Message in a Bottle

       A few days ago one of my friends posted something about a little boy from Ireland who found a message in a bottle. That brought back a memory, something that I forgot about from years ago. I once sent a message in a bottle, when I was vacationing on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. I was probably about 8 years old. Our family used to rent a sandy, little beach place in East Brewster with my aunt and uncle. It was the highlight of our year, as we were allowed to do whatever we wanted, could get as dirty as possible, swim all day, build sandcastles, and dig for clams. One day my father suggested I write a message, put it in a bottle, and throw it into the ocean, and perhaps someone from a faraway land would find it.
       When we children were little, "go send a message in a bottle" or "go skip rocks" or "go build a sandcastle" were all code words my parents used that really meant, "get out of our hair because we're on vacation, too, and perhaps we might want to have sex in the afternoon." It didn't matter, though, we complied. Because I didn't have a piece of paper, I used a paper plate and with a ball point pen, I wrote a short letter that stated who I was, my age and where I lived, and that if someone finds my message in a bottle, perhaps we could become pen pals. Then I rolled up the plate, shoved it in a used wine bottle, stuck a cork in it, and tossed it into the bay at high tide.
       Then I forgot about it. Until one day, several months later, when I was back in Granby, CT, where we lived, I received a letter in the mail. Can you imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope and there was my rolled up paper plate and a short note from a man and woman who found my message in a bottle. They lived across the bay on Cape Cod, although I don't recall the town, and found the bottle while walking on the beach one morning. So what happened was, the tide carried the bottle a few miles away from where I threw it. And you'd think I'd be delighted, but I wasn't.
       Instead, I was irritated that my message in a bottle took a short journey, not a long one, and I was also a little ashamed of my geographical stupidity - I mean, seriously, where else would the bottle go, except across the bay? If I had any sense I would have gone to the other side of Cape Cod and tossed it into the ocean. Then maybe the tide would have carried it to Ireland, or Portugal, or at least Nova Scotia.
       But the reality of the story is that I sent a message in a bottle one day, and someone found it and sent me a letter back. How often does something like that happen, anyway? With all the flotsam and jetsam bobbing about in the oceans these days, who would even care to look inside a bottle? And the fact that the bottle made it to shore without breaking on a rock is a miracle itself, even if it just traveled to the other side of the bay.
       I didn't appreciate that miracle back then. But I do today. And perhaps I will send another message out and see what happens. But maybe not in a bottle. That would be littering.

A Winter Tipi

      
       This weekend, Bruce and I put up a tipi in our backyard that we intend to sleep in this winter. I should say, rather, Bruce put up the tipi while I offered words of encouragement and took photos. The tipi was one that Bruce crafted nearly 25 years ago. The poles are cyprus and bamboo that he cut himself, and the cover is one that he designed and pieced together with his mother, Bobbye. Some of it is even hand-stitched, and it has real buttonhole closures, and funky vintage buttons. Bruce, an elementary school teacher, originally made the tipi as a Thanksgiving project for his students back in the 1980s.
       After the tipi was erected, I covered the ground inside with a plastic tarp, then a piece of canvas, then a quilt, for warmth and comfort. Today I plan to add a lambskin rug, some pillows, more quilts, and a few homey touches, like a battery operated lantern, a stack of books, and I'm even thinking about bringing out my tiny backpacking stove so that I can make tea.
       This morning it was nice to get out of bed and see the tipi standing beneath the pine trees, while the sun was coming up. If I can get the inside of the tipi to my liking today, tonight will be our first night sleeping in there. Some people think it's strange that people in their mid-fifties would want to sleep in the backyard. But there are several very reasonable explanations for this. First of all, state parks are up to $30 per night, and we'd have to drive at least 45 minutes to get to one. And we'd have to lug everything over there, only to realize that we have left something vital behind. Also, as the tipi is just a few hundred feet from the house, we're just seconds away from a flush toilet, a hot shower, a sizzling steak, and liquor.

 

      
       If I was nine years old and wanted to spend the winter sleeping in a tipi, my parents would have locked me in my bedroom. If I was ninety and sleeping in a tipi, my children would send me to a nursing home. At 56 years old, I'm going to spend the winter in a tipi, simply because I can.

 

 

Almost-As-Good-As-Ikea Swedish Meatballs

      

       Let’s say I wanted to open up a furniture and home accessory store, plus a café that sells little meatballs. You’d think I was crazy, right? But that’s what Ikea has done. And with forty eight retail stores across the country and new ones popping up everywhere, they’re doing something right. I’ve never been to an Ikea store; the closest one is in Orlando, five hours away. And as I don’t need any furniture, I can’t see driving that far to buy little meatballs.

       But I want their meatballs, because everyone is talking about them. Tasty, tiny Swedish meatballs in a cream gravy, served with whipped potatoes and lingonberries. The word on the street is Ikea is not giving up their secret meatball recipe, but after a lot of research I believe I can make some almost-as-good-as-Ikea Swedish meatballs. Friends of mine who are fortunate enough to have eaten the little gems claim the meatballs have a velvety, smooth texture and a certain flavor that is different from other American-style meatballs.
       There are some key ingredients that need to be included. The meatballs should be made with a combination of ground beef and pork, and if you can get a butcher to grind the meat finer than usual, that would be a plus. The other ingredient found in real Swedish meatballs is rusk. Rusk is a little toast, similar to Zweiback, the little biscuits shoved into the mouths of teething infants. You can find rusk at nearly any grocery store. The rusk should be finely ground in a food processor, so that it practically turns into flour. Regular breadcrumbs do not work in this recipe. There’s something about the flavor of rusk that cannot be imitated.
       Another necessary ingredient is mashed potatoes. That adds to the smooth texture of the meatballs. And the last secret ingredient is allspice. It adds a subtle flavor that makes these meatballs so special. The sauce for the meatballs is simply brown gravy mixed with heavy cream. I have plenty of homemade brown gravy in my freezer, leftover from other meals, but you could use canned brown gravy successfully for this recipe, if you don’t have time to make your own.
       The meatballs are always served with lingonberries, a staple in Scandinavian cooking, and naturally I can’t find them anywhere in my town. But lingonberries are similar to cranberries – they are tiny and tart, so I’ve decided to serve cranberry sauce with them instead.
       Are my Swedish meatballs as good as Ikea’s? I don’t know about that, but they were delicious. Someday I hope to visit a real Ikea store and see what all the fuss is about, but in the meantime, I’ll stick with my outdated furniture and home accessories, and my almost-as-good-as-Ikea Swedish meatball recipe.

 

Almost-As-Good-As-Ikea Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 small onion, finely minced

1 tablespoon butter

2/3 lb lean ground beef

1/3 lb lean ground pork

1/2 cup finely mashed potatoes, no lumps allowed

½ cup finely ground rusk

1 egg, well beaten

¼ cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon allspice

Butter for sautéing meatballs

10 ounces beef gravy mixed with ½ cup heavy cream

Directions:

Saute onions in butter gently until soft and translucent. Add next nine ingredients, and mix gently with your hands. Form into tiny meatballs. Saute meatballs in butter, or alternatively you can drizzle them with butter and bake them in the oven until cooked through. Heat the gravy and cream mixture and pour over the meatballs right before serving.

What's in a Name?

       A few people have asked me why I call my blog Girl Hobo, and what does that mean? It began when I was a very young girl. All of my childhood friends wanted to be ballet dancers and astronauts when they grew up, but I wanted to be a hobo. I dreamed of stowing away on freight trains and traveling the world. One Halloween, I dressed up like a hobo, with a black hat, red nose, and a sooty overcoat. I didn't know back then that the life of a hobo was sad and lonely, at best, that hobos were hungry most of the time, and not well respected by the general population. It seemed like an exciting life for a dreamy, little girl growing up in a small agricultural town in New England. I read a lot of books about adventurous children, including "My Side of the Mountain," which at one point prompted me to build a fort in the woods behind my house where I spent a scary night completely alone, telling my mother I was staying down the street at a girlfriend's house. But that is another story.
       In 2006 I decided to take a stab at thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail with several of my friends, and one of the things you must do is to take on a trail name. The name is important for several reasons - first of all it gives you anonymity, and protects your privacy. It also puts you on a level playing field with other hikers. You may all be different ages and from different backgrounds, but you all have a silly trail name, and it's a great way not to take yourself too seriously.

Above, Wild Poodle and Girl Hobo hiking on Cumberland Island, GA,
 below, All Right and Half Left on the Appalachian Trail.

 

       My friend Jane Bailey is the one who named me Girl Hobo. Others approved of the name, so it stuck, and for the past six years it has become my alter ego. Most people who start on the Appalachian Trail have already named themselves, but some have not. For those folks, they will take on a name that someone else gives them while on the trail. For instance, my friend Cindy, who was single at the time, wore a visor that said "Magic" on it. At one point she left the trail to get water and didn't come back for a long time - she had gotten lost. Finally she returned, just as we were all sick with worry, and when she approached the campsite everyone yelled, "Yay!! There's Magic!!" Whew! So that name stuck with her, until she got married a couple of years later, and she and her husband hiked the Appalachian Trail with the monikers, All Right and Half Left. But more about them in another blog post.
       My other friend Roger needed a name, so I named him Sherpa, in the hopes that he would volunteer to carry all of my stuff while we were on the AT. I discovered, however, that Roger does not fall easily for female trickery, although on another excursion through the Osceola National Forest he did carry an entire jar of peanut butter and two dozen granola bars in an act of gallantry. Another acquaintance named Paula is called the Iron Maiden because she drives a motorcycle when she is not hiking on trails. My hiking pal Barbara calls herself Wild Poodle, a nickname given to her by her late husband Tom. When she was in a stressed out, frenetic state, he would sigh and say to her, "Such is the plight of the Wild Poodle." It's a perfect name for her, although nowadays we just call her WP.
       Sometimes a hiker will name themselves, but will get renamed while on the trail for something stupid they have done. This summer I met a young British fellow, Patrick, while I was hiking the AT in Virginia. He was named Wrong Way because he accidentally hiked back down the mountain he had just come up. He tried to shake the name, but to no avail. (Trail people can be ruthless bullies.) Another hiker, a doctor named Buffington from Florida, was attempting to rig up a bear bag by throwing a rope with a rock attached to it, over a high tree limb. The rock came back at him and hit him in the head, quite hard, in fact, so to this day he is named Bear Bag.
       There are hundreds of stories like these, and for more of them, I would suggest you visit www.trailjournals.com. All Right and Half Left have written about their recent adventures on Trail Journals, and when I read their posts, I feel like I'm hiking right along with them! If you were hiking the Appalachian Trail, what would your trail name be?

Sleeping at the Granby Motel

       The Granby Motel is located on Salmon Brook Street in my hometown of Granby, CT, and has been there for as long as I can remember. Considered a dump back in the 70s, its rooms were still always full of traveling salesman, truckers, and tourists who took an unfortunate wrong turn off the main highway, finding themselves with no other place to sleep. My friend Debi worked there cleaning guest rooms while she was in high school. Another high school chum, Beth, recalls attending a party in one of the shabby rooms, and it must have been a pretty good party, because there was not much else to remember about it.
       I visit Granby every year when I go up to New England, and try to see as many friends as I can while I'm there. This year I had lunch with my first grade teacher, Shirley Ryan, attended the Farmer's Market with my friend Lenny DeGray, went  hiking with Bill Rogers, (brother of Debi, who used to clean the rooms) and then headed over to the Cambridge House to have dinner with girlfriends I have known for over 40 years.
       Usually I stay with a friend or relative while in Connecticut, but as I drove into my old stomping grounds this time, my rental car went straight over to the Granby Motel. Knowing it was an utterly ridiculous idea to stay there, I convinced myself that it was the practical thing to do at the time. It was right down the street from the restaurant, it would give me some time to myself, and I wouldn't have to mooch off my usual cronies. When I went to the office to check in and get my key, the motel owner, who was from India, gave me a card to fill out, with a space to write in my credit card number. I shook my head, no way am I leaving my credit card number laying around the Granby Motel. I asked him to please run it through the machine, as we modern business owners do these days. He grumbled a bit and pulled the dusty credit card machine out from under the counter.  I guess most of their customers pay with cash.
       I smelled Indian food wafting through the office. "What are you cooking back there?" I asked. "It smells delicious." "Indian food, " he says, without looking at me. "What kind of Indian food? " I ask again. "Indian food," he says as he hands me the key, a bored look on his face. I grab the key and walk down the sidewalk to my room. The first fiasco of the day, or perhaps it's the second if you call the credit card thing the first fiasco, is that the key doesn't work in the lock. There is a young girl cleaning one of the other rooms and she helps me with the key, jiggling it around in the lock for several minutes until the door finally opens. I make a mental note not to have any drinks at the restaurant that night, as I would never be able to get back into the room.
       I step into my room at the Granby Motel, for the very first time. Heavens, if the motel was a dump back in the 70s, in 2012 it is a shit-hole, at best. The place is clean, though, I can smell bleach and Comet, and some sort of disinfectant normally used at nursing homes. But the room itself and everything in it is probably 50 years old. (And even if you vacuum or steam clean a 50-year old thread-bare carpet, it's still a 50 year old carpet.) Excited to see just how more awful the motel can get, I wander around the room, checking every little thing. And not to my surprise, each item in the motel was either broken, soiled, or battered beyond belief.
       The television came on but I could not change the channels. The fluorescent lights were yellow and dim. The lamps over the beds were missing light bulbs. The beds were lumpy. The sheets were clean, but incredibly dingy. The pillows were so flat and lifeless, that when stacked upon each other, they were no taller than four slices of Wonder bread. The fossilized air conditioner was too high up on the wall for me to reach. The upholstered chairs were covered with horrible stains of God-knows-what-and-I -don't-want-to-know-what. In the bathroom, the right sink faucet didn't work. The left one did but there was no hot water coming out of it. The toilet seat was broken. The bathtub drain was clogged. The windows wouldn't open. The crumbling ceiling left flakes of plaster in the bottom of the tub. The mirror was glazed over with years of reflected morning-after hangovers. And if the main part of the motel room was dim, the bathroom lights were so bright I felt like I was in an interrogation room at a police station.
       But there were two good things about the Granby Motel, besides its convenient location. There was a lovely backyard, that was off-limits to customers. But I went back there anyway after dark, to watch the moon rise behind the pine trees, and mostly to kill time while I was getting up the nerve to sleep in the lumpy bed. And the other good thing was that staying at the Granby Motel gave me something fun to write about when I got home from my trip.
       So that's what I'm doing right now.

MagnoliaFest 2012

    
       After four days of music, camping, partying, and an epic rainstorm, Bruce and I are back from Magnolia Fest, unscathed. We had a great time at the Suwannee River Music Park in Live Oak, FL, and met a lot of interesting folks. And here is how it all went down. We arrived on Thursday night and set up our tents. Our friends from Jacksonville had already set up the "primitive" campsite, that included a bar, kitchen, campfire, and music jam area. Oh yes, and a large hammock, because nap-taking is a must when you stay up until 2 a.m. Music began on Thursday night with Canary in the Coalmine, who received rousing applause from concert goers. Thursday's highlight, though, was Mosier Brothers at 9 p.m., fronted by Jeff Mosier on banjo and Johnny Mosier on guitar. After that concert we hung out at the campsite and played music until the wee hours of the morning. At around 4 a.m., we were awakened by a monumental thunderstorm that flooded our campsite. Although we all managed to get some more shut eye after the storm, there was a lot of clean up to do the next morning.
       On Friday we spent much of the day wandering around the festival, checking out the bands playing at the various venues around the park. As you would expect, there are a lot of food vendors, and a favorite is The Solar Cafe, whose vegetarian food is powered by the sun (well, their electricity is, anyway) and served by super cute girls. A carton of stir fry noodles with peanut sauce hit the spot for me. They also make smoothies and homemade lemonade sweetened with maple syrup. Best bands that day were Grandpa's Cough Medicine, whose devilish blend of blood and beer-soaked orginal music has been rocking Atlantic Beach for several years. Del McCoury Band and Emmylou Harris were also a big hit on the ampitheater stage that night.

 

      
       On Saturday morning we attended a New Orleans-style parade, led by Tornado Rider's cello-wielding Rushad Eggelston and a myriad of colorful characters including our own friends, Cristy and Wendell Holmes from Jacksonville. I spent a good part of the day seeing various bands while my friends hung out at the campsite, playing music. I especially liked Sloppy Joe, a bluegrass/hillbilly-style band with great song lyrics and traditional instruments. Favorites on Saturday were Tornado Rider, Donna the Buffalo, and of course, Bonnie Raitt, whose late night concert in the meadow sent me to my tent, exhausted from the day's activities.

 

      
        On Sunday morning, Practice World Peace Yoga was held in the meadow, where I witnessed a girl stand on her head for nearly 45 minutes, while I sipped coffee on the sidelines, ready to head back to civilization. Sunday's concerts run from noon until 8 p.m., but many of us packed up and drove home after breakfast. Four days of music and fun is great, but the clean up and unpacking is a dreary chore. Perhaps next year we'll take Monday off. Did I say next year?

First Time Music Festival

       I'm 56 years old and have never been to  large music festival, with the exception of the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which doesn't count for my purposes here, since my companion and I stayed in a five star hotel and drank champagne for breakfast. I'm talking about a camping-out, four-day festival with thousands of other folks all doing the same, listening to bands, dancing, and partying. This afternoon I'm headed out to Magnolia Fest, located at the Suwanee Music Park, in Live Oak, FL, and after I finish writing this blog entry, it's time to do some last minute packing and go.

 

     
       I'm not sure what to expect, so I've based it all on what I've heard about Woodstock. I'm picturing round-the-clock folk music and a certain amount of playful pandemonium, including skinny dipping in the Suwanee River, and pot-smoking around the campfire. I've packed my peace sign tea shirt and my grubbiest bell bottom jeans, hoping to blend in as best I can. Many of my friends are attending the festival, and they've promised to show me the ropes.
       My beau, Bruce has purchased the tickets, thankfully, which were a whopping $325 for two people. But when you consider the artists appearing there this year, that's a bargain. Musicians include Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Donna The Buffalo, Paul Barberre and Fred Tackett of Little Feat, and nearly fifty more bands. Whew, that's quite a round up of music.
       There are cabins to rent on the premises, which some of my friends are taking advantage of, but Bruce and I are primitive camping with a few other people, and since this group attends the festival every year, they know what they're doing. The key is, from what I can surmise, is to get there early, set up your camp right away, and don't bring a lot of cooking equipment, because we are there to hear music, not to be grill chefs, nor dishwashers. And I'm all for that. A few finger foods liked cheese, crackers, nuts, cookies, and deviled eggs are tucked away in our coolers, along with seltzer and orange juice. There are vendors at the festival that can feed us if we get really lazy.
       Another perk of this festival is that most of our friends are also musicians, and those who don't play an instrument love to sing. So in between music sets we'll be jamming. Bruce and I have already gathered guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, banjos, and harmonicas, lined up and ready to go into the van when he gets home from work.
       I'll try to post some photos from our first day at Mag Fest tomorrow, if I can get some free WiFi while we're there. In the meantime, peace and love to all!