A Little Change In Plans

Well. All those nice words I wrote about saying farewell to the trailer? Hold that thought. As the weekend got going we realized that we can't avoid one more trip there, to go to settlement on the construction loan. There was no point in putting everything away, uninstalling all the appliances, and forcing ourselves to pay for lodging for that momentous occasion. When we were making plans for this Delaware season, seemingly years ago and before house plans solidified to the stage they've now reached, we had contemplated making the last weekend November 20-24 anyway. So that's what it'll be. It's a good thing we were there, because the guy who will be doing the clearing and demolition came knocking to see if we were still dismantling as scheduled. We were there, thank God, to inform him of the delay. We may have driven up to a barren lot come November 20.

But one important decision did come of the weekend. We had our final meeting with Dale, the designer. We arrived still with every intention of showing the plans to a couple of other companies to see if we could get a better price. But when we left and had some time to think about it, we realized that Dale, with his intimate knowledge of the place and of our desires, not to mention his total investment in the process, was too good an asset to let go. He has been a true partner through all of this and it was impossible to imagine the same kind of relationship with somebody else. On top of that, the price his company offered turned out to be a bargain impossible to pass up. The fact that prices will probably change by the time we get around to building is unavoidable and would be true regardless of the company we ended up with. Given all these considerations, we decided we couldn't do better anywhere else and still be assured of the service Dale will provide. So we removed one cumbersome step from the process. One load gone. It feels like an accomplishment!

I'm a bachelor yet again this entire week, until Friday. This closeout of Steve's project, of which he is hands-on director, is more complicated than anybody thought it would be. (I guess that's par for the course.) I hate rattling around here alone, and he returns from these marathon away jobs like a rag doll. But it'll soon be over and it's helping to pay for this huge project we've taken on. Hate living with it, can't live without it. What else is new?

FOOD FRIDAY!

GREEN SALAD WITH NAVEL ORANGE, RED ONION AND OLIVES

This final dispatch from the Delaware trailer is a simple but snappy concoction I served to Chuck and Sandy with the Peruvian Shrimp Soup a week ago tonight. It's inspired by flavors from south of the border and is a perfect foil to the richness of the soup. I could have sworn I'd collected it somewhere, but when I went looking for the recipe last week I couldn't find it, so I winged it from memory. It's different, and it's good!

2 medium sweet navel oranges, peeled, sections separated and cut into bite-size chunks

1 small red onion

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons chile powder

1/2 cup seeded kalamata olives

1/4 cup lime juice

3/4 cup olive oil

1 bag torn soft lettuces (hearts of romaine will also do)

Peel onion and halve from pole to pole. Slice halves into very thin half-moons.

An hour before serving, place orange chunks and onion slices in salad bowl. Toss with salt and set aside about an hour, allowing juices to extract.

Add remaining ingredients in order listed, toss to combine well, serve.

The home stretch

I write from the Delaware trailer. My eyes fall on the reassuringly familiar sights they expect. To my left is the view out the big window to the water. Just in front of that is the TV on its stand, and the comfortable thrift store furniture arranged near it. The green curtains we hung so excitedly four summers ago are still on their rods. If I walk into the dining room and the adjoining kitchen, everything is in place, except that the dining room is full of boxes in various stages of fullness. All the dishes are still in their cabinets and the little wheeled work island Steve made is where it's supposed to be.

All of this will change over the next two days. Today I'll pack the entire kitchen except for what we'll need to eat until Saturday night. Always remembering that when we finally move here we'll be consolidating two houses, I'll decide on what should be stored and what can be given to the thrift store.

Tomorrow we will spend several hours with the builder, who will present his final proposal. It will include a detailed price list of every choice we have made: exterior treatments, wall paints, carpets, tiles, appliances, light fixtures, deck railings, the bamboo floors and stairs, the stone fireplace facing. It will list the cost of paving the driveway and landscaping whatever grounds we end up with; in short, we'll have his grand total for key-ready construction of our new house. After that, we will shop this package (except the final cost) to other builders to see if they offer a lower price. We've enjoyed working with Dale, the designer, and his construction company very much. He's taken a personal interest in the house because it's been a stretch for him, a challenge. He's proud of the ideas he's come up with to create a very nice but unobtrusive house on a tiny lot. We'd love to go full circle with him and let his company do the construction, but we owe it to ourselves to see what the marketplace has to say. If we get a lower bid from elsewhere, we'll ask Dale if his company is willing to match it, and if they are, we'll still go with them. If not, we'll shake hands with Dale and invite him to the housewarming.

Saturday, most of what I'm looking at now will go. All the furniture will return to the thrift store from whence it came. The stove, refrigerator and hot water heater will be uninstalled and taken to the storage shed, to be sold, along with the window air conditioner (we hope), on Craigs List when we're here for good. (We'll keep the fridge, though, which is new and will work well in the garage for overflow from the kitchen.) The TV and its stand, along with a couple of fold-up rocking chairs, will spend the last night here with us so we can watch The Wire DVDs while we eat a pig-out pizza from Vinny's off paper plates. Our last supper.

Saturday night will be last one this little trailer will enclose anyone in its ancient arms. Sunday morning we'll deflate the airbeds, pack the bedding, the TV, its stand, and the rocking chairs, and we'll be off, first for one last visit to the storage shed, and then back to Virginia. One day in December, we know not yet which, this cozy little place, so full of happiness and plans, will cease to exist but for a photo album and our memories.

A good night!

I'm was by myself last night and exhausted. I watched the returns and saw my man miraculously take Ohio and Pennsylvania. As exciting as the moment was, I was tired of pundit logorrhea and fighting sleep, so I went to bed, missing the modern-day fall of Virginia, my home state, but certain of this morning's headlines. The phone rang at 11 o'clock and it was our friends Jim and Kemp, also watching by themselves, calling just to share the joy. They were beside themselves, laughing and crying at the same time. What a way to be awakened! I went back to the TV to watch the victory speech before the throng in Chicago, wishing for a moment I could be there. But TV showed me things I'd never have seen in person: panoramic views of that enormous, happy crowd, and shots of Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Jackson, two powerful people by any measure, weeping with joy as that beautiful, diverse group of new first families, possible only in America, greeted the crowd from the stage. Barack could not have chosen a better allegory than the 109-year-old woman, daughter of slaves, who with her vote helped this victory happen and lived to see its fruition.

So many others have said it, but I share the feeling: for the first time, I felt unvarnished pride at being American. At last, we are living up to our promise. No matter what happens from here on out, that can never be taken away from us.

It's now up to all of us to make sure the joy of this moment is not wasted, and that our better angels usher in the changes this country so badly needs.

Duty Done

I'm here, after a disjointed morning. We made the big mistake of trying to vote as soon as the polls opened, only to find a line of a couple hundred compatriots waiting to do the same thing. Steve had a plane to catch at 10 AM, so we were afraid if we stood in line he'd miss his flight. We took another trip to the polling place an hour later: same story. It got too late to wait around any longer, so I took Steve to the airport and went by the polling place once again on my way back. There was hardly anybody there! By 8:30 the early crowds had come and gone, and I breezed my way inside, only to wait about 20 minutes to exercise my franchise. I called Steve, by now waiting to board at the airport, just to gloat. He was p.o.'ed, of course. He had been looking forward to today as much as I had. This is the first vote he'll have missed, ever; he has a good excuse, so he can be forgiven. Next time, in Delaware.....

It's somewhat embarrassing to remember that I was 30 years old before I voted the first time, for Jimmy Carter in 1976. In my defense, my life had been pretty peripatetic until then; that was the first year I'd actually lived in one place long enough to know that if I registered to vote, I'd still be living there on voting day. I can also say that I haven't missed an election since, so I've made up for my previous lost chances. I remember the feeling I had after casting that first vote. It was a sunny, warm day for November in DC and I felt very happy and proud to be strolling along the bright streets of the Nation's Capital, showing off my "I voted!" sticker. No matter how many times I've done it since, I still feel the same way. I'm not usually much of a flag waver, but the vote is the most basic duty and privilege we have as citizens of the United States. The simple act of doing it makes all the lessons we learned in civics class resonate deeply in me, and I'm grateful I still feel that way.

Home-town tourists!

We put Chuck and Sandy on the plane back to North Carolina yesterday, and now real life has resumed where we left it Thursday, but with a difference. We're feeling refreshed, and as I predicted, healthfully distant from concerns that had been just too much with us for too long. It's amazing how a little vacation, even if it's just being a tourist in your own home town, can give a some perspective to things.

The Pompeii exhibit was all one could hope for, crammed with paintings and sculptures, true antiquities--not reproductions--that have never been brought together in one place before, much less left Italy. It's a transporting experience to be able to reach out and literally touch some carved piece of marble that you've seen pictured in countless history books. (No, I didn't really touch anything. But I ciuld have!) And, at least here in DC, it's free! (Well, not really. We've all paid for it with our federal income taxes. But about the free exhibits in the Smithsonian museums in DC I've always said: if this is socialism, I'll take it!)

On Saturday we did what we jaded locals consider one of the most trite things you can do: visited Mount Vernon, George Washington's grand plantation house south of town on the Potomac. It's one of those historical treasures we take completely for granted because of its proximity (a mere 15 miles from our front door) and the ubiquitous references to it in the local landscape, with roads, neighborhoods, and every sort of commercial enterprise named after it. The last time Steve had been there was in 1976, on the occasion of a family visit. I couldn't even remember the last time I was there. Well, things have changed.

We were there literally all day and enjoyed every minute of it. For a mere $13 you get a guided tour of most of the rooms in the mansion, which have been restored with period furniture and paint to the comfortable opulence George and Martha experienced daily (except for the times when George wasn't off fighting wars or running the country). Additionally, you are free to sit on the grand veranda on the back of the house, which looks out on the beautiful river panorama, and roam the grounds at will. You see how the place was run, the wash-house, the smoke-house, the horse barn and paddock, and the little house next to the main one where the house slaves lived. Since George was the 4th generation Washington to live at the house, there was already a family crypt, which was decrepit even in his day. When he died in 1799, he was buried there, but he stipulated in his will that a new family burial ground should be prepared and that he should be moved there when it was completed. You see both burial grounds. We happened to be there to catch the chanving of the Marine guards at his grave.

And then there is the pièce de résistance: a George Washington museum, completed only 2 years ago. It represents state-of-the-art curatorship, giving a viewer-friendly overview of the conditions leading up to the Revolution, including the battle in the French and Indian War in which Washington distinguished himself for the first time as a field commander. There are three short films about various aspects of his life in small theaters that give you a welcome chance to rest your bones after all the walking you've been doing, and there are eerily life-like reproductions of Washington himself at various ages. You even see his famous false teeth (no, they weren't made of wood) and a video showing how they were made.

We parked the car at 11 AM and didn't pull out until 4:30. The day was beautiful and warm; the hours flew by, and we settled in for the ride back home grateful for a day well spent. If you plan on a trip to DC, there are worse things you could do than visiting Mount Vernon. It is admittedly off the beaten track if you're only planning on seeing the sights on The Mall, but if you have a bit of extra time, the day's excursion is well worth the effort.

And now we forge ahead.....

FOOD FRIDAY!

SHRIMP AND SCALLOP STEW WITH ARTICHOKES AND OLIVES

This recipe is the offspring of a TV show and a hankering for some seafood. We're big fans of Tyler Florence on the Food Network and his show Tyler's Ultimate. He's always upbeat, and his style of cooking fits mine: big, bold, and kind of sloppy (but he calls it "rustic"). He made something recently with a very simple tomato sauce. I didn't want that dish, but the sauce looked great, and it had been a long time since we'd had the two seafoods that both of us like, shrimp and scallops. I decided to experiment, and I got a winner. It's very rich, delicious, easy, and fast. There's so much tomato that it really comes out rather stew-ey (thus my name for it), and I like it that way. If you want to make it less wet, try using just one can of tomatoes. Either way, you'll like it. Plain spaghetti would work as a bed for it to lie on, but I lucked out and found some hand-made sun-dried tomato and basil flat pasta at a Pennsylvania Dutch market in Delaware. Given the cost of seafood, good pasta is appropriate for this dish. It's definitely company-worthy.

On the artichokes: if you can't get the frozen ones, don't bother with the marinated or canned. Their flavor will overpower the rest of the dish.

1 lb. sun-dried tomato-flavored ribbon pasta

2 tablespoons good olive oil

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 medium red onion, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic (or to taste) peeled and minced

2 28-oz. cans whole peeled tomatoes, broken into large chunks, with juice

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 package (10 oz.) frozen artichoke hearts

1/2 lb. large shrimp

1/2 lb. small bay scallops. (If you can only get the larger sea scallops, cut them in half.)

1 cup whole, seeded kalamata olives

3 tablespoons heavy cream

Good Parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan deep enough to eventually hold the entire dish, including pasta. Add onion, garlic and pepper flakes and sauté until onion softens and garlic is fragrant. Add tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until sauce is slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Add basil and artichokes and simmer about 10 minutes more, until artichokes are cooked through. Stir in shrimp and scallops and simmer about 5 minutes, just until seafood is firm and opaque. Stir in cream to combine.

Taste for salt and add if necessary. Add cooked pasta to sauce and toss to combine.

Serve with grated Parmesan.