. The old prejudices my Dad taught shine through, about lazy people or willfully ignorant folks, but they interact with other races as easily as they do with other age groups and hair colors, and I love it. 

I succeeded. Now, what’s up with everybody else?

When the Family Gets Together

by Kari Diane Pike

About thirty years ago, my husband's parents came up with a plan for a family reunion every three years. Each of the seven siblings has taken turns as the "event planner" with everyone else pitching in to help make things happen. The location has varied: Mom and Pop's house in Calabasas, CA, Bear Lake in northern Utah, an empty school in Cottonwood, AZ, a beach side campground near Santa Barbara, CA, and even the Redwood forest. Activities have ranged from surfing and swimming to hiking and card playing and the giving and receiving of lots of hugs.

This year marked our tenth such reunion. We returned to Mom's house (Dad has been gone for nine years now) to celebrate "Grandma the Great turns 88".  For the first time in many years, all seven of the Ken and Delores Pike children were able to attend. Even most of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren made the journey from as close as living in the same house to as far away as Anuktuvuk Pass, Alaska in order to celebrate our much beloved matriarch.

Dad Pike's family has a long history of family get-togethers - usually geared around Thanksgiving and Easter. With nine children in that family our numbers regularly fell between 80 and 100 people. This year was no exception. We laughed, talked, body surfed, browsed museums, discovered hermit crabs, sea anemones, and the occasional scorpion, and played games with about 117 links from our family chain. I'm happy to report that only one child wandered off and went missing for a few minutes at the beach and no one got run over.

We can't forget about the food. One night alone, we consumed 18 large Costco pizzas, three watermelons, 7 pineapples, 10 pounds of strawberries, 6 pounds of grapes, a #10 can of mandarin oranges, 4 large bags of Caesar Salad mix- plus croutons, and two entire sheet cakes. On other days, parents and grandparents alike pitched in to feed the masses with countless pb&j sandwiches, hamburgers, hot dogs, granola bars, bagels, cold cereal, french toast and the requisite s'mores.

Our daughter Kati played a video she had created from snatches of old home movies taken over the years. Seeing the smiles and hearing the voices of children now grown and older relatives  who have passed on brought tears to my eyes. My sister-in-law Penni provided stories from the lives of Ken and Del and from each of their parents. We played a family trivia bingo game based on the stories and sang "Love is Spoken Here" and  "A Child's Prayer." Old wounds received healing and love and the hearts of the children truly turned to their fathers as we remembered who we are and why we are here.

Getting together is getting more difficult as our family grows and spreads around the world. Del is the last of her generation still living from her side of the family and only one of Dad Pike's siblings remains. The Pike reunions of days past fell by the way side as the older generation passed away. Some how the baton got dropped. I hope that we never drop this one. Families truly are forever.

Hugs~

Expectations

 Some years ago, our then-three-year-old granddaughter spent the night with us, and in the morning, we took her to a parade, her very first. Grandpa and I set out some rules of behavior as we parked the car.

1. Hold hands until we get to the right spot.

2. You may sit in the street.

3. If anyone throws anything at you, you may keep it.

Wide-eyed, she silently climbed out of her car seat, unsure what to expect. Holding hands in public was standard protocol, but I’m pretty sure her parents never told her to sit in the street, anywhere, any time.

We wound our way through the crowds to a good location alongside the street.  Still not questioning, she sat on the curb, her bare knees visibly trembling under her tutu (because what else would she wear to a parade?).

Twenty minutes later, she turned to me with shining eyes, her hands full of candy tossed by waving people on the passing parade floats. “Grandma! You said people would throw stuff at me. I didn’t know I’d LIKE it!”

I’ve often thought about that morning; how trusting was that little girl, having no concept of what the word “parade” meant, but knowing if her beloved Grandma and Grandpa felt confident taking her there, it must be alright.  In her day-to-day life, no one threw anything at her, and she’d been repeatedly warned not to even go near a street...yet she relied on us to keep her safe.

I cut out a comic strip years ago, and taped it inside my journal. Two old guys sat on a park bench. One says, “I don’t mind life passing me by, but I wish it wouldn’t throw things at me on its way past.” I feel like that some days. I wake in the morning confident, with a mental list of things to accomplish in the day. I lie down at night, and review the day. Some days, I actually do what I set out to accomplish, or close to it, while other days, I’m like the guys on the park bench, ducking as life throws things at me.

I think it has to do with expectations. We need to be strong and focused, but if life throws a need or a serendipity experience at us, we need to be flexible enough to seize it, not trapped by our Must Do list. Or as my friend says, “we must remember that we are human beings, not human doings.” And you can’t go wrong mustering the faith, trust and joy of a child.  

Tell Me A Story

One of the flaws of growing Old, I find, is that now that I’ve accumulated a few decades of wisdom, nobody wants any of it. I guess that’s valid; I wasn’t keen on taking advice from “my elders” either. 

To console myself, I look back on some of the things I’ve done well over my lifetime. One is teaching my children the power of story, of wrapping words around thoughts in a way others can see your meaning.

Husband and I taught our youngsters to tell stories from the time they could lisp soft words. Before they turned two, they could tell about their experiences. “Look, a duck!” is a fine story, and worth listening to. We pelted them with questions to help them sort their thoughts: what did it look/sound/feel/smell like, and then what happened, and what did you think about that, and what was the best part, and how did you feel when that happened? Asking them to tell their experiences caused them to be more attentive to details, while things they may have glossed over took on meaning. 

By the time they reached school age, they were proficient story-tellers. They clamored to tell about their day as soon as they came in the door, often tripping over their words (and those of their siblings) in their haste to tell their story. If they lagged, we’d prompt: what was the most interesting thing you noticed today, did you see any kindness, what was funny, what new thing did you learn today, did you imagine a different ending?

Their friends caught on fast; often, a playmate after school also lined up to tell their story, about that silly thing that happened on the playground, or the drawing their teacher sketched on the board; either a fish or a sock, they weren’t altogether sure. What did it look like, what color was it, why was that unusual, was that something you’d enjoy doing again?

 As a parent, I learned a lot by listening. If a daughter mentioned her new friend Jill every day for a week, then quit mentioning her, I knew to ask about Jill later on. If I noticed a story included a bully, a phone call was in order. If a child reported his teacher in tears, I’d walk the kid to school the next day, just to let the teacher know she wasn’t alone (and to apologize if my son was the tear-trigger; especially in first grade, he usually was).

As I age, I value stories more than ever. I see how helping our little ones learn to express themselves well helped them through their lives. It makes my day when a now-grown child calls and says, "Hey, Mom, want to hear what I did today?" I delight in seeing them teach my seven adorable grandchildren to tell stories, too. I’m a big believer in circles, and this one is powerful. Maybe getting Old allows me a wider vista. 

What’s In A Name?

 What’s In A Name?

I’m Deb. Although it’s not an uncommon name, certainly not an interesting name, I’m particular about it. If you call me Debbie, I may not respond, and the only places I tolerate being addessed as Debora is in doctor's offices. No need to get chummy there.

 My brothers married Debbie and Deborah. At the very least, that shows a distinct lack of imagination. Growing up, there were at least three or four Debs/Debbies/Debras in every class. Names run in streaks, you know.

By adulthood, I’d had enough. I determined to name my children not-typical names. We ended up with Mollika, Bjorn-Josef, and Darthaniel. I’m convinced Darthaniel was born three weeks late because Husband insisted on naming him D'Artagnan; you know, from the Three Musketeers story. It took me a while to find a close-enough name he’d go for.

Tell me, how would a child with an apostrophe ever get through kindergarten? As it was, our boy hated his name his first month of school. The rule was, “As soon as you write your name, you may go play.” Tim and Sue had the advantage, while Darthaniel and Stephanie struggled with their extra letters. They soon became “Stef” and “Darth.” In the age of “Star Wars,” that had its own drawbacks.

My criterion for names is that they should be interesting, and must be pronounceable at a glance. I met a woman named Alycyee, who insisted her name was Alice. What were her parents thinking? Same with my friend’s daughter, Kuqwinnsce, whose name sounds like Quincy. Husband’s uncle, Maurice, says his name is Morris, not pronounced Mor EES, as it’s spelled.

As I’ve dabbled in fiction writing, working on Novels #2 and #3, I find my opinion is the same for naming characters. It’s slightly less agonizing than naming a full human, but still important. If you pick the wrong time period or geography, it may jar the reader. A Native American warrior will probably not be named Giovanni, any more than a medieval princess be called Lulu.

        Partway through my first cozy mystery, I needed a name for the kooky cruise director. I wanted to name her Lisle. I’ve always I liked that name, and we didn’t have enough daughters to inflict it on. As I mulled it over, I could plainly “hear” the character blurt “Lisle rhymes with weasel, and that won’t do for a public relations job, so I’m Cinci, from Cincinnati.” Cinci turned into a favorite character—and what a character she is!

        I’m all in favor of talking to myself– sometimes, it’s the only guaranteed attentive audience– but coming from a non-fiction background, hearing voices in my head that didn’t sound like my own was unnerving. I learned to listen to the characters speak as if they were already developed, just waiting for me to wrap words around their story.

           As you write, try listening to the character’s voice, envisioning them speaking to you. After all, names are meant to be personal, validating, and imaginative, within reason. I draw the line at ridiculous names, such as the little boy named Fruit Stand, and his sister, Celestial Being, called Bea.

       Life’s hard enough, without one’s own moniker being a handicap.

The Ultimate Weapon

by Kari Diane Pike

Recent attempts to broaden my reading horizons and (guilty admission here) a search for something to binge on on Netflix because I watched every episode of Gilmore Girls and needed something to tide me over until the new episodes come out, brought my attention to a particular theme common to nearly every genre: the search for the ultimate weapon (like a super soldier) - someone or something to defend and protect from or even destroy the enemy.

They need not look any further. I encountered a real life secret weapon last Sunday. Code name: "Sunbeams". Sunbeams (for those not familiar with vocabulary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Sunbeams are the children who are three-years-old, turning four) have the ability to enervate even the most experienced adult. They lure the poor patsy in with shy, dimpled smiles and coy giggles.  They peek from behind their parents' backs, wave their chubby fingers, and create a false sense acceptance. Once left alone with their common enemy,  Sunbeams synergize and zero in on their victim's greatest vulnerabilities. They take no prisoners. They paralyze and then suck their prey dry. Except for the tears. Sunbeams leave behind lots of tears. I should know. I was there. Me, a veteran mom with more than thirty-five years and nine plus more children worth of experience.

I knew I was in trouble when one of the four Sunbeams in the class declared: "Don't listen to her. Let's play pretend and I'll be the king and you can be the princesses  and the wizard and she (meaning me) can be the witch because she doesn't talk nice to us."

I had told them I was disappointed in them because they were using their outside voices and not listening to the story. I would have to talk to their parents, I said. They would be sad, I said. I guess I did lay it on a little thick. Plus, I didn't have food. Never  let yourself get trapped with Sunbeams without food or they will turn on you. Really, really fast.

I changed my tactics and we spent the rest of class time singing and playing "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button." Their parent's picked them up at the door. My husband took me to the car where I melted into a puddle of tears.

For some reason, I can't wait to go back. Maybe that's what makes them the ultimate weapon. The enemy actually wants to go back for more. I really do love those Sunbeams. Some days are easier than others. You can bet I will be better prepared from now on. I will go in armed with prayer, patience, smiles, love, and lots of snacks.

Life is magnificent!

hugs~

Big-People Teeth

“Grandma, will you teach me how to make a big-people tooth? My baby tooth fell out last night, and the Tooth Fairy came, but I have a hole in my mouth and I need a big-people tooth. Tell me how to make one. Please?”

My five and half year old granddaughter confidently waited for my reply. Sure enough, her sticky smile had a gaping hole where the pearl-sized tooth had been. I grappled for an answer, settling on the truth.

“Honey, I can’t teach you how to make a new tooth.”

Squirming impatiently, she encouraged, “Oh, sure you can, Grandma! You teached me lots of things. You teached me how to make cinnamon rolls, and how to sew a blanket for the baby, and you teached me how to read, even big words.  And you teached me how to catch a ball, and now I can catch them all the time, if they’re thrown not too fast. You’re the one who teached me how to open eggshells, too. I need a new big-people tooth. Will it take long?”

True, I had nurtured this little girl through an assortment of experiences that year while her young father finished his last college semester, usually involving her in whatever household tasks I needed to do. Clearly,  I’d neglected grammar. Trusting brown eyes fixed upon me, she waited for me to go retrieve whatever tool was required to make a new tooth. Hot glue gun, crochet hook, stew pot, trowel?

I sat her down, put my arm around her, and explained that the tooth she’d need for the rest of her days was already inside her, waiting to sprout. Indeed, it was in such a hurry, it had pushed the baby tooth out of its way. That led to a conversation about her perfect little self-contained body. She already had everything she’d ever need to grow, to be a teen, to be a woman, to be “as old as me, someday,” built in.  There would never be a special-delivery influx of whatever she needed for the next stage of her life. Like the tooth she wanted, the power was already within her.

Satisfied, my precious grandchild stood up, hands on slim hips, head cocked, obviously thinking hard. At last, she spoke slowly. “Okay, I can wait for the big-people tooth. But can you teach me about pie? I like pie.”

“That, I can do.” Hand in hand, off to the kitchen we went.

Like my little granddaughter, all we need is already within us. The power to learn, the skills to develop any talent we’re willing to work for, all the God-given goodness required lies dormant, pushing its way out when the time is right.