Late November Clan Subset Gathering

(Note: this post was composed using Microsoft's "Live Writer," which I don't think I'm going to use again.)

A subset of the extended clan gathered at Ft. Harrington on Thanksgiving (US variety) weekend to indulge in non-turkey feasting – and to gather up presents from Ireland that somehow had not yet been distributed.

Dessert Time. Clockwise from left: Grace, Andrew, Lynda, Adam, Gisella, Ryan (behind his mom), Mrs. Fort. Grace’s mom, Adrianne, had to leave before chow time.

Lasagna, salad, garlic bread (yummily not turkey, which all of us had over-ingested in other places the previous Thursday) followed by two kinds of pie: apple and pumpkin (pies accompanied by an ice cream option, of course) – Diane put on her usual fare with country flair.

Adam and Gisella, closer-up.

Gisella is Lynda’s daughter Jamie’s little girl, which makes her Adam’s step-granddaughter.

Which makes her my step-great-granddaughter!

Ryan and his hat from Donegal.

Ryan took an afternoon off from his waiter’s gig – and from studying for his EMT course. (If all goes well, he should be licensed for the latter by early next year.) He couldn’t bring the lovely Casey with him this time, but we all were thinking of her.

Adam and Grace with their Irish souvenirs. Note old Kelsey-the-Dog in the lower-right.

“My dad went to Ireland and all I got was this rugby shirt.”

Adam’s shirt – identifiably Irish by three discreet shamrocks about where Grace’s wrist is – came from Kenmare as did Grace’s cap. Her necklace is from Mullingar, as is a belt-watch for Andrew (which can’t be seen in the picture below.)

Andrew with Emma

Grace and her mom compare knit goods. The champagne flute is also from Mullingar.

In the above picture, Adrianne is not wearing a significant new piece of jewelry that she recently acquired: an engagement ring! She and her Ryan (“her” to distinguish from Diane’s Ryan) will marry in May or June.

Grace models her new bling. Notice Emma-the-Spaniel in the lower-left: she still absolutely adores Grace, and is never more than a few feet from the girl whenever she visits.

Now eight years old, Grace has developed a wide variety of facial expressions and uses them to great effect.

Grace and old Fonzie.

After the ruckus

Once the leftover containers had been filled and taken, after the last hug and kiss good-bye of the evening was done, the various animals in the Ft. Harrington menagerie had a variety of different reactions. Extremes of that spectrum are shown here. Jax, bred as Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are to be sociable and intoxicated by children, was exhausted, collapsed on his pile of pillows on the couch, and was dead to the world for hours. Finn McCool, on the other hand, still not comfortable with people he doesn’t know, hid under the bed all day, so when everyone left he was wound up, energized, and ready to rock and roll! If this were a video, you’d see his tail whipping back and forth.

I hope you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend, too – and, from all of us at Ft. Harrington of any number of feet, we wish you a warm and happy holiday season ahead!

The Best Ball of All: Baseball at the Edge of Teen

This post is for Andrew Rusca.
But anybody else is welcome to watch the game, of course.
Please click on the images to see much better versions.

Looking in from behind the right field fence, first inning. The venue is the Will C. Wood School's baseball complex in Alameda, California, an island city in San Francisco Bay. The right fielder, #13 on his back but #1 in our cheers, is Andrew. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

Last Saturday, April 18th, Adam and Lynda invited me to Alameda to watch Lynda's son, Andrew Rusca, play with his Little League team (the Diamondbacks) against the league's A's. It was a gorgeous day for a little drive, and a great opportunity to see how Little League had changed since I was of that age. (Not much, really, as it turns out: the uniforms are fancier, and there are a lot more regulations concerning safety and injury issues, but a fastball is still a fastball, a line drive into the left field corner is still pretty surely a double, and the big kid on the other team who yells a lot is still a jerk.)

Andrew started the game in right field for the Diamondbacks. Here he measures a fly ball for the grasping. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

I had hoped to see Andrew pitch, since he does very well on the mound, but he had pitched in the team's previous game and according to pitch-count regulations was ineligible to pitch on Saturday.

The view from right field in the first inning. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

Above: In the bottom of the second inning, Andrew (batting fourth) led off and made his way to second base, but only after two were out. He leans toward third (actual off-base leads are forbidden in Little League until the pitch is thrown, just as was the case half a century ago)...

... and, rounding third, tries to score on a single...

... makes a textbook slide as the throw from the outfield comes to the catcher...

... and is CALLED OUT ON THIS PLAY. Can you believe it?? After this play, the Diamondbacks' manager came out to argue with the ump, but to no avail. (To all of our credit, the adults in the stands didn't make a peep -- but, damn, he was safe. Really.)

Between-innings entertainment: a gorgeous, elegant CKCS-Terrier mix enchants the photographer.

Adam and I talked about Andrew's batting stance and swing between his first plate appearance and his second (above). Andrew's a big kid for his age, and really, really wants to pop one over the fence -- an urge that can lead a kid to overswing and try to "kill" the ball, leading to an undisciplined, unproductive effort. Adam expressed some worry that Andrew was falling into that trap, but I didn't see any evidence of it on Saturday. What I did see was a patient, controlled batter with a compact, efficient, level swing -- the kind of batter I hated to see half a century ago when I was a pitcher!

... and, in this at-bat, that compact, level swing paid off with a laser-shot double down the left field line.

Andrew coasts into second base as the throw comes in from the left fielder to the shortstop.

Andrew surveys the territory from second base after his double.

Ready to go to third...

... where he is stranded as the third out is made. No matter how good you are, you still need your teammates to come through.

Mid-game, Andrew was moved from right field to first base on defense. Above, he takes a throw from the third baseman on a ground ball...

... recording the forceout at first, but -- seeing a runner break toward home from third base...

... fires the ball back to home, where the runner is O-U-T. Double play!

A later at-bat, and that great compact swing is still alive...

... putting Andrew at first base...

... from which he takes off for second...

... and puts on another sliding-form clinic. Better result this time, though.

He eventually makes his way to third...

... and the batter slices one that might allow Andrew to score...

... but it wasn't to be. Baseball, she breaks your heart.

As I drove back South after the game, across the causeway from the island of Alameda to the East Bay mainland, I stopped to look across the estuary to the Oakland Coliseum complex.

It struck me that my sons and I -- and, as they matured into men, their families and I -- had sat in those stands for many, many afternoons over the past 40 summers, and always the final score was important when we left. Did the A's win? Did the A's lose?

And I was struck by the fact that I didn't even remember the score of the Little League game I had just seen. I had been connected to the details, not the uniforms, as I was when I played the game. What I remember most clearly about playing the game 50 years ago, when I was Andrew's age, are the little things -- the pitch well-thrown, the ball well-struck, the out or the safe arrival at a base -- not whether my team won or lost. Watching Andrew go through the details of his game took me back to that sense of baseball, and he handled those details extremely well.

And that pleased me.

Thank you, Andrew, and I hope to come back to watch you play again sometime soon.

Casey's First Ft. Harrington BBQ

I'm not sure if "tradition" is really the right word for it. "Common sense" may be a better term. After all, if some member of your family lives in a place like the Santa Cruz Mountains, then a summer barbeque there is just The Right Thing To Do. No tradition necessary, no bunting, no nothin' but a bit of a travel.

So we do it every summer as a simple matter of course and season.

This high summer, the usual small subgroup of the extended family gathered at Ft. Harrington for the traditional/common-sensical barbeque last Saturday, August 16th... and, for the first possible time, Casey Rose Vickers was in attendance!

Casey Vickers, August 16th, 2008. All babies look like Winston Churchill at some point; it takes a special one to master his gestures at such a young age.

We eat well, but not extravagantly, at these summer gatherings. To demonstrate that, I'll scatter recipes for our eats (in red) between the photos here. (All of these recipes are for a group of about eight people. We had a total of ten, but one of those was an infant, two were very young girls, and one had eaten before arriving. In the aftermath, we had a lot of leftover beans, tiny amounts of leftover ribs, and no leftover desserts at all. Big surprise, that last one, eh?)

Oh, and the photos: Blogger presents very low-resolution images in the body of a blog. If you click on an image, though, you're taken to a file of whatever size and resolution the blogist (is that a word? should it be? crikey, I don't know) has uploaded to Google's universal memory. Mine are of modestly high resolution, and significantly better than what you see on this page, so please click on a few of them.

Grace and her Uncle Adam. The candles are citronella bug-be-gone-ers. They worked.

Pork Ribs
Four slabs of "baby back" pork ribs
(Full-sized ribs would be fine, too, but I use baby backs to conserve volume in a single Weber 22-1/2" kettle.)
Cut slabs into thirds, and rub liberally (in the AMOUNT sense, Dann!) with this mixture (which I cribbed from a story in the San Jose Mercury News in 1995):
1 part each:
salt
ground cumin
ground black pepper
chili powder
2 parts each:
sugar
paprika
(I generally shake up a bunch of this at the beginning of the summer and store it in a restaurant-style cheese shaker for use throughout the season.)
After letting the rib slab portions sit in their jackets of rub for a while (that's a southern while, not a northern one, please note), grill over indirect heat for about an hour and a quarter.
Grilling notes: I think this, and everything else, tastes better over a charcoal heat source rather than a gas grill, but that's like Mac-vs-PC or Beta-VHS or Betty-Veronica, I know. What's probably not just a matter of preference is this: DON'T use lighter fluid (or other petrochemical accelerants) to get your charcoal going. It adds a taste that some like, but which overwhelms other tastes. I've used a chimney for starting charcoal fires for more than ten years, and it's wonderful -- not only odor-free, but much, much more reliable than any other method of starting a charcoal fire.

Adrianne and Grace. I think this is a lovely photo, but Adrianne laughed when she saw it: evidently, this is a typical brace of expressions when Grace is lobbying for something that her mom doesn't think is quite warranted at the time -- so what we're seeing here is parenting in action. (I still think it's a wonderful view of them both, though -- maybe even better when we know the backstory!)

We were all lucky enough to be treated to Grace's friend Scout again, as we were ten weeks earlier. As I told Adam this past weekend, Scout is like Yosemite National Park in one respect: it's almost impossible to take a bad picture of either one of them.

Diane's Cole Slaw
half a head of white cabbage, finely shredded
stir with a dressing of:
1 cup Italian parsley
1/2 cup chopped green onion
4 oz mayonnaise
2 tbs sour cream
1 tsp vinegar (ordinary white, not balsamic, etc.)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
This is not intended to "age" or "mature": mix immediately before serving.

Kelsey, as always, was in doggie heaven with all the people and children and activity that he usually doesn't get around here with his two old fogie people. This picture was taken on Saturday morning, before anyone arrived, and shows his anticipation, I think. It also shows his gray muzzle. Kelsey will turn ten in just a few months, and his face betrays his aged-ness every bit as much as my hair's color does mine. (Click here to see his black face in youth.) He's still in great health, though (albeit a bit lumpy here and there) and springy-spry. There's something to be said for a "blender dog" (as our vet calls mongrels): they're generally awfully sound for the long run. There's something else to be said for this particular blender dog: he's part of me now. I'm not sure exactly when that happened, but it's not going to change.

Starch:
BEANZ!
Approx. 100 oz. canned baked beans (3 32-oz cans or 2 54-oz. cans are pretty much standard)
1 lb. slab bacon or salt pork (increasingly rare in urban grocery stores; ordinary bacon will do fine but will lack that heart-stopping, chunky toothiness of real 1/4-inch cube wads of pork fat) cut in chunks.
3/4 cup of spicy catsup (such as Heinz's "Kick'rs") or ordinary catsup to which several shots of your favorite pepper sauce have been added. Do not let a teenager or your tipsy brother-in-law be in charge of this.
8 oz dark brown sugar (even if "sugar" is an ingredient on the bean cans' label -- this is a celebration beans recipe, remember?)
3 tbs honey
Half-cook the pork in a skillet, then mix everything together and let the whole thing stand for a day or two, preferably in a really, really heavy metal pot. Not for anything that involves taste, but for the am-bean-ce.

Ribs a-cookin': Lynda, Sherwood, and Adrianne chat on the deck. (Photo by Adam.)

Chicken at the barbeque: Old Lucy chatters at Adrianne. Lucy is our oldest chicken, well over five years old now. (Photo by Adam.)

Dessert 1:
Food Network's Key Lime Pie
Just click on the above link to go to the recipe. However, as it says and warns, the recipe involves uncooked egg yolks, so, to be safe, you'll need to gather six to eight very, very fresh eggs from your backyard chickens in order to make this yummy pie safe. I'm sorry, did that sound smug? Did I break your concentration? Also be warned: the recipe involves a whole can of sweetened condensed milk for a mere 9-inch pie. This thing is downright nuclear.

Casey and Gramma Diane

Much to her mom's amusement, Casey practices her hand-eye coordination on my beard.

Dessert 2:
Diane's Pina Colada Pie
The crust isn't so important for the taste of this, so you can start with a pre-fab, 9-inch pie crust from your supermarket's freezer section.
Other ingredients:
6 oz pineapple-coconut nectar (generally found in a soda-can style container)
8 oz coconut milk (generally found in the Asian foods section of most supermarkets)
1 box of Jell-O instant vanilla pudding and pie filling (3.4 oz is the standard size)
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
a bunch of whipped topping, such as Redi-Whip (at least a cup)
From here, the foodnetwork.com recipe works just fine:
Pour into pre-baked pie crust and chill in refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
Combine remaining whipped topping with 1/2 teaspoon rum extract. Top chilled pie with whipped topping and toasted coconut.In a large bowl, combine nectar, coconut milk, and 1 teaspoon rum extract. Sprinkle pudding mix over liquid and whisk for 2 minutes. Fold in coconut and 1/2 of the whipped topping.

Formal Group Photo 1
Standing in back: Sherwood, Lynda, Adam, Christel, Casey, Ryan
Others, clockwise from lower-left: Kelsey, Diane, Andrew, Adrianne, Scout, Grace, Emma
Feathery tail under bench: Jax-the-Spaniel

Formal Group Photo 2
Front-and-Center: Kelsey
Others, left-to-right: Adam, Lynda, Andrew, Ryan, Adrianne, Sherwood, Scout, Casey, Christel, Grace, Emma, Diane

Goofin' around, and...

... more goofin' around.

While the others couldn't stay for Sunday, a significant subset could: Lynda, Adam, Andrew, and Scout. They and Kelsey and Jax and I took a little walk in Henry Cowell State Park on Sunday afternoon (Emma had a little limp, since better, so she and Diane stayed home.)

Scout, Andrew, Jax, and Dan'l Boone in Henry Cowell Park. (Photo by Adam.)

Scout and Jax in Adam's car. Can you tell that Scout and Jax hit it off extremely well? As in extra-special bondo joy? (Photo by Adam.)

Scout, Andrew, Kelsey, and Jax at low water. (Photo by Adam. I actually forgot to bring my super-duper Nikon along on this outing, so the only available camera was Adam and Lynda's. I'm trying hard -- really hard -- not to notice that there's not a tinker's damn worth of noticeable difference between these Canon itty-bitty PNC pix and what the Nikon would have captured. But, know what? In most cases, it's the subjects that make the picture, not the box, so it shouldn't really be surprising. Besides, Adam's got a good eye for composition and content, as has been demonstrated here in SherWords before.)

Rocky. Mike and ronnie are in charge of Bullwinkle. (Photo taken with Lynda's camera.)

Lynda and Adam, Henry Cowell Park, August 17, 2008.

So that's this summer's barbeque -- hope you enjoyed it! Next summer, Casey should be able to sample some of the goodies herself, rather than having them cycled through mom first.