Stage Six: Pickled

Patrick slept most of the day on Friday. I kept thinking I would wake him up and take him to the doctor but he looked so pink and peaceful as he lay sprawled in our bed that it just didn't seem right to do so. When he finally woke up he was starving and after watching him plow through five bowls of soggy Cheerios I decided that he was probably going to survive without any further interventions. Whether it just took a solid week to start recovering from the surgery or he was battling some random virus I guess we shall never know. However, I now feel all headache-y and gross so if I had to bet I would say the latter. Of course, now that I think about it, I had a Bloody Mary before ten o'clock this morning so perhaps that is contributing to my mid-day malaise. We are just a houseful of medical mysteries, aren't we? Anyway Patrick, at least, is finally much better and after considerable debate we decided he was well enough to attend the first day of school. Which was today.

Tonight I told Patrick that after I dropped him off I went to a party.

"That's weird," said Patrick. "Who would have a party in the morning?"

"It was a bunch of moms who were excited about the first day of school," I said.

"You mean the party was to celebrate kids having to go back to school?"

"Yep!"

"And all of the other people were happy about this?"

"Yep!"

Patrick looked sympathetic.

"What did you do when you found out?" he asked.

"When I found out... ?"

"When you found out that they weren't sad like you were?"

I blinked at him. He's very cute. Delusional but cute.

I have been holding onto this picture for months. It's from March and it is, like, visual proof that Patrick was sick for MONTHS and MONTHS and yet Steve and I had clearly lost all sense of what a healthy child should look like. Because why was he out hunting for mushrooms when he should have been, oh I don't know, getting a transfusion or something. Doesn't he look horrible? All gray and peaked? He could have walked into a casting call for a particularly gritty Dickens' production only to be told thank you, but we are looking for something a little less starving consumptive orphan.

Yet again I want to be able to flow in two directions:

1. I found these pictures in the same folder as that one of Patrick (not pictured, the Grim Reaper) and I have been meaning to ask you for months; what do you think this building was before it became a picturesque ruin? [Someday I hope to be similarly labeled on a photo "Julia, before she became a picturesque ruin."] Patrick and Steve stumbled across this structure in the middle of the woods in Wisconsin a few miles from the river. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger but it had one wall that was solid stone, one that had three narrow window openings, one with a door and a small window and evidence of a staircase, and one with a large double door. Brick chimney. Constructed of local stone. Any guesses?
 

2. Patrick finally moved back up to his room but I have left the inflatable mattress on the floor for a few days because Edward and Caroline LOVE IT.

"Bow bow bow?" Edward asks. "Bowwwwnse?" Caroline clarifies.

Once Patrick started feeling better (say, Saturday) he was more than willing to bounce up and down on the mattress and send them flying like ninepins.

 

I liked the fact that although Edward was amused by the up and down he never released his little writing tablet and he kept diligently practicing... something, scratching I think... even as Caroline and Patrick were, literally, bouncing off the walls behind him.

He is like the guy at the frat house who keeps trying to finish his paper despite the fact that people are using his room for kegstands.

Once upon a time I was devoted to the works of Maud Hart Lovelace, authoress of the Betsy-Tacy series. In fact, one summer vacation in Michigan I almost managed to convince my father that we should swing over to Mankato, Minnesota and view firsthand the town that inspired the books' Deep Valley. Unfortunately, my mother (O thou enemy of Culture) pointed out that it was about fourteen hours each way, so I had to wait until Steve and I moved to Minnesota to make my pilgrimage.

I mention this because in the books Betsy's family had a hired girl named Anna who had previously worked for a family named McCloskey. The McCloskeys assumed near mythic proportions and they always had muffins on the first day of school. Therefore Betsy's family always had muffins on the first day of school and today I made muffins for the first day of school. Jambalaya muffins and, if I ever stop writing here, I will put the recipe up over at Scrambled. Hey, speaking of which, someone asked if it was possible for me to make a printable version of the recipes over there. And since I am always willing to try to oblige I tried to look up how to do something like that but was stymied when I searched the Typepad help files. So if any of you know how to create something like that and feel like telling me or linking me or just generally shoving me in the right direction I would be grateful.

The first time I took Patrick to school I cried in the parking lot. Today I had a Bloody Mary. You know, because I was so sad.

Comments

[Rachel]

I LOVE the Betsy-Tacy books. It was a bit shocking to realize as an adult that somehow I had mixed up the side of the street where Betsy lived and I had the Kelly and Ray houses backwards...

[Becky]

wow, that picture of Patrick is scary. It's weird how you,(me! many times), don't notice WHEN it's actually happening.
Edward fascinates me. My 6 y.o never did anything 'academic' without a fight, and never as young as Edward. I just love that he is so driven internally to learn! so so awesome!
Glad Patrick is pink again.

[Jessica]

Is the building up in the woods above catfish beach (directly across from Afton marina)? If that's it it may an old chapel that we used to think was haunted when we were Patrick's age.

[susan too]

My sister and I loved those books, and I found some of them in our library. They look really old and quaint now. However, I didn't hold on to all those details about the family!

[Cadence Daly]

So happy to hear Patrick is feeling better!

Edward is a lefty? That is so cool.

[Kristin]

Wow...its amazing the things you don't notice when it happens slowly in front of you. So very glad Patrick feels better.

As for making printable files of the recipes...there is a wonderful site called Keep And Share http://www.keepandshare.com/ In addition to being able to upload regular word files, you can also upload PDFs and have them available for download. Do you know how to make PDFs? If so, it should be a simple matter to provide a link to the PDF of the recipe you uploaded on that site. I use it for my cross stitch design company. You can check out how it's set up on my design blog htt://cuppajoedesigns.blogspot.com/

[Kristin]

Ack, my design blogs url should have read http://cuppajoedesigns.blogspot.com/

[Amanda]

I love that you can see where the stairs were (in the picturesque ruin)!

[clarabella]

I don't know what that building was in all it's original glory, but perchance now it is the home of the Blair Witch?

[Sarah]

I'd think it is an abandoned chapel. Wisconsin seems loaded with them - or at least pleas to have them restored.

And PDFs for printing would be a way to go - CutePDF is free and pretty easy going. Do you type out the recipe in Word before you post it to Scrambled. If not, some copy and paste could let you make it all pretty. Or why can't they just print the blog page? My print looked OK.

Don't you just hate hindsight?

[jana]

I LOVED the Betsy Tacy and Tib books! I had forgotten they were set in MN.

Coming across that old building in the woods while mushroom hunting would have been a little piece of heaven for me. How fun for Steve and Patrick!

Also, tell Patrick I'm very impressed with his morel in that picture (his coloring and well-being, not so much).

[cee]

Pretty amazing that Edward is already holding a pen and practicing drawing - a lot of kids don't have the motor skills that early!!

I don't know what the stone building is but I hope it's haunted.

[Jen]

So glad to hear Patrick has turned the corner, and made it to the first day of school. So funny he thought you might feel out of place at a celebration of the first day. :)

[Lucrezia]

Maybe it was an old farmhouse? Or mini-monastery? Or maybe a brewery? So many possibilities! I would love, one day when I have money, to restore a building like that and live there. It's so pretty.

[Lucrezia]

Oh, about your recipes - why not compile a little PDF recipe book and sell it? Or print it out and sell it? I'm all about selling stuff.

[Cory]

Our pediatrician, whose own son has cystic fibrosis says that all parents, including doctor parents "watch" their kids sicken right in front of them. And not to feel terrible/guilty about that. Glad Patrick is on the up & up.

[Kirsten]

I loved the Betsy-Tacy books. I wanted to be Tib and live in her house so badly it hurt. I reread a few last year and they are still wonderful. I lived in MN as a kid and between Laura Ingalls and Betsy-Tacy, it felt like an enchanted place to be. Although my parents steadfastly refused to build a sod house in my backyard in Forest Lake.

[Jen]

We too have muffins for the first day of school, in the grand old tradition of Betsy-Tacy. (This year: peach-walnut.) I also hold MHL responsible for me pointing and gaping at the American Express office in Paris: "ONZE RUE SCRIBE! ONZE RUE SCRIBE!"

Glad Patrick is feeling better!

[Amy]

Oh Julia.... I just KNEW you would be a Betsy-Tacy person. I read those books over and over again growing up and just love them so much. I think I spent my 20s looking for Tony. Joe Willard was great and all, but WHY oh WHY didn't she stay with Tony? TDS!!! :)

I re-read the series again this last spring... it was comfort-reading and was such a great escape. Damn, I love those books. I would have begged to drive the 14 hours, too.

[Ruth]

If it makes you feel any better, in May we discovered that our youngest son (who had had breathing difficulties as an infant/small child, but hadn't wheezed in years)'s lungs were functioning at 70% capacity. Which probably explained why he was getting so tired in gym and soccer.

Last week he went for his first follow up and is doing much better. While this was happy news indeed, the nurse also confided that she'd been very worried about Young'un the first time she saw him. "His color was awful," she said. "Pale skin, big circles under his eyes, irritable ... I'm so glad to see him looking healthy now."

Well me, too. I just wish we'd been able to recognize how unhealthy he looked Before; we were assuming that he just had "pale Irish skin". And I have three other kids in the house to use as controls, there really was no excuse for missing the change in his appearance, except that(probably like Patrick's illness) it came on so gradually. Sudden, shocking illness is much easier to recognize (one hopes).

p.s. I had Indian food to celebrate -- er, console myself -- after the older kids went back to school last week.

[Karen]

So glad Patrick is on the mend! Having my tonsils out when I was 21 kicked my ass.

Yes! Betsy Tacy Books. No one ever knows what I'm talking about. God, I loved those books.

This was my last " first day of school", my youngest is a senior in high school. I spent my day all weepy. Patrick would have approved, but the Bloody Mary route would have been a better option I suspect.

[Lise]

Betsy-Tacy! I should have known. I adored the books, introduced my four girls to them, and still re-read them at least once a year. I even own The Betsy-Tacy Companion, and used to belong to an email list devoted to the books.

But I've never made muffins for the first day of school, and I suddenly feel very lame about that.

[Coral]

Poor Patrick, he looks too sad and orphan-ish!

Muffins - um, yum, any time!

Coral from South Africa, from UK originally, via Zimbabwe.

[Name Goes Here]

Being that close to a mushroom would make me look grey and wan, too. So, you know, that couldn't have helped.

[Cookie]

I love the Betsy-Tacy books. Still some of my favorite childhood books. I love that you made muffins on the first day of school, and the recipe sounds delicious. Gabe starts school next year, and I may have to do just that.

I'm so jealous that Edward is a lefty. My husband and I are both lefties, and yet, we have two right-handed children. He looks so cute sitting there with his writing pad. Nick has one shaped like a Christmas Tree that he is rarely without during the day.

Patrick does look very pale in that picture, but in your defense, viruses often creep in slowly so slight changes over a long period don't tend to be that noticeable.

[Jody]

I'd want to know what was in the overgrowth around that foundation, but at a guess, I'd say collapsed barn. Why would I guess that? The whitewash on the walls, the upper window locations, and the fact that barns and other farm out-buildings are the most frequently abandoned structures in that part of the country. Also I think I see a few boards in the undergrowth.

[Chris]

Little House fan here. No longer ashamed to admit it. No literary genious there, but something of a cultural must on some level, no?

Church or government building of some sort. There isn't a sufficient wall seam for a loft which would have been standrad in a home or barn at that time.

Love that Edward curls his toes when he concentrates. Ben has never been a toe curler, nor Alya....but she points her big toe straight up....love it.

[Jen H.]

It is now tradition in our house to have a first-day-of-school cake. My husband and son conspired to create this tradition last year for my son's first year of school, and I did it again yesterday, so now it's official. Muffins would have been much healthier. I think perhaps I will put the Bloody Mary ritual in place for myself.

I love that ruined building. It's just the sort of thing I would buy and try to fix up, because I'm crazy like that.

[Parenthetical]

Just wanted to delurk and say I'm glad Patrick is feeling better. (And if he can't fathom the thought of you being happy that he's back in school, I'm sure he'd be at a total loss trying to figure out why I'm always a little jealous of all the kids going back this month.)

[llcsis]

I'm simply flabbergasted that all of you know and loved the Betsy/Tacy books too. I'm mid 40's and back then they were "old" books that no one checked out besides me from the library. I think it is almost eerie so many of us are here, don't you?

[TeacherMommy]

Oh Julia. I wish I had your gift with words.

[ChrisinNY]

Our tradition is pie (fruit of some kind) the first day of school. Yummy!

[maureen]

Suspect the ruin was once someone's home. It looks exactly like the house my mother grew up in, in Northern Ireland. When her family emigrated to the US the relatives gobbled up their farmland but left the house (after they denuded it)......as a place to lay their heads should they ever visit?

[Amie]

I guess a chapel as well...

Glad Patrick is feeling better!!

[Alli]

Definitely a church.

[Melanieh]

To me it looks like a mill (there's something that looks like that near me), but I suppose if it's not near a river, that's probably not the case.

I'm guessing some kind of industry, though. It doesn't really look like a house or a barn.

[Teri]

I didn't discover the Betsy-Tacy books until I had a daughter of my own, but I *love* them, as I loved the Little House books. My daughter, not so much. She'd rather curl up with Percy Jackson and the Olympians. But I'm happy as a clam sitting beside her reading about coloring sand with food coloring and selling it in bottles!

Now I have to go make muffins...

[AnnaN]

Good to hear that Patrick has recovered and made it off to his first day of school without a hitch.

I would probably disagree with the chapel guesses - the second floor is curious in that instance; most chapels would have storage on the ground floor with soaring ceilings to roof beams.

My guess, based on the double doors and the seeming low and steep ceiling height of the second floor would be a tack room/carriage house combo. Were there any other buildings within the vicinity?

[jen]

I can't believe I have not heard of these Betsy-Tacy books because I had to get permission from my small town library to check out books from the adult section because I had read everything in the youth section.

It is hard to see changes in someone you see every day...so glad Patrick is doing better. We had a spare mattress on the dining room floor for quite some time simply because after we had some guests, Carter loved playing on it so much we couldn't bear to take it away from him...it was so much fun to roll around on it.

Also, wow, Edward is advanced.

[Helen]

Don't want to freak you out but that ruin has slight (GLARING)overtones of Blair Witchesqueness - or is it just me. Glad sprogs are better and if you're excited now just wait until your kids are old enough to take themselves to school - my son has just started secondary school and now walks himself to school - bliss!

[ailo]

Ah, Julia, I do love your writing so, so much.

"He is like the guy at the frat house who keeps trying to finish his paper despite the fact that people are using his room for kegstands."

Coworkers are looking at me... science is not supposed to be funny!

[Hawkeyegirl]

I would love to do a ghost hunt in that building, no matter what it is! We did one a few months ago at a falling down, turn of the century inn in Missouri that was so much fun. I think the barn or church or whatever looks even more fun.

Edward and his cuteness continue to provide me with incentive to try this whole 'having children' business. Sigh...

[Beth]

Yes, I was going to say that it's definitely a church. Lovely. What stories those stones could tell us ...

And (yay!) on Betsy-Tacy *smile* And they're back in print.

[Anne]

I lived in Mankato for a few years and it was wasted on me, because -- despite being a voracious bookworm as a kid -- I somehow never read Betsy-Tacy. But I did love Laura Ingalls Wilder, and drove up to see her house in Walnut Grove. Only to be very irritated that the TV show had displaced my beloved books. There was a (recently built in authentic historic fashion) sod house on the way to Walnut Grove that was much cooler than the Little House museum. You shoudl check it out. I believe you could even spend the night there, if you were up for the full outhouse experience.

I think the ruins are someone's home--a church wouldn't have stairs. And I'm guessing (based on the extensive knowledge of Days Gone By that I gained from the Little House books) that the windows are only on one side because that was the side with less exposure to the weather and/or more sunlight.

[Pam L]

"When you found out that they weren't sad like you were?"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You must have told him you cried before, but this is funny.

The building could be a chapel or a small stone cabin since they went to the trouble of plastering the walls and it had an upstairs, or at least a loft and someone cabled it to preserve it somewhat so it wouldn't fall down completely so it had some historical significance even back then, maybe a chapel or a school? Any roads nearby? or old trails?

[Julie]

I think it was some kind of church too -- at least one window seems cross-shaped.

So glad Patrick is better, and adore his concern for your "sadness" in the midst of celebration.

We had muffins for the first day of school too! Plain old blueberry, but I used local blueberries. Yum.

[Nina]

Oh my! Julia, I know exactly how you feel. My son was verging on cyanotic when I took him to the doctor and was told he had an isolated wheeze in his upper right lung. After using an inhaler, he was whezzeing throughout his lungs. The doc looked at his nailbeds, slapped a pulse ox monitor on him and told me the poor kid wasn't moving enough air to wheeze without albuterol. Much like you, we left in an ambulance.

I love Betsy-Tacy, too. I bought the entire set from Amazon a few years ago. I re-read the whole thing a few times a year. The next time we go to MN, I may ask DSIL if we can go sight see.

I'm very glad that Patrick is on the mend and Edward totally reminds me of my son, who is very academic and prefers chess to cartoons.

[MustangSally]

Looks like a little chapel in the woods, to me. Built of stone, whitewashed inside - The front aspect is just screaming to have a steeple right at the top of that peaked roofline - and I bet it was the weight of it coming down (maybe pulled down?) that would have brought down the rest of that gaping hole - where probably the entrance was.

[Nikki]

The fact that you're a Betsy-Tacy reader is..absolutely not surprising. But it makes me love you that much more anyway. We opted for a passage out of "Betsy Gets Married" at my wedding instead of a bible verse. Seemed apt, as I ended up with my own blond newspaperman. (No cane or swagger, though, I'm afraid.)

[terri c]

SO glad Patrick is better. Love the story about the party, and Patrick's sympathy.