A Senator Reads His Mail

Dear Senator ----

I don't know if word has reached your office of any malfeasance involving the firm ----, which as you know has offices in ---- and ----. When I worked in the ---- office, it was called ----. I left the firm in 2011 when the poisonous environment there made it impossible to work, even if I hadn't had fears for my physical well-being. I was a good employee with excellent performance reviews, but I began having problems in the office around the end of 2003. It began with an episode of sexual harassment that I was not able to redress despite reporting it to my superiors on several occasions.

Over time, I began to feel that someone was attempting to undermine my credibility and standing in the office, and the situation grew worse when ---- took charge around 2009. After that, I actually began to feel concerned for my physical safety, though I was unable to get my supervisor to acknowledge my concerns.

From things that people have said to me, directly and indirectly, I gather there have been rumors of unsavory activity involving one or more members of the ---- office for quite some time. One of our ---- was shot in the head under mysterious circumstances in early 2008, ---- died of cancer (which someone implied to me may not have been an entirely natural occurrence), and a man with connections to our ---- committed suicide unexpectedly near the end of my time there.

The latter event happened in Fall 2010, coinciding with the onset of a terribly strained atmosphere in the office. I was unsure at the time why I felt so unsafe, but in intervening years, rumors have reached me of something akin to an "adult dating" type of ring connected with member(s) of the firm that involved more than just consenting adults (I think we are actually talking about felony child abuse and worse).

I began feeling concerned about the safety of my locks at home and believe my credit card information may have been accessed by someone at ---- intending to do me harm by setting me up without my knowledge on ---- or a similar sex club site. It seems that people are very hesitant to discuss anything openly, and it has taken me a long time to put the pieces together.

That seems like a lot of trouble to go to over a middle-aged librarian, but I believe I may have been targeted not just out of spite but also because some social acquaintances of mine, without my knowledge, may also have been connected with members of the firm and this illegal activity. I also noted that the atmosphere in the office turned considerably colder after I discussed a book I was reading about the Bush family's relationship with the Saudi royal house with one of our attorneys in 2004.

Lastly, I will tell you that my mother died in early 2007, and that I had been extremely concerned about her because of some strange activity that had taken place at her residence: a suicide next door, visits from a "young couple" she would not identify, and an attempted break-in in her apartment. I felt that something untoward was taking place but was never able to get her to tell me the truth of the matter. The ---- who died of cancer had formerly worked for my mother's family attorney, which was a coincidence I only learned of by accident. I cannot tell you with certainty of the precise way in which these matters are linked, but I do indeed think there is a link.

I continue to be concerned about not only my safety but that of other family members. I recently returned from a trip to ---- to check on my ---- and ---- when I grew alarmed after a long period of silence from my ----. I was nearly run off the road in ---- in what appeared to be a deliberate act and reported it to the ---- State Police, complete with license plate number. Unfortunately, this is not the first time something like that has happened.

I went to local police here in ---- about two years ago to make a complaint, but no investigation was done. I believe that ---- may also have some connection with the matters I'm discussing, and I have no faith in his integrity or that of his administration.

If I'm the first to mention any of this to you, I'm actually rather surprised. I feel that others probably have more direct knowledge of some of these events than I do, but as I know of no one else who has actually spoken openly or reported these matters to anyone in authority, I am doing so. If I can supply any other information, please let me know.

Sincerely.

Wordplay's Ghosts of Christmas, Past and Present

By rights, this should be the post in which I write about the new Star Wars film, which has the moviegoing public all agog this holiday season (and no wonder). Except that I'm not going to write about it because I haven't seen it. I heard last year, when an early trailer for the film was released, that George Lucas was distancing himself from the promo. I don't recall the reason given, but that gave me pause about seeing the movie, despite the fondness I have for the original. I know this isn't going to stop other people from seeing it, but, as always, I recommend being a cautious consumer when it comes to any and all media that present myths for your consideration. Just because it's out there doesn't mean you have to buy it.

When I saw Peter Jackson's final Hobbit film last year, it was like an early warning system for mythic mayhem to come. My feeling was that Mr. Jackson was trying to say something in that movie relevant to our times about wealth, greed, power, and evil, that perhaps the childlike story J.R.R. Tolkien wrote turned out to be impossible for a filmmaker with any honesty to tell in the same spirit in which it was written. It was a film with many dark undercurrents. His movie was not, in my view, a propaganda piece, but the same can't be said of everything floating around out there in popular culture. I've already cancelled magazine subscriptions over what I considered extracurricular editorializing and political messaging in both stories and ad content, so let the buyer beware. These things do happen.

A brief glance at the evening news reveals that we are living in strange times. Is anyone in doubt about it? When I tell someone the bare facts about the strange events in my own life, and they say, wow, that's pretty crazy, I want to say, "Well, have you watched the political news lately? Have you seen any of the debates, or caught any of the election action? Have you noticed the demented things the candidates are saying, or the aura of a sideshow that hangs over all things political? Have you ever, in your life, known an election season quite like this one?" I'm constantly caught between a need to stay informed and a healthy wish to avoid getting tangled up in the propaganda, war of words, and general craziness of the political scene. You occasionally hear something worth hearing, from someone worth listening to, but you sure have to wade through a lot of trash talk to get to it.

Christmas is by no means immune to tampering with by those with an agenda to push. Just on a personal level, I was amazed last year to get a black Christmas card from someone I used to know named Steve--and this story illustrates what I mean about the negative potential of symbols. As soon as I saw that card, it disturbed me, for reasons I couldn't quite have articulated on the spot. I just knew it wasn't something I wanted anywhere near me, so I threw it away. This year, when I got a card from the same person, I took it immediately to the dumpster without even opening it. I'm a believer in paying attention to things that bother you and taking them seriously, even if you're not sure why they bother you. Human beings have developed many ways of sensing things they need to avoid that don't fall strictly into the category of logical reasoning. Call it survival instinct.

So here it is, Christmas Eve 2015, a most un-Christmaslike Christmas from where I'm sitting, both as to weather and to mood. It has me in a proper Dickensian frame of mind, thinking about the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present. Just for one, there was that Christmas some eight years ago now, when I was in my second year of Myth Studies and taking a break from the books by watching movies on Christmas Eve. In between features, I happened to look out the window, which I do from time to time, just scanning the environment, as the healthy human animal tends to do. I was somewhat surprised to see a gathering of young men on the other side of the parking lot, just standing around outside their cars, which was odd considering the fact that there really wasn't anyone else around. They were all lined up in a row, looking toward my building in a way I didn't quite like. I was debating whether to call the police or not, but when I looked again, they had all gotten into their cars, and a few minutes later, they all left. It was, let's call it, unusual.

Actually, a lot of things happened right around then. The very next week, my then-boyfriend broke up with me. If I'm not mistaken, that was right before the incident in which a former law clerk at the firm where I worked was shot in the head at a party under what I was told were mysterious circumstances. Lots of peculiar behavior in the office and out of it. I recall going to a law librarians' event that week in which the attendees from the other firms acted like the two of us from my firm had typhoid. Odd. I happened to be in Starbucks a week or two later when I saw a former contract employee from our office who had supposedly taken a cushy job in Nashville a few years earlier. There he was, back in town, large as life--but looking, if a cliche can ever be said to be absolutely accurate, like Death Warmed Over. I have seriously never seen a human being look that haggard, as if he had aged 20 years in three.

Then there was the day I was in that upscale sandwich shop, probably only a week or so later, reading about the life of Buddha for a class, when I looked up and saw someone sitting across from me who definitely didn't look like he belonged there. In fact, he looked like a gangster, completely out of place in that yuppie sandwich shop, not doing anything, not even looking at anyone in particular, just sitting there. Sometimes, something is just out of place, and you know it. I got up and left, but not without knowing that something rather peculiar had just happened . . . it's no good trying to say I merely imagined it, though I certainly would rather have believed otherwise.

There was also that neighbor, the young man I didn't know (but who, as it turned out, knew my nephew) who knocked on the door one winter night saying that he had lost his cell phone while out celebrating his birthday and wanting to know if he could use my phone to call his. At that time being mostly unsuspicious of non-dangerous looking neighbors, I agreed. Not realizing that his cell phone number had a long distance area code, I ended up with a bunch of long distance calls on my bill, which I reported to the phone company as not being mine, since I knew I hadn't made them. Only later did I realize that they must have been the calls he placed. I think this happened close to the time of the other events, though I can't remember exactly. That was the one and only time I talked to this young man, and he moved out a few months later, if I recall correctly.

A string of events in the deep of winter eight years ago. I can't say with a certainty that they're all related, but I have the feeling that there is a pattern in there somewhere. Eight years later, with my life having gone in a direction I never would have imagined back then, I'm careful as to my locks, my computer files, and my credit cards (lest someone take my number and sign me up for something without my knowledge). It doesn't sound like a very cheerful way to live, but sometimes you just have to "keep on keeping on" until you get to a better place. Whether Winston Churchill actually said, "When you're going through hell, keep going" or not, it's good advice, whether you're caught in the bardo (as I was discussing recently with a friend), stuck on a glacier in a snowstorm in Utah, or merely making your way down the sidewalk in your own neighborhood.

It's not all gloom and doom. I have chocolate peppermint cookies, zydeco music on the stereo, a few presents under the tree (what says Christmas better than socks?), and a dinner to cook tomorrow. Life goes on, but in a somewhat reduced way. I'm not trying to dishearten anyone, but rather to do the opposite--to enlighten. I hope I've done so. Happy Holidays to all my friends, near and far, whether I see you often or not. I sincerely hope that 2016 will be a better and brighter year for us all.

From Kentucky, With Love

I'm back home after a wild and spontaneous trip out west. After my surreal and distressing 2012 California trip (see my post "Out West"), I sure wasn't planning to do anything like that again. I didn't think anything could induce me to cross the Mississippi River by car after that little adventure, but here's how it came about.

My regular readers will recall from last week that I was having lock concerns. I'm used to strange noises and people coming in and out of the building at odd hours, but something just didn't feel right that night. I had the lock changed temporarily until a permanent one could be made but was naturally concerned about what was only the latest in a series of strange events in and around my building. This has been going on for quite some time and shows no signs of getting better.

I was having new tires put on my car that day, so I was feeling extra vulnerable due to being sans vehicle. After I picked it up the next day, I was running errands when a feeling of unease started growing on me. I'd been thinking about my brother and nephew in Idaho ever since getting a card from my brother's former in-laws saying that my nephew was getting braces and a new little brother. Communication has been sparse from my brother for the last few years, which actually is a very surprising development, though everyone I mention it to seems to disagree (which I also find odd). Feeling that the "zone of silence" around my brother had gone on too long and that it was time to reconnect, I packed up some things and left that night.

I decided to break the trip up by visiting a friend in Denver. Although it was good to see her, it was a little distressing. She, too, tried to dissuade me from going to Idaho (what the heck is so unnatural about wanting to be in touch with family?). At first I thought she might be right, but then I decided that the need to lay my own eyes on my brother was more important than what anyone else said. I crossed the Colorado mountains at night and inched my way down a mountain range in Utah on snow (hey, at least I had new tires), reasoning that if I stopped I was only going to get stuck. Not my preferred way to travel, but you do what you have to do. Anyway, it worked. I drove out of the snow and made it to Interstate 15. One of the few transcendent moments of the trip came in seeing the beautiful white mountains south of Provo swing into sight and dominate the view for miles as I was heading north.

One of the least transcendent moments of the trip came a couple of hours later, when a green-gold Infiniti swerved and nearly caused me to wreck in heavy traffic. I later reported it to the Utah State Police as what looked like a deliberate act but didn't get much response. By the way, it was Utah license plate number C24 6RA in case anyone knows 'em. Despite that and a few other contretemps (including being boxed in by a number of cars as I approached a dangerous merging area), I got to Pocatello in one piece and went to the coffee shop my brother used to frequent. I was told there that he doesn't come in any more now that he has a new job, so I tried to contact him by leaving messages where he works. Call me irresponsible, but not being able to reach a family member by either phone or email for years at time seems a bit strange. Having people tell you they haven't seen him in a while doesn't do much to reassure you, either.

The last time I tried to see my brother (in 2012), I got a strange text message that I suspected he hadn't sent. This time, having failed to track him down, I drove up to the house, where I saw lights on and a vehicle in the driveway. There I ran into another barrier, since I couldn't get to the door due to a number of very excitable dogs. I had to knock at the window to try to get someone's attention, which resulted in a hullabaloo, because my nephew, evidently not knowing what to do, called 9-1-1. I had thought there was an adult in the house with him, but if not, he absolutely did the right thing, though it was disconcerting to have to wait with the sheriff's department for my brother to arrive. I passed the time by chatting with them but was distressed to learn that they've been called up there before and that the road behind my brother's house evidently attracts a criminal element. It was also reinforced for me just how difficult it can be to get the straight story on what's going on with a family member you've been out of touch with, as I heard stories from the officers on my brother's domestic situation that conflicted with what little I've heard over the past few years.

Long story short, my brother arrived and didn't seem to think I needed to have come all that way. So I managed to see both him and my nephew but not really to get any answers to the things I've been worried about. I may be accused of needing to mind my own business, but let me just say this, since the fact that I drove halfway across the country with a worried mind may have failed to make an impression. If I had a partner, spouse, friend, or whatever living with me who had a pharmacy degree, I'd want to be absolutely sure he/she was of impeccable character. Because, well, drugs, you know: they can be dangerous. I'd hate for someone to give me a little something I didn't ask for in my coffee. Just sayin'.

I won't even tell you about the drive home. Interstate 80 across Wyoming is dreary in the extreme. It's truly a wasteland . . . a far cry from the beautiful Tetons and the Yellowstone area of the state. Colorado is evidently unable to handle a few inches of snow (which would have been dispatched forthwith here), and I ran into sleet in Kansas. None of the smaller towns looked like places I wanted to stop (even for gas) so I stayed on the road in spite of incredible weariness. (Sometimes you're caught between a rock and a hard place and no choice looks good.) Having made it to Kansas City, I had a car problem, so I stayed overnight there. I finished the last leg on Monday, arriving home after midnight, minus much Christmas spirit.

Well, my lock has been changed. I made gingerbread cookies last night, but my tree isn't up. I haven't quite caught the Christmas mood yet and don't know that I will, but it could be worse. At least I've lived on to blog another day. I heard the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" a couple of times while I was traveling, which brought back memories of a holiday visit to Idaho in much happier times, when my nephew was a baby. I still have hope that it will come true, though I don't know why. I've had to drop a number of people from my life when it became apparent that they weren't good for me, but I refuse to let go of family ties. I'm still here, and I'm just the same as I always was . . . though considerably sadder.

Tale of the Lock, and It's a Shocker

The post is a little ahead of time this week--what, did Christmas come early? I guess you could say that, in a manner of speaking. I seem to be plagued with lock problems, not only when I travel (which is infrequent), but even in my very own home. Right now I'm sitting up with my door barricaded, waiting for daylight, with plans to have my lock changed tomorrow. Having lost my keys in Starbucks a couple of years ago and subsequently having every lock in my possession changed, I thought I was finished with  lock problems. Well, no.

Unfortunately, and strangely, I think my current problem stems from a professional event I attended a couple of years ago, a small gathering of librarians at someone's home. Actually, it was a Christmas party, probably nearly two years ago to the day. This wasn't a wild event, but actually rather sedate, or so I thought. I brought a cake, chatted, and ate some crackers and veggies. I couldn't help but notice when I went to get my coat and go home, though, that my purse was in a different place than I had left it, tucked well under my coat. It was sitting rather prominently on top of my coat when I got ready to leave, not at all where I had left it.

I had been concerned enough about the purse incident (and a missing cell phone, which I had thought was in my purse when I went to the party) to temporarily disable my cell phone service, call my credit card companies, and actually have one credit card replaced. I mentioned my concern that someone may have accessed my keys to the building manager but decided that I was possibly being too paranoid. After all, a group of librarians, right? (many of whom I knew). Maybe the coats just got rearranged as everyone was leaving. Maybe I had left my cell phone somewhere else prior to going to the party (it later showed up).

Sadly, rumor has reached me of shenanigans at that party (always trust your instincts). I even have names, and while it surprises me, it doesn't surprise me, in a way. Why was the vendor rep in attendance (who was never very friendly when I still worked at the law library) so surprisingly chatty that night? She asked a million questions about my dissertation and stuck to me like glue. I had trouble believing she was really that interested, but sometimes people do act differently at social events than they would at work. Why did the male librarian lurking in the bathroom look so strangely at me when I passed him on the way to get my things and go home? Why did the hostess make an arch remark about goings-on at her party (yet insist later that I must have dropped the cell phone before arriving at her house). My keys were in my purse, but how long does it take to run to a convenience store and have copies made? Plenty of time for someone to do it while one is distracted, that's for sure.

I'm used to strange goings-on, as life has definitely taken an odd turn over the last few years, but I was innocent enough to believe that I was safe at small holiday party with people I knew. The truth is, you're not safe anywhere.

My landlord has been notified both by voice mail and email that the lock needs to be changed ASAP. I will now ask those of you who are no doubt quite snug in your own homes whether there is any good outcome you can possibly think of to stealing someone's keys, either for them or for you. It's a crime, you know--and not a small one. It would make you an accessory if a bigger crime were to occur later, say, someone getting killed by an intruder who happened to have an unauthorized key. That's the kind of thing that can come back to haunt you in a big way (and undoubtedly will). What goes around, always comes around. It's just a fact of nature.

By the way, Merry Christmas . . . and don't let the screen door hit you on the way out. And remember, in a world where things like this take place, no one is safe. Not even you. Someone has been attempting to log into my account as I've been writing, which means that someone must also have my email password. That's funny, I'm always changing it, and it's a rather unwieldy one, not anything someone would be likely to guess. How did that happen, I wonder?

Wordplay Takes on: Water Stains

I bet you there's a contingent of readers out there somewhere saying, "Wordplay, this mythology is all well and good, but what about the 'everyday life' part? Have you ever once given us any sound, practical advice that we could actually use in daily living?" Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I have. In my defense, I have to say that I didn't think household hints, recipes, and the 10 best ways to organize your desk were in my line exactly. I assumed they were better handled by someone else, but maybe not.

Well, a myth specialist has to deal with the same little problems as everybody else (and maybe more--I can tell you for a fact I've had more than my share of aggravation when it comes to strange neighbors, uncivil behavior from random members of the public, and travel nuisances, for example), but I've written about of all that before. Besides, I'm guessing it would be better to "cut my teeth" in the practical hints department on something I have a proven remedy for, so I'm going to tell you how I successfully got a water stain out of an upholstered chair, the very one I'm sitting in now, in fact. And before you ask, yes, this too has a mythic component. It's in the spirit of Hestia, whose season we're in as the colder weather pushes us indoors and thoughts turn to hearth and home, that I gladly give you this advice.

First, some background, vis-a-vis, how the water stain came to be there. It's because of an accident in which the glass I was drinking from slipped when I was putting it on a coaster. Unfortunately, this beverage was as colorful and stain-intensive as it's possible to be (a mixed-berry smoothie), so the spot was about as bad as bad can be, almost like red wine on the fabric. I'd never had to deal with this situation before, so of course, I looked it up online and found a trove of ideas, the simplest of which involved blotting and mild dish detergent. I actually didn't think it would work, but it did, after a little persistence. Problem was, this treatment left a water stain that was much bigger, if less vivid, than the original trouble spot.

Now, don't distract me by wondering if the accident could have been a Jungian "slip" of some kind. I'm not going down that road. Suffice it to say there was a honking big water stain on the back of the chair. The chair isn't placed so that the stain really showed, but I knew it was there. I knew any remedy I tried would be risky, since I'd seen several warnings about checking for an item's upholstery code, which is supposed to tell you which treatments will and won't work, before starting. If my chair has such a code, I couldn't find it, so I just tried to figure it out on my own, with the result that I solved one problem but was left with another one.

The original accident happened quite a while ago, and not long after, I tried to remove the water stain by misting it with white vinegar. This might have worked if I'd been able to follow it up with steam, but I couldn't get my iron to direct steam onto the upholstery without actually touching it, so I had to abandon that method. Every now and then, I'd look at the chair and think, "I wish there was something I could do about that water stain." At some point, I looked up additional remedies, one of which caught my eye by stating that it would probably work even if the stain had been allowed to languish for a while. That seemed hopeful, but for one reason or another (the feeling that further attempts at cleaning might only make things worse being paramount) I didn't get around to it until recently.

Here's where I'll get a little philosophical: sometimes, when you can't do anything in a major way about truth in advertising, the downfall of American cinema, or bizarre neighbors, it helps to accomplish some little, concrete thing, even if it matters only to you. The remedy I had in mind involved carpet cleaner, which I already had, so one afternoon when there was lots of light, I hauled the chair over to the window, sprayed it lightly, and blotted carefully with a damp (not wet) white cloth. The idea was to avoid saturating the upholstery and to lift the stain off with the cloth. The instructions said to apply cleaner to a large area, not just the stain itself, so I treated the entire back of the chair.

Here's where another virtue came to the fore: patience. It really didn't look like anything was happening at first, although certainly the chair didn't look any worse. After the upholstery was dry, I reapplied cleaner and blotted again. I let the chair sit overnight, and then treated it a few more times, letting it dry between treatments. By the second to last time I did it, I could see that it was making a difference. Even in sunlight, I couldn't see the stain anymore, and the back of the chair looked the same as the front. I finished the process with a thorough vacuuming. Success!

Now, it may sound like a little thing, but I can tell you it was really satisfying to be able to solve even such a simple problem. Hestia would be proud (Heloise, too). My heart is a little bit lighter every time I look at the chair, which I bought at the same time I bought the desk I'm working on, just before I started my dissertation. I did some dissertation work sitting at this desk, which no doubt accounts for my pride at being able to return the chair to tip-top condition. Come to think of it, though, I did most of my writing while sitting on the couch, and it has a small water stain under the cushion where I tried to remove a spot of chocolate once. Perhaps the same treatment will work there, too, but right now, I'm still enjoying my success with the chair, so that will be a project for another day.

So there it is, how to remove a water stain from an upholstered chair. Now you can't say I never gave you anything. To all people of good will and stout heart out there, may all your problem-solving end this completely and this well, whether or not it involves a chair.

Getting Down with Pie and Jazz

It's Thanksgiving, the dinner has been eaten, and the dishes are soaking. It's been a quiet holiday, but as Thanksgivings go, I've seen worse, I promise. One of the best things about today was the mild and sunny weather, a nice departure from the typical drab-and-overcast Thanksgivings we usually see around here.

Over the last couple of weeks, the trees have been slowly shedding their leaves, and the fall colors have faded into a landscape of dun, charcoal, and dull green. Earlier in the week, a red or yellow tree here or there stood out like a beacon in a world of brown; now even those outliers have subsided into leaflessness. But when I sat outside for a few minutes this afternoon, drawn by the sun, I was looking at a blue sky through all those bare branches, and all in all, it was a pretty fair view. I don't know that I've ever sunbathed on Thanksgiving before--I wouldn't mind doing it more often.

I spent this past week cleaning and getting ready. Last Friday, it was shopping; Saturday and Sunday, it was cleaning and dusting. Monday I vacuumed and mopped the floors; Tuesday I did the laundry and made iced tea. Yesterday, I made pie crust, and finally, the piece de resistance, my Thanksgiving pie. I usually make Thanksgiving dessert ahead of time, and this year was no exception, but the dilemma of what to make preoccupied me for several days. It was probably the only thing I really had to think about, since I'd already decided on the potato recipe from last year that was so good with bay leaves and olive oil, the homemade cranberry relish, and some old standbys from years past.

I'm of the persuasion that thinks you ought to have pie (as opposed to cake or something else) for Thanksgiving. The question was, what kind? I've gone off pumpkin pie, which I used to like; I considered a chocolate pie, but in the end, it just didn't seem "Thanksgiving" enough. I've already had plenty of apples, it isn't the season for strawberries, and coconut is just plain wrong. So what about the pie I had last year, the caramel-walnut pie that was almost like eating candy and tasted so good in the buttery crust I made for it?

I thought about it, but the truth is that I associate that pie with a conversation I had while making it, and I didn't want to bring that memory into my preparations for this year's feast. New year, new plan. So I searched around in an old cookbook I have and found a recipe I'd never tried before, a nut pie with raisins and spices that seemed like the perfect accent to a Thanksgiving meal, traditional enough to go with the menu but unlike anything I'd made before. It called for corn syrup, an item I don't recall having in my kitchen since at least the early '80s, but it turns out that sugar and molasses work just as well. I made the pie last night, and as it cooled, a brown crust formed on the top, just like in the picture, giving no hint of what the center looked like.

This afternoon was a whirl of rinsing, chopping, and stirring, and I threw off my planning a little by sneaking off for sunbathing, but it didn't make any difference in the end as everything seemed to come together somehow. On the stereo, I put together what I considered to be the perfect soundtrack as a background to not only cooking but also eating and cleaning up: two parts jazz, one part roots rock, one part Linda Ronstadt (in her Nelson Riddle Orchestra days), and one part Irish fiddling. In case you've never tried it, jazz goes great with turkey, and there was enough variety in the mix to keep it all lively.

So what about this pie? I had imagined it would be similar to pecan pie, and it was, only . . . better. It actually has more sugar in it than last year's pie, which seems astonishing, but it doesn't have as much fat because, no cream. It's like a pecan pie with something unexpected, those raisins hitting your mouth like little nuggets of sunshine, the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves complicating the sweetness to just the right degree. I had thrown in some hazelnuts, too, as a good Celt should. I don't know that I would have liked this pie as a kid, but I hope my tastes have matured at least a little since then. It's a dessert for grownups who can appreciate the layering of flavors without just swallowing the entire thing whole, and it probably makes you smarter, too (=hazelnuts).

So that was my Thanksgiving: smoky jazz, turkey and dressing, blue sky and sunshine, a pie that will stand up to a week in the refrigerator, and a sink full of dishes. I hope yours was good, too.

Crocodile Tears

In view of this past week's events in Paris, this seems like a good time to stop and reflect, as Americans and world citizens, on the actions we should take and the kind of world we want to live in. I was uncomfortably reminded the other night--when I heard of the calls for sending more troops to the Middle East--of some of the consequences unleashed by 9/11. Up until now, it seems that many of our interventions in the region have only created new problems, so I'm not sure how people can be so convinced we'd see better results this time, but they'll tell you they are.

To me it seems that many suggestions for fighting terror are "after the fact" remedies, whereas it would be more constructive to address the causes of terrorism at the root. In medicine, the principle for good health is "an ounce of prevention"--why shouldn't this apply to geopolitical conflicts as well? I've heard people well-versed in the politics of the region discuss such factors as global warming, joblessness, and sectarian divisions as having a role in much of the violence that's occurred in recent years. At the same time, many people are trying to understand the success jihadists have had in recruiting members from other countries, so it's obviously a multifaceted problem.

Unfortunately, it's my impression that some of our leaders, despite what they say, are not as committed as they ought to be to really eradicating terrorism. War profiteering is a real thing; there's a lot of money to be made in that arena, and some of the people responsible for decision-making in matters of security have conflicts of interest that make you wonder how they could possibly be the best judges of these things. This is not to say that war is never justified, only that some of the people making these life and death decisions for us don't have the purest basis for doing so.

I'm regularly put off by discussions in which people attempt to discredit someone's argument based solely on who he or she is: "What do you expect from a Democrat?" or "What do you expect from a Republican?" does nothing to touch on the logic of what's being said. But it's naive not to consider a person's motives when you're weighing positions he or she takes on high-stakes issues that are more a matter of conjecture or professional opinion than pure logic. Someone may sound quite reasonable when they speak of Middle East policies, but what are they leaving out? How is their position influenced by factors you're not aware of? In some cases, decisions may be shaped by nothing grander than self-interest and profit motives. That's why, when I hear the hand-wringing over the killings in France, I wonder at the disingenuousness of some of the actors involved; the phrase "crocodile tears" comes to mind, and it's only too apt, I'm afraid.

I think it's a good idea to take the long view of any solutions the United States considers, in concert with other nations, in response to terrorism. The solutions that seem more likely to result in lasting peace would likely require wisdom, time, patience, and a re-evaluation of some of our past policies. I've often wondered why more isn't done to eliminate the financing of terror groups, for instance, but I'm afraid the answer is that in some cases we haven't wanted to look too closely at the sources of their support because of what we might see.

The problem of terrorism reminds me of a Mobius strip; some of the efforts to "fight it" only feed into it, and this is according to many people more familiar with the situation than I am. It's a loop that doubles back into itself, all of a single piece, where terrorists and their would-be antagonists are, at times, indistinguishable. It's like one of those M.C. Escher pieces in which stairways lead crookedly in all sorts of wild directions except the true one, or like Jorge Luis Borges' Library of Babel, in which an entire universe of books, an infinite trove of them, leads to boundless searching, bottomless to-and-froing, and endless climbing up and down--but never ever, not once, to any meaningful answers.