Update 12-29-09

Hi,

First, it might not be a bad idea to send best wishes to Ed Albrecht. He's fine now, but it was a kind of eventful week before Christmas. His e-mail address is:  SherlockInspections @ gmail.com  And you'll need to take the spaces around the @ out.  I don't seem to be able to deactivate links using this program.

Second, a recipe. We haven't traded one of those for a while. This one's for sugar cookies, and it's probably from Vienna, before 1870. It goes back to at least my great-grandmother, Mollie Spressler, and was passed on by my grandmother, Sadie Eisbrouch, and then by my sister, Marilyn. These cookies are wafer thin, very sweet, but they're only about 12 calories each. This recipe makes 200 cookies, which, in my house, last about 10 minutes.

1/4 pound butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of unsifted flour

Combine the butter, eggs, baking powder, sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt. Then, gradually, add the flour.
Refrigerate the dough for at least 3 hours.
Quarter it, into 4 equal-sized balls.
Dust your surface with flour.
Dust the dough with flour.
Roll out one ball as thin as you can get it -- about 1/8 inch or thinner
Using a knife, cut the dough into 2 inch squares.
Then cut each square once, diagonally.
Lift each triangle onto a cookie sheet -- we bake the cookies on parchment paper.
Use the irregular-shaped pieces from the edges, too.
Lightly, but evenly, sprinkle the cookies with sugar.
Bake, at 350 degrees, for 6 to 10 minutes, depending on your oven and the cookie sheets. But watch the cookies carefully. They bake quickly. Take them out of the oven as soon as their edges begin to lightly brown

Traditionally, my family used a carrot cutter, instead of a knife, to cut the cookies. This leaves an edge like a scalloped French fry, and my sister swears that affects the taste. She also said, "Don't store the cookies in tins because the cookies lose their crispness." I don't know about that, either, because I've never had enough cookies around long enough to find out.

Third, fourth, and fifth: three sweet animal stories.

From Zelda White Nichols: When we lived in California, our dog adopted us. She'd been a stray one of our neighbors found wandering around a canyon. The dog had been beaten many times, had recently had a litter of pups, and was half-starved to death. The neighbor took her in and brought her back to health a year before we moved in, but, once we did, the dog -- Daisy -- kept jumping the fence to come into our yard.
     We love dogs and cats, and when we looked at the house the first time, Daisy came to meet us, tail wagging, with a big grin on her face.  We fell in love with her, and she was always welcome when she came to visit. But other neighbors filed a complaint about her always running loose, and our neighbor was going to take Daisy to a shelter. That’s when we said we'd adopt her. Our vet thought she was ten to twelve years old.
     Daisy wouldn't walk on a leash but was very well trained off-leash. Even at her age, she was always learning new tricks, like responding to my hand signals when we were outdoors. We had three Korats at the time, and two of them adored Daisy. The other was jealous and would pee on Daisy’s bed. But Daisy never took revenge.
     Back then, my husband, Dave, traveled eighty percent of the time, so Daisy was a real companion, and she was with me when the Cedar Fire hit San Diego County. We were in the heart of the blaze, and I took Daisy and the cats out to the desert when we had to evacuate. The only thing I forgot to pack in our emergency kits was her leash. Still, she never ran off as many dogs would. She stayed by my side all the way to the hotel and was with me every moment for the next two weeks. Such a strong bond formed out of that experience that when we had to put her down a year later, my heart was broken.
     She died suddenly: one day, she was fine, and the next, she was sick every two minutes. It turned out she had severe diabetes, and the vets couldn’t regulate her medication and glucose. She stayed at the vets' for four days, and then we brought her home, thinking she might be okay. But it turned out she just wanted to say good bye to the cats. The next morning, she didn’t recognize them, and we knew it was time to say "good-bye.".
     I don’t know what other people's beliefs are, but there were times when I've felt her presence so clearly, I actually reached out to put my arm around her shoulder, the way I would when she rode in the car with me. Even after moving across the country, I would feel her here.
   A year ago, a little dun-colored cat, the same color as Daisy, came out of the woods to our porch. I fed her for six months, but she wouldn’t let me pet her. Our little male Korat, Blue, fell in love with her through the glass doors and windows. They would sit, side-by-side, with the glass between them. I named the cat "Annie," after "Little Orphan Annie," because she seemed that pitiful. After six months, she became pregnant and had a litter of five kittens on our porch. Once she gave birth, she became very affectionate towards us, and we found homes for two of the kittens but kept Annie and the others.
    I swear Annie is Daisy reincarnated. She, too, was a starving stray, and she's incredibly intuitive, seeming to know exactly what I'm saying to her all the time. As I said, I love all animals and have had cats and dogs all my life. But it’s a rarity to have one come along that is so special.

From Barbara Blitfield Pech: For almost nineteen years, I was the proud owner, keeper, and "mother" of Benji, the Wonder Dog. We always wondered what mix he was: Poodle? Wired hair terrier? Terra-poo? Or our fancier term, "Pooie-ier?" Benji was a simply a dog, with no particular talent, extra smarts, or tricks, other than arriving at our home at the tender age of eight-weeks-old, the same weight as my son at birth. His only table scrap dining request was pasta -- any kind of pasta. He wasn't big on barking because he was probably too lazy, and, maybe for the same reason, he wouldn't chase a ball. He ran off with and spit out in the back yard every chew stick we gave him, but he was non-shedding, he always smelled doggie fresh, and he would literally lay on my son's pillows, waiting to be tucked in with him. Then, just after the lights went out and Evan's eyes closed, Benji would step on the kid's head, tearing off the bed and back to the family room. He went well beyond being the cherished family pet and became the fur-covered second child who never grew up..
    Over the years, we were fortunate to have a very healthy dog that never had any reason for medical attention. We didn't even notice his aging until his last months, when his ability to sprint and leap onto my bed became a comedy act only second to Harold Lloyd's teetering on the flag pole. His energy lessened to that of a "regular" dog, and, at the same time, we noticed during his daily walks that he seemed vague and lost as to the way to get back home, even when he was three or four houses down our street. In short, Benji developed "dog-heimers."
    It was time -- eight times -- for me to drive him to the doctor who had cared for him for eighteen years. But eight times I never got out of the car, and, instead, turned it around. I wasn't ready. I prepared for the inevitable, over and over, but never actually faced it. Finally, I said -- no, cried -- my goodbyes to a cataract-eyed, hearing-impaired, sweet puppy face, made him a final bowl of spaghetti, took a tear-stained last walk.with him, packed away his water and food bowl, gave away his storage cans and kibble, then took the ninth ride. I held Benji as the vet gave him an injection that put him into a deep sleep and then the final cocktail. It was a fast, painless, sweet, envied goodbye.

From Evelyn Roedel Read: I mentioned that the limo driver at my mother's funeral was named "Walter," as were my grandfather, father, and brother. But I didn't mention that "Walter" was also the name of my first kid -- a baby goat named "Walter the Fourth" that I had when I was single and thought I might never get married and have children of my own.
    Before this, I'd bought a French Alpine goat named "Sweetie," and, every morning before going to school to teach, I went to the garage to feed her and to sweep out "the coffee beans." One morning, I went in, and there was a baby!
    What did I know about pregnancy? I was young and single. I thought that Sweetie was just eating well.
    Anyway, my brother Walter was a prankster, so when I wrote to him in Vietnam that night, I told him that I had some news: I had had a kid -- now, that wasn't a lie. But you have to remember that, in those days, pregnancy while being single could have cost me my job. In a later letter, I went on to mention that the kid was part black and part white. That set Walter thinking. After a while, I mentioned that the kid had four legs. Finally, I confessed that the kid was a little goat. I tried to get Walter's goat with my goat tale.

Sixth, Happy New Year.

The South '65 e-mail addresses:  reunionclass65.blogspot.com

The South '65 photo site:  picasaweb.google.com/SouthHS65


Rich