How to make a Twinkie without even trying

Lime tree

Meet our lime tree. I like to call him Leo. For years, he produced beautiful limes like clockwork (except for that year he went on strike, but we increased his wages and he went back into production). This year, Leo did something shocking, and I'm not even sure how he afforded the operation (It's not like we increased his wages by that much). Leo became a lemon tree.

Alien limes?

I noticed the change not long after I toted home a bag of lemons from my neighbors across the street. Wondering how Leo was doing (and where the heck my dang limes were), I went out back to check, looked up and was confronted with a very large, yellow lime. We're talking large in the neighborhood of a grapefruit. Alien large. So I summoned Mr. G. to the back yard.

Mr. G.: I think they're limes.
Me: They can't be limes. They're too big.
Mr. G.: I don't know what else they could be.
Me: I think they're lemons.
Mr. G.: You're crazy. How would a lemon tree plant itself in our back yard?

I swear Sue's garden looks a lot like this

There was only one thing to do: Ask Sue. Sue is my neighbor. She tells me she's 29 (like me), which is amazing considering she's a grandmother and has lived in our neighborhood since before I was born. I don't question it. Sue is simply marvelous and is my go-to person when I'm stumped on anything gardening related. She prefers fruits and vegetables to flowers. She's constantly pulling up her flower beds to plant more vegetables. She does something with Epsom salt that convinces everything she plants to produce beautiful fresh veggies. It's a trade secret. She also feeds our cats when we're out of town and usually calls to see if they can have a little extra chicken fat she just happens to have on hand. "It will make their coats so shiny." The answer to the chicken fat question is always "no" much to the cats' disappointment (How do I know they don't want chicken fat? How do I know they don't want shiny coats? They've been longing for chicken fat to give them shiny coats). Truth be told, Sue probably gives them the chicken fat anyway. She probably gave it them before she even called to check. You have to love Sue. It's impossible not to love Sue.

Lemons!

So I totally trusted Sue when she told me that lime trees could become lemon trees. I believed her even after I searched the Internet and learned this cannot happen. Even after I realized the more likely diagnosis is that my lime tree was planted with a lemon tree, and the lemon tree's only now producing (What gives, Louise? Have you been on strike?).

We've got lemons. Lots and lots of lemons

My real problem is you wouldn't believe how many lemons we have. Bowls and bowls and bowls of them. Louise was bountiful. My husband suggested I make lemonade. Are you kidding me? Too easy. I made a lemon meringue pie. It wasn't good. I left it in the fridge, hoping my husband would get a bad pie craving. He didn't so I tossed it in the garbage.

The Barefoot Contessa: A cooking goddess

Then I turned to the Barefoot Contessa and made her lemon cake. The recipe involves squeezing 100 lemons and grating them. I might be exaggerating, but after you've scraped your knuckles for the fifth time on a zester, you get cranky. The cake is actually two loaves. The batter smelled - and tasted (I have no fear of raw eggs) - heavenly. I decided to get fancy and make a traditional loaf plus mini loaves in the mini loaf pan I found at Wal-Mart for $1.50 after Christmas one year.

Is it a Twinkie or a lemon loaf?

The creation was lemony and scrumptious even though I threw down my spoon before making the glaze. My husband took one look at my glorious mini lemon loaves and said, "Are those Twinkies?" And then I realized I just spent two hours in the kitchen and scraped my knuckles raw to make Twinkies. If you need me, I'll be looking up Lemonhead recipes. How hard could it be?

There's just something about Mary (Miles Minter)

Mary Miles Minter

One of these days, I'm going to finish writing a novel based on Mary Miles Minter's life. The plot is in my head. Most of the characters are in my head. I've even written some chapters, including the opening and the ending. I really should get cracking on the middle of the book. You wouldn't believe the research I still need to do for that book.

Mary has fascinated me ever since a friend pointed me to the book "Cast of Killers." It's a terrific read based on an unsolved Hollywood murder mystery involving Mary (I should point out the criticism about the book. Let's just say the author didn't allow facts to get in the way of a good story. Nowadays, the book would bear a "loosely based on" disclaimer. That said, it's an enjoyable read).

Mama Rose ... I mean Charlotte Shelby

Getting back to Mary, she was born in Shreveport during the early 1900s. Her birth name was Juliet Reilly (I'd love to know her precise birthplace if anyone knows it). Her father, J. Homer Reilly, was a newspaperman. Her mother, Lily Pearl Miles, was a doctor's daughter. What Lily Pearl really, really wanted was to be a star.

The Reilly ladies lived on Cadiz Street in Dallas

I don't know how Lily Pearl ended up marrying Homer. But married him she did. The union produced two daughters: Margaret and Juliet (later Mary Miles Minter). The couple soon separated. Lily Pearl packed up the girls and moved to Dallas, where she offered lessons. I think she gave acting lessons, but my memory might be failing me here.

The Lyceum Theatre, where Charlotte played a maid

Soon, the little family was in New York. And, by New York, I mean New York City. In 1908, Lily Pearl - now Charlotte Shelby - played a maid in "Love Watches" at the Lyceum Theatre. She was only 31 but probably considered a little long in the tooth for that era. No worries, though. Charlotte (Lily Pearl) channeled her energies into becoming the mother of all stage mothers. Really, Mama Rose had nothing on her.

Poor Margaret

Margaret was put on stage and did passingly well. She was pretty and scored supporting roles. Then, so the story goes, a babysitter could not be found for Juliet one day when Margaret had an audition. Juliet tagged along and grabbed the director's attention. A star was born. From this point on, if you want to put "poor" in front of Margaret's name, go right ahead. She had a terrible life.

The youngest looking teenager on Broadway

By 1912, Charlotte had a problem. Juliet was only 10 and child labor laws curtailed her working hours. Fortunately (for Charlotte at least), Charlotte's big sister, Mary, had a misfortune back home in Louisiana. Mary married a Minter and incorporated her maiden name into her daughter's name. Little Mary (perhaps Marie) Miles Minter died young (supposedly from drinking apple cider laced with snake venom, but I ask you ... how does snake venom get into apple cider? Was this a common problem back in those days?). Charlotte stole her dead niece's birth date, rechristened Juliet as Mary Miles Minter (II) and tacked seven years onto her age. The Gerry Society (the child labor police) either didn't notice or ignored the switch (or maybe Charlotte threatened to lace their apple cider with snake venom). The new Mary Miles Minter had to be the youngest looking 17-year-old in New York.

An early movie starring little Mary

1912 was the same year in which Mary made her first short film, "The Nurse." She was billed as Juliet Shelby. Three years later, as Mary Miles Minter, she had the starring role as a fairy in another feature picture. Most of Mary's films are lost, including her turn as Anne of Green Gables in a film that outraged the series' author. The director of Anne was William Desmond Taylor.

William Desmond Taylor as actor

William was interesting. He was an Irishman, a problem child who was sent to America in the hopes that he would do something with his life. He dabbled in acting, married well, fathered a daughter and then went out to grab a bite to eat and vanished - but not really. He eventually headed to California and started anew without the baggage of a family. In other words, he was exactly the type of man you would want your young daughter to fall in love with. Exactly.

William as director

Less than 10 years after deserting his family, William was directing Mary Pickford and other stars of the day. He made friends and money. He rented a bungalow. He was close to actress Mabel Normand. Mary - all of 20 when he died (by now she was back to her real age) - apparently fell in love.

The house that Mary bought

Although young, Mary was supporting her mother, grandmother and her sister (poor Margaret) in a comfortable California lifestyle. They had an ivy-covered mansion. Mary was a star. Yet, she was still young and could be naive.

James Kirkwood Sr.

In 1916 - when Mary was 14 or 15 - she "married" the already married director James Kirkwood in the hills above Santa Barbara. I'm not sure where Charlotte was that day, but she obviously fell down on the job. Basically, James said a few words and told Mary they were now husband and wife. Mary soon was pregnant. Mama Charlotte eventually found out after wondering why her diets failed to peel weight off Mary. Mary had an abortion, and James was pushed off a cliff. Just kidding. James lived a long life and hopefully dug within and became a better person. Indirectly because of him (he fathered the writer), "A Chorus Line" stood for a time as Broadway's longest-running production.

Mary and William Taylor

No worries about Mary, though. She had great taste in men. She shifted focus to William Desmond Taylor. So what was the nature of the relationship between the two? No one seems to agree on that point. Mary wrote William gushing love letters even though he was more than old enough to be her father. William might have gently rebuffed her or he might have been an old goat and taken advantage. Regardless, Mama Charlotte was none too pleased with the situation (and can you blame her?). Charlotte stole Mary's love letters and diary and placed them safely in her purse ... just in case she needed to blackmail Mary into falling in line. Don't you do that with your kids?

The bungalow where Taylor died

On Feb. 1, 1922, William was found shot to death in his Hollywood bungalow. The murder remains unsolved to this day even though there was supposedly a deathbed confession (well, a death on the kitchen floor confession). It's one of Hollywood's enduring scandals and mysteries. Really, Google him. William Taylor and his whodunit murder are an Internet sensation.

Mabel Normand, a story for another day

Police found a love note written on Mary's stationary in William's apartment (Charlotte must have missed that one). It was to the point and said: "I love you. I love you. I love you. XXXXXXXXX Yours always, Mary." Sweet, huh? So who killed him? No one knows. The possibilities include a valet with a fake accent, a different valet who died in an asylum and Mabel Normand herself (who probably was the true love of William's life). Or maybe it was one of these three: Mama Charlotte, Mary and poor Margaret.

Mary with her mother and grandmother

Charlotte had a pistol, and that pistol conveniently disappeared after the murder. Years later, Margaret claimed her mother killed William Taylor. Here's what Margaret said about her mother: "She told me they were pinning it pretty close to her. She was awfully worried. And she was very grateful that her mother had gone to Louisiana and thrown the gun that had killed William Desmond Taylor into a bayou on the plantation."

Margaret died at 39

However, Margaret was an alcoholic with a penchant for rash marriages that ended in quickie divorces. She suffered a nervous breakdown. She got arrested on her honeymoon (along with her new husband, who actually was married to someone else). Her mother hosed her down with a garden hose and kept a weapon handy because of Margaret's drinking problems. They spent a lot of time in court battling over money. Usually, Charlotte tried to put Margaret "away" to avoid court appearances but she didn't always succeed.

Charlotte in later years

Charlotte was cozy with police officials. Maybe she bribed them. The police file on the case - along with the physical evidence - later disappeared.

Mary, whose film career came to an abrupt end

Or maybe Mary herself did it. She was emotional. She was obsessed with an older man.

Mary's final home

After Margaret died just before her 40th birthday, Charlotte and Mary lived together until Charlotte's death in 1957. The Taylor case ruined Mary's movie career, but she was shrewd investor. She married, for the first time, after her mother died. She died in 1984.

 Margaret Gibson

Years before Mary's death, a has been actress named Margaret Gibson collapsed on the kitchen floor of her home in California. Gibson had a hard life. She went on stage as a young girl to support her mother. She went to Hollywood only to get involved in opium. Then, in 1935, she abruptly moved to Singapore and married an accountant. A bladder infection brought her back to the U.S. in the 1940s. Two decades later, Gibson had a heart attack. While dying on the floor of her home, she told neighbors she killed Taylor. Gibson did work on films with Taylor, but it is believed they stopped working together in 1914. Whether her dying words were the ramblings of a confused, old woman or an actual confession probably will never be known.

Southfork during the Isabelle years

Southfork

Many moons ago, Mr. G. came home and said: "Pack your bags. We're going to Southfork." OK, he didn't actually say that. What he said was: "Mike and Cathy have invited us to Dallas, and they said Isabelle can come."

Isabelle the Great

Isabelle was our beloved springer spaniel. Like so many spaniels, she went blind and pretty much bulldozed her way through life after that. Nothing stopped Isabelle. As she aged, I started fearing that she would die if we left her. All vacations turned into dog-friendly road trips. Then she turned 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and 17. Finally, Mr. G. suggested we take a cruise. We'd take a relaxing trip to Mexico. We'd cruise the ocean for several days. We'd play bingo and shuffleboard. We'd read books and dress for dinner. We'd be removed from phone calls and emails. We wouldn't know for days if Isabelle needed us. We'd be sitting poolside, sipping margaritas, while Isabelle was rushed to the emergency vet. We'd be playing volleyball while they strapped her to a gurney. We wouldn't be able to hold her paw because we'd be in the middle of the dang ocean. We'd get back to port and find out she died, alone and without her mommy there. The cruise idea fizzled. All these years later, I'm still unclear on why we didn't go. Glenn just abruptly announced the cruise was off. Then he spoke to me in soothing tones.

Cathy and Mike

Anyway, getting back to Southfork and Texas. Mike and Cathy - being the wonderful people they are - invited us to come visit and insisted we bring the dog. OK, insisted may be too strong a word. Glenn probably pleaded with them. Regardless, we carefully put Isabelle in the car and headed to Dallas.

Dallas!

There are lots of things to do in Dallas. There's an aquarium, an arboretum, amusement park, symphony ... the list goes on and on. And, I've always wanted to visit the book depository where Lee Harvey Oswald did his part (aha!) to help assassinate the president. So we went to Southfork, which isn't actually in Dallas. We don't let little details like that bother us.

J.R.'s handprints and shoeprints

To get our crew - Mr. G., me, Mike and Cathy's kids and our friend Wilma (Isabelle had some reading to do. In Braille.) - into the right frame of mind, we stopped by the Southfork museum on our way to the actual mansion.

Mr. G. gives direction to the crew at the museum

The museum is all about "Dallas" - the series, not the town. You can watch vintage clips, look at pictures of the cast and try on cowboy hats. Obviously, the cowboy hats grabbed us. Southfork's owners would prefer that their employees take a photograph of you in the hat and sell the image to you. The employees mentioned this to us after we whipped out our own camera and started snapping photos. We nodded politely and continued snapping photos. Then they asked us to leave (but to stop in the gift shop on our way out). Just kidding. They were very nice. The house looked just like it did on the series, from the outside. The inside was totally different without a zillion bedrooms for J.R., Bobby and the other Ewings.

This is not Mr. G.

We had a great time and came away with a photo of Glenn wearing a cowboy hat. He hates that picture so naturally I've framed it and put on the wall inside our house. It's going to be his obituary photo when he dies in a million years. I'd show it to you, but he'd divorce me.

Isabelle in the snow

By the way, Isabelle did die, just a few months shy of her 18th birthday. The vet called and said "She's suffering. She's dying. You need to put her to sleep. Take a few days, spend some time with her and let her go." I put her down that day because I couldn't bear the thought of letting her linger in pain for a week while I came to terms with releasing her. Then I crawled into bed and cried for seven days. Months later, we finally took that cruise. It was fabulous.

Never, ever try to please a cat

Schnookums

Frankie in repose

Meet Frankie, also known as Frankie G. and Francis and Frank Sinatra and Schnookums. A cat can't have enough names, especially when he responds to none of them. Frankie showed up about 5 years ago. It was impossible to miss him. Not only does he have the largest head ever seen on a cat, but he also has a megaphone meow. I'd heard the meow as he stalked across our back yard, and then I heard my neighbors talking about it. The conversation went something like this: "Did you hear that cat with the obnoxious meow? Oh, yeah, I heard him. Well, I'm not feeding him. Well, I'm not feeding him either." So I had to feed him. I had to do it. Not only that, I had to get him a cat dish, a water dispenser, toys and a cat bed. I had to let him sleep in the house when it was cold at night. I had to pick him up and kiss the top of his big head. I had to do it for not so little Schnookums. Pretty soon, he was lying on his back in the grass, soaking up the sun and hollering for an Old Fashioned.  

Shy Ava

Then Ava came along. Ava is a complete mystery. She showed up late one night, grabbed Frankie's food dish from the patio and tried to run with it in her mouth while I watched from the other side of the den window. I put out some food for her, and she started waiting on the doorstep for me, so thankful that she'd finally found the soup kitchen. Ava's feral, but she seems to have separated from the rest of her colony. Or maybe they put her out. She is - and I say this with nothing but love in my heart - incredibly stupid. Bless her little heart.  

The cat hut

After noticing that Ava crept into the bushes to sleep, I got her a cat hut. It resembles a cave with a comfy cushion, walls and a roof. Ava wouldn't go anywhere near it even though I doused it with catnip and kitty treats. The bed lacked 50 escape routes. So Frankie abandoned his old bed, appropriated the cat hut and added a wet bar, a lava lamp and a big screen TV. He sits in it and spits in the direction of the neighbors who refused to feed him.

Kitty nirvana: a heated bed (this is a model cat)

Frankie is warm and cozy in his hut, which moves inside the house during cold snaps. But, Ava, poor little Ava, was a matchstick girl out in the elements. So I got her a heated cat mat that plugs into the outlet next to the back door. With that mat, Ava found nirvana. She loves the heated cat mat. 

The deluxe heated cat house. Maybe I spent too much?

Then Frankie strolled across the mat one day while Ava was out foraging or whatever it is she does and sat his big butt down on it - and refused to move when Ava returned and cried pitifully at him. So I went on Amazon and ordered a deluxe heated cat house fit for a king (nothing's too good for Schnookums). I assembled it, plugged it in, nailed on a sign that reads "bachelor quarters" and set it up next to Ava's mat. The kitty house is so nice that Mr. G. is thinking about adding it to the homeowner's insurance. Frankie ambled up, sniffed it and plopped down on Ava's mat. I picked him up, peeled back the roof of the cat house and put him inside. He hissed and spat at me, marched out of the house and plopped down on Ava's mat. I sprinkled some kitty treats inside the house. Frankie batted them out with his paw, ate them and plopped down on Ava's mat. 

Explain it to me again. Just one more time.

Meanwhile, Mr. G. keeps asking how much we paid for the deluxe kitty house, and I keep having to change the subject (I find "So explain to me again what a Hail Mary pass is" works really well). Cats. Pwwfft!

Home repairs the perfect way

My husband and I own a 43-year-old home. Let me educate you on older homes. Unless you've kept the original avocado appliances and insisted to guests that it's really cool to be retro, your home has been rigged as updates were made. My husband calls it jerry rigging. I call it necessity. Take the master bathroom. I decided to peel the stick on mirror off the wall and update the lighting. I bought a framed mirror and new lighting. Then, when I (and Carl, my rented husband) pulled the old parts off the wall, we found a little boo-boo. Whoever (whomever?) put the original lighting in, punched a hole in the wall to run the electrical lighting. But they missed. So then they punched another hole and hung the mirror so it covered up the accidental hole. This was a major problem for me because my new mirror wasn't as big as the old mirror. I could have hired someone to drywall over the damage (Carl don't do drywall), but it wasn't in my budget. The solution was to rest the new lights on top of the new mirror rather than leaving a pretty, proportional, feng shui gap. At some point, a future homeowner is going to take down my mirror and lighting and go, "What the heck?" And then they'll rig it so it's presentable. Mr. G. knows nothing about the bathroom situation because I prefer that he sleeps at night, which then allows me to sleep at night. He wants everything to be pretty and presentable and absolutely perfect.

The other day, we encountered a plumbing problem. I consulted my sister, who told me to consult my mother, who consulted my stepfather and advised me to use an acidic clog clearer that necessitates using gloves. Mr. G. wanted to call a plumber. He said only a professional would know how to properly deal with the problem and I could end up damaging something - or rigging it so it really wasn't fixed. After some argument, I dispatched Mr. G. to Home Depot and then added as he went out the door that he needed to get some gloves. He turned as white as a sheet of paper and said, "Why do we need gloves?" Once he returned, he presented me with the gloves and said, "I got a size that will fit your hands, but they're probably too small for me." Nice. Then Mr. G. read the back of the clog clearer bottle and had to breathe into a paper bag. There was some warning about a possible explosive reaction. I nodded, picked up the bottle and started pouring the contents down the drain without measuring it while Mr. G. fretted about the pipes exploding. It didn't work so I flushed it and opened the cabinet to start taking apart the pipe near the trap. "Hand me a bucket will you," I called to Mr. G. "I don't think you're supposed to touch the pipe after you've poured the clog clearer down the drain. Something could explode," he said, clutching the bucket to his chest and refusing to hand it over. Then Mr. G. - still holding the bucket - went into the next room and started dialing plumbers. Once the plumber arrived, it was explained in great detail that I had poured an explosive liquid down the sink. The plumber nodded and pulled out a bucket. Then, without putting on gloves, he drained the pipe and cleared the clog. And it only cost us was $200. Thank goodness for doing things perfectly.

Every Christmas, Mr. G. is like a lost child in the wilderness when it comes to buying a gift for me. He never knows what to get me. Finally, I made an Amazon wish list. Just to be helpful. Since Mr. G. doesn't shop on the Internet, I have to transfer my wish list to a sheet of paper and hand it to him. Then he waits until Christmas Eve and drives all over town trying to find the items. Holidays are full of traditions, and that's his tradition. He usually gets frazzled and calls to scream about the traffic and the futility of looking for a music box that Amazon stocks in its Timbuktu warehouse. Meanwhile, I'm home, sipping cocoa and watching holiday movies because I did all my Christmas shopping on the Internet before Thanksgiving. Christmas is so much fun at our house.

This year, Mr. G. got me a couple of books. I requested one of the books. The other book was his idea. He appropriated a book I got for Christmas from my dad and stepmother. So everyone's happy.

Huguette Clark

The first book - "Empty Mansions" - is about Huguette Clark. Huguette was born before the Titanic sank and died in 2011 at the age of 104. A relic of the gilded age and the daughter of a copper magnate, she had a fabulous real estate portfolio. She owned an oceanfront mansion in Santa Barbara, a French chateau in New Haven and an apartment overlooking Central Park. Yet she chose to live the last few decades of her life in a New York hospital while caretakers tended to her empty homes.

Clark mansion

Huguette's father was W. A. Clark. His name isn't remembered today, but he rivaled the Rockefellers in wealth. W. A. built an extraordinary home on Fifth Avenue. The mansion had more than 100 rooms, a swimming pool, a grand staircase, picture galleries and a huge tower. It stood from 1907 to 1925, when it was torn down.

Anna

W.A. was 62 when he supposedly married Huguette's mother, Anna. Anna had been his "ward." The story goes that she approached him and asked him to sponsor her arts career. A widower at the time, he sent her to Europe, where he established her in an apartment and paid for music lessons. A few years later, W.A. and Anna arrived in New York and announced that not only were they married but they had a young child. No one's ever been able to find a marriage certificate, and Anna was unable to produce one years later.

Andree with her parents

W.A. and Anna had three children: Andree, a boy who died as an infant and Huguette. By all accounts, Huguette lived in the shadow of her more outgoing sister. Andree died as a teenager of meningitis, leaving Huguette as her mother's only living child.

One of Huguette's dollhouses

Huguette married briefly but soon went to Las Vegas for a quickie divorce. She was happiest living with her mother and playing with her dolls. And her dollhouses. She commissioned dollhouses, including several styled after Japanese homes. She had a lot of money to devote to her hobby.

Collection of Paul Clark Newell Jr., from the book "Empty Mansions"

Even in her 50s, Huguette was very exacting about her dolls and dollhouses. In 1964, she cabled a German artist with precise measurements for a future dollhouse. She also wanted a Rumpelstiltskin house that depicted hay turning into gold.

A young Huguette

Eventually, a doctor was summoned to Huguette's apartment. He found that cancer had eaten away part of her face. Huguette went to the hospital and never returned home. She lived out her life in a hospital room that she redecorated with French furniture and plush linens. She gave millions to her nurse and generous gifts to her lawyer and accountant. A court battle erupted over her will, which left nothing to her living relatives. In the end, the relatives got $80 million and the nurse had to settle for $25 million.