Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Well, I'm sitting here in the charming public library of Newark, New York, Jewel of the Finger Lakes, ancestral home of the Jane Galt Line. I appear to have stepped back through a time warp -- not only is my access to the internet practically non-existant (The snakes! The snakes!), but also, I have been entirely preoccupied with the sort of antediluvian baking frenzy normally associated with Very Special Christmas Movies set in the 19th century. If there is anything more disturbing than a vegetarian putting together the pre-Christmas ham, I am hard put to think of it.

(Incidentally, if you want a great glazed ham take a box of brown sugar, a tablespoon or so of hot dry mustard, and mix in enough scotch to make the entire thing the consistency of damp sand. Slap it on the ham along with any cloves or sundries you like early in the morning. A couple hours before dinner, pop it in the oven for an hour and a half at 400, until the glaze is shiny. Guaranteed delicious. If you eat meat. Me, I just watch.)

So far I have produced three sorts of cookies, banana bread, a glazed ham, ham and cheese rolls, assorted vegetables and desserts, and I've batted backup on sundries like scalloped potatoes and sour cherry pie. I've been busy. I'm also afraid I may not fit in the car to go back to New York.

But there are compensations. We've had snow, and the dog is in seventh heaven. Also, my grandparents, who are delightfully Victorian, make me feel re-connected with my roots. Favorite quote of the week:

Grandpa: So I couldn't find the cane at the DAR house, and I thought she might have left it at the United Methodist, but when I went over there the darn church was locked up tight. . .

Grandma: George! (Shocked) You hadn't ought to have said "darn" in front of the girls.

Of course, it's a little sad, too. My grandparents grew up on farms in small town America back when small town America was a world nearly as alien to the city as Afghanistan is to us. My mother lived off the farm, but grew up in a small town. I know what it was like through their memories, but my children won't really, and probably they'll never visit enough to remember it. And their children. . . seeing how old my grandparents are reminds me how much of our history we are always losing, irreplaceably, as the people who remember it pass.

But this Christmas is good. We're having an enormous dinner for an enormous number of relatives, and if it has been a bad year for everyone, enough of my relatives lived through the Depression that we can't really take it too seriously. And it's good to be all together again.

I won't be able to blog much this week, but I hope that all of you are having as nice a Christmas as I am.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Posted by Jane Galt at December 23, 2002 8:09 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links