This is how you win at Pictionary

So the week before Christmas my in-laws were here.  And any time I can get 4 or more people together to play some board games, well, it's a good time here at Chez Lisa Pie.

Ended up me and my s-i-l, let's call her Donna.  Because that's her name.  Me and Donna were one team. Or is it Donna and I were one team?  Regardless, you know the make-up of Team 1.  Team 2 was my son and her daughter.  Cousins who are younger and think they are smarter than we are.  Ha!

They did start out doing really well and at one point I thought we were going to get our asses waxed.  But then . . . . something clicked and we got on a roll and just whipped those young puppies into shape!  I tell you I was totally channelling Kathy Bates from Fried Green Tomatoes, "Face it, you may be younger and cuter, but we are older and have more insurance better drawing skillz".

That would be wrong because we had almost no drawing skillz at all!  Our drawings were so bad, they were horrible!  How bad were they, you ask?  Well, let me show you a drawing that Donna did for me to guess.

Now, when you look at this lovely drawing what comes to mind?
Knives?
Torpedoes?
Sperm?
Balloon animals?

Well, unless you guessed mermaid you would be as wrong as I was.  For mermaid she drew a fish (of sorts) and then put THREE LEGS on it!

We all damn near peed ourselves over that one.  It was so damn funny I didn't even care that we lost that point and had to pass the cards.

But I also wanted to share with you a picture of the winning picture.  Keep in mind we still have the same person drawing (Donna) and the same person (Moi) guessing.

First she drew the thing on the right. (I guessed basketball hoop and was correct)

Then she drew the stick figure person and I started guessing basketball players.

She shook her head no, and colored in his face.  Which led me to confine my guesses to Black basketball  players.

I said "Michael Jordan"

No.

"Wilt Chamberlain?"

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING !!!!!!

And THAT is how you win at Pictionary, my friends.

With plenty of time left on that timer.

(Puffing out chest a little too proudly and not being at all nice about beating the pants off our kids)

Year in Review or the Rear-view mirror

It has been many days since I last posted, and while thinking about what scintillating topic to ramble on about, I thought to myself "Self, remember last year when you made all those resolutions for this year? How did that go?"

So, I went back to the beginning of this year and scoped out the post on what all I was going to accomplish.  (See, the reason I started blogging was to hold myself accountable.  If it is all typed out in black and pink then I need to follow through)

What follows is my list of six items that I thought I could accomplish in 2010 and then I will update with what really happened.

1. My savings account will increase by $20,000. I don't know how do-able this really is, but I am using Sluggy as my motivator. She shot for 60K last year and landed in the 20's, which I think is great work. Now last year I moaned and ranted and bitched about how every time I save $250 for example, I then get a bill for $250, so I am REALLY hoping this is not going to be the case with my $20,000 goal. Please wish me luck and cross something for me.

What happened here is lots and lots of car maintenance.  Sparky's car, Rachel Pie's car and my own car all needed new brakes, tires, I think there were batteries and rotors and heaven only knows what other parts involved.  Also, I took July and August off of birthing since we had the big family cruise and the wedding, so that was loss of income.  Then my Grandma (r.i.p.) got so sick and I had to give away clients for Sept. and Oct. when I went to be with her, so that was more loss of income.  I will end the year with $5,000 in my savings account.  That is a far cry from $20,000.  But at least it is still something to the positive, right?

2. Continue on my Compact goals of lightening my footprint on the Mother Earth. I am going to step up all of my activities to another level and see how that goes. You know the drill, less packaging in the house, less things in the garbage, more in the compost, more things gone to Goodwill, less things brought in to the house in the first place.

This went well.  I really did buy way less.  I did choose things with less packaging.  Our compost heaps over-runneth!  And our garbage cans are hardly ever full.  There is still way too much going into the recycling though.  I would love to find a way to get even that reduced by more than half.  

3. Get started WAAAAAAYY earlier on Christmas and birthday gifts. I did not allow near enough time this year and Harry and David came to the rescue for several gifts. Not good planning on my part. I think lots of gifts this year will be through Heifer and Kiva. But the homemade gifts will be started on in April, I think.

Yeah, not so much.  Again, with the poor planning.  Thank the stars above for Harry and for David.  April would have been a good place to start on gifts, but that didn't happen.  Big fat failure on item number 3.

4. Start walking and find a way to get in much better health and better shape this year. 2 of my high school friends dropped dead this year unexpectedly and I am not only deeply saddened by this, but shocked that 50 year old people who should be in their prime are not. I would really like to be around for a little longer. I have more to accomplish, more to see, and I am not even remotely ready to kick said bucket.

You would think that I would remember this particular item.  But no, I had no recollection of this.  As a matter of fact, a little germ of an idea has been sprouting in my brain that says 2011 will be the year of me. The year that I will take care of me.  The year that I will make myself a priority.  Nay, not A priority, but rather THE priority!  Not even a glimmer that I had thought this very thing a year ago. 

5. Toward the end of better health, I will be doing more of my meal planning and shopping through Greenling our local online green grocer and at the farmers markets. Keeping it local and organic can only be good for all of us.

I did do this.  Not as consistently as I would have liked.  But it was an a-typical year with me being gone for extended lengths of time.  I will plan on doing even better on this in the coming year.  And this goes back to item number 2, all the local green grocer shopping and farmers market shopping have NO plastic involved.

6. Remove 1 full shelf of cookbooks from my collection. There are plenty of them that I have never used. There are plenty more that I only have made 1 single item from. These books need to be set free.

This was a complete success.  I got rid of about 75 books and my shelves have breathing room in them now.  I have not purchased (or been gifted) a single cookbook this year.  I did buy the November Bon Apetit with the new Thanksgiving day recipes to add to my collection.  But that is as close as I came to buying a new cookbook.

If I were grading myself I would give myself:

1. C

2. A

3. F

4. F

5. B

6. A

Horrible.  Now I have to decide what I am going to do for this coming year and how to hold myself accountable in a manner that will really work!  Any ideas?  Do I need to do a monthly or quarterly check-in?

This time of year between Christmas and New Year's is typically a time that I get really introspective and even a little sad, melancholy or sometimes depressed.  And it seemed like the right time to look back and see how I was doing with my goals.  Not very well, it would appear.

Oh, remember the Tea Hoarding Challenge of 2009?  I didn't buy a single tea for the whole calendar year in order to force myself to use up the stockpile of teas already ensconced in my pantry.  Lots of people in my family knew of this and throughout the year of 2010 gifted me teas, like I needed them or something!  And those no good sorry asses at Whole Paycheck Foods stopped having my very favorite morning tea in stock. I bet I went in there 5 or 6 times and spoke to the tea ordering person and gave her my card and asked her to please call me whenever they got re-stocked.  I get really irritated at this store because they carry items and you try them and like them and get used to them and the next thing you know, BAM!  they don't have it anymore.  It's rather like shopping at Costco in that regard!

So I started worrying that maybe Taylor's of Harrogate had quit making the awesome Scottish Breakfast Tea and it wasn't Whole Paycheck Foods' fault that they no longer carried the best tea ever.  And I went online and scoped it out.  

Of course they still make it!  Of course they were perfectly willing to sell it to me and ship it over here from Merry Ole England!  Even with the shipping it would still be comparable to WF price.  So I quit panicking and decided that I would order some as soon as my current tea stash went down. 

Meanwhile, my sister went on the hunt and sent me a box for Christmas.  (She had previously sent me a different tea, 2 gorgeous tea cups and a tea towel for my birthday) And my husband, Mr. Big Ed, got me a package of SIX BOXES of the famous Scottish Breakfast Tea for Christmas!!!  So I currently have 7 boxes of my favorite morning tea.  

Have I mentioned that each of these boxes contains 50 bags?  By anyone's estimations this is a year's supply of tea.  So!  No more tea buying for me.  I have yet to make my list of resolutions, but suffice it to say there will be no tea shopping for me in 2011.  : )

Next week I will post my list of 2011 resolutions and maybe motivation and memory-boosting need to be at the top of that list?

Christmas Tamale-Making Tired

Yes, I am so tired I am Christmas Tamale-Making Tired.  And THAT, my friends, is t. i. r. e. d.

Little Rachel Pie and I have made this year's tamales.  We spent Wednesday at the store buying everything we needed and then soaking the beans and cooking the beans and also cooking the pork.  Basically, doing all the prep work we could ahead of time.

Then yesterday we started making the tamales.  Typically, I have a group of friends over and some neighbors drop by and my s-i-l and with a kitchen full of people we knock those babies out.  But since we didn't get this planned till the last second and my s-i-l is traveling, it ended up being just the two of us.

And do you think I was smart enough to think of taking my camera out and sharing the experience with you here?  No, I was not.  I actually thought of it TODAY!  A day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes.

So visualize this in your head:  both of us in our Christmas aprons.  Rachel Pie did NOT like her Christmas apron and kept calling it a Muu Muu.  Then it became a M-apron.  Then it was Muu-pron.  Which to me sounded like a prescription drug for e.d. or restless leg syndrome or something lame.

Anyhoo, back to the kitchen.  We had the big giant silver ice chest full of corn husks soaking in water.  We had all 5 giant tamale pots out and at the ready.  There were large pans of mashed beans, shredded and seasoned pork, corn, chopped roasted Hatch chiles, cheese, and bowls of mashed chipotles.  May I just interject here that one of my all-time pet peeves is MORONS who mispronounce CHI-PO-TLE.  It is not now, nor has it ever been CHI-POLE-TEE.  Please don't say this, it just makes you look like an idiot.  Or like Guy Fieri when he says BUH-SAL-MIC in place of the correct BAL-SAM-IC.  It is not that hard to say chi-po-tle.

Anyhoo, back to the kitchen again.  Picture the giant tupperware full of the masa.  And also picture the food processor and all the masa ingredients on the other section of the counter.  What I am saying here is that the kitchen was full of stuff and looked like a tamale bomb had gone off.  And we are clean-as-you-go people.  And it still looked that bad.

We ended up with 18 - 20 dozen tamales total.  Some were pork, some were bean and chipotle, and the rest were were corn, chile and cheese.  In other years we have added in other varieties, we do sweet ones, we mix pork and venison, sometimes we put bacon in the beans, cilantro in the corn, chile and cheese (which I like to call C 3 or C- cubed)  If we had cilantro it would have been C to the 4th power, which I have no clue how to do on my lovely computer.  But that's how we label them when packing away in the freezer.

There was no set rhyme or reason as to how many we made of each.  We just started with the pork and made them till we ran out of the pork.  Then the beans.  And finally the C 3.

In case you are interested in the specifics, we started with about 5 lbs of pork shoulder which I cooked overnight in the crock pot with a little bit of chicken stock and a ton of garlic.  The beans were a 4 lb. bag of pintos that I cooked all day long with a ton of garlic.  When they were cooked well, I added in salt, chile powder, cumin and a couple cans of Ro-Tel.

I bought Chile ancho, chile guajillo, and those little Chile de Arbol (those are the hot ones) and we seeded them and roasted them and then softened them in boiling water and then processed them with lots of garlic and salt and some of the soaking water till we had about a quart of chile puree'.  This mixture got blended into the pork, and each of the masa mixtures.  I vary the ingredients of the masa to better coordinate with the filling.  When making the pork tamales I use the rich pork drippings and mix with chicken broth and some of the chile puree', but with the bean ones I use the bean juice that I strained off before refrying the beans.  Just to add another layer of flavor.  Make sense?

After all the giant tamale steamer pots were done and cooling we still had to package up the tamales and label them. And find room for them in the freezers.

Time involved:  2 people at 12 hours each, plus 2 people shopping for 2 hours, plus 3 more hours prep work.  Total:  34 woman hours.

Money spent:  No clue.  I hate keeping up with that end of things.  Plus how do you account for the baking powder and salt that was already in the pantry and used 1 tsp at a time?  All I know is that people who bitch about buying tamales for $5 or $6 per dozen have never made them.  There is no way I would do all that work and sell my 20 dozen for $6 each.  That's $120 and if you divide that by 34 hours of labor it comes to $3.50 per hour.  Isn't that slave labor wages?

Whatever.

The point was not to belittle our efforts but to show that spending that time together and producing a quality traditional food that our family loves is truly a labor of love. What other reason could there be for doing all that work?

Love of family.  That's what motivates most of these customs.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with your family.  And notice your customs.  Do them with love in your heart and a song on your lips.  Holiday beverages help, if you have too many in-law outlaws hanging around your kitchen.  : )

You'll Shoot your eye out!

Poor Ralphie, all he wants is the Red Ryder BB Gun and the adults around him keep telling him "You'll shoot your eye out".

Is this the best Christmas movie ever made or what?  According to a list of the top Christmas movies, it is.

Well, hold on to your hats, people.  Because look what is new in Seattle.

And check this out as well: Ralphie's house is now restored to what it was for the movie and is right across the street from the Christmas Story Museum.

And!  If going to Cleveland to see the house and the museum or going to Seattle for this year's production of the musical weren't enough for you, each of these places has stores where you can buy your very own Leg Lamp, or pink bunny pajamas or any of the hats the boys all wore in the movie.  It's sooo exciting!

Year before last I bought my kids each their very own small ornament sized leg lamps that come in the crate marked "Fra-geee-lay". And last year my son got me my very own 18" leg lamp that holds a candle. It is very prominently displayed.  Love the leg lamp!

It is grocery shopping day and cooking the ingredients for the tamale making. Tamale making will take place tomorrow.  It is going to smell great around here in just a few hours.

Enjoy your day, whatever holiday preparations you are taking care of. And thanks for stopping by.

Holiday Traditions

Yesterday I was asked by one of my clients for suggestions that they could adopt as their own holiday meal traditions.  His family does the big turkey and all that stuff ( basically it's a rerun of Thanksgiving) while her home celebrated with a Mexican feast.  Now that they have their little one she was looking for something fun to try out this year as their own big Christmas meal.  We both went about our business and continued thinking about it and then said to each other at the same time "Paella!!"

In my house we have a big paella for Easter dinner.  We did it once and loved it so much that we have continued it and made it our family Easter tradition.  I don't think you can force a tradition into existence, but you have to start somewhere, right?

So I am writing down my recipe and loaning her my paella pan so they can try it out and see if they need to go buy a pan for next year.

Anyhoo, it did get me to thinking about our particular family traditions.  Traditions that Mr. Big Ed brought from his family, things that I do because my mom did them, or my aunt or one of my grandparents, and also the traditions that we have cobbled together over the long history of our marriage.

Mr. Big Ed's family was not big on stockings.  They were go to Midnight Mass people and then come home and eat the tamales that his Mom had worked on all day and then open presents.  I don't guess anyone felt the need to wake kids up early after all that to do stockings.

My family was HUGE on stockings.  We still are.  Our "stockings" are essentially large paper grocery sacks full of stuff with your stocking hanging on the front.  We totally over-do it.  It is an obscene display of over abundance is what it is.  We also did a big Christmas Eve thing with dips, pate', tamales, chili, and tons of cookies.  But we only got to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  Then Christmas morning we had our stockings, a special breakfast and then we got to open our gifts.

The holiday traditions that we have put together for our little family unit has grown and evolved and with each move to another country we added in something we picked up at each new place and also had to shed a few that were just not practical in the new place.

Our Christmas Eve and Christmas day is a real hybrid of what we each have brought and what feels right for us as we have grown.  For example, there were a number of years when 3 out of the 4 of us were vegetarian.  That right there will put a spin on your holiday menu.  And we try to work around what is important and a priority to each of us.

Being from Texas and having lived in Mexico for a number of years it is way up on the list of "Must Haves" that we make tamales for Christmas Eve.  Being from Texas it is equally important that we have the Velveeta/Ro-tel queso dip stuff.  From Mr. Big Ed's family we have onion dip with Ruffles.  Not just any onion dip, it needs to be the Borden brand store-bought stuff that you bring home and add a bunch of fresh black pepper and stir it up really well.  Lots of cookies and baked goods figure in.  And everyone loves the spicy roasted nuts.  This has gradually morphed into having cheese enchiladas, more tamales, guacamole and rice for Christmas dinner.

Usually for Christmas morning we will make a special drink.  Sometimes it is Bloody Marys or champagne and orange juice, but most times it is Mexican Hot Chocolate.  (Only Ybarra's not that crappy Abuelita's brand)  I either make a stuffed French toast or sometimes these ham cups that have either sauteed mushrooms or spinach in them and topped with eggs and then baked.  These are delicious.

I have cut way back on my giant bags-o-stocking stuffers.  No one wants all that much stuff.  I would rather buy one really fabulous bar of the best chocolate made than have 30 pieces of crappy candy.  So, that's kind of the way things are going for us.

I see our traditions as more of a fluid, moving thing rather than a set-in-stone "this is how we have ALWAYS done it" sort of thing.

So, here's what I want to know:  What are your holiday traditions?  What are the most meaningful things you do that if everything else fell away, this is the thing you would try to keep?

Lemme hear from you!  And remember, it is most important to be relaxed and enjoy the time together.  So don't sweat the small stuff and the details.  It will be wonderful even if the cards aren't all sent on time.  It will be just the way it is meant to be whether or not those bows match or not.  Enjoy your selves.

And thank you for reading.  And even more thanks for commenting through this year.  It really means a lot to me and inspires me.  That's my present from you!

Reading the Obits the week before Christmas

Isn't it sad that people really and truly do die at the holidays?  And more of them do it then than at the rest of the year.  Since before Thanksgiving we have had 3 full pages each Sunday rather than just the usual two or two and a bit.  That's a pretty big increase.

There was a really cute photo of a man by the name of Alonzo David King, Jr. who was known by one and all as Bill.  Bill was received into the arms of the Lord.  Bill was married to his high school sweetheart Daisy Mae for 60 years.  60 years!

Kenneth Duke Morrison (note that Duke appears to be a real middle name and not a nickname in quotations) passed away peacefully of multiple myeloma.  I don't know much about multiple myeloma but they mention apprecation to the bone marrow transplant unit at the hospital.

Rudolph Robles lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.

There were a lot, and I mean a lot of the obituaries that mentioned sending money to the Alzheimer's Association.  It's really scary to me to think about getting Alzheimer's.  It is such a horrible disease for the whole family to deal with.

Several of the obituaries were heartfelt and beautifully written and truly touched my heart.  I wish that everyone would be so well-loved that someone in their family would memorialize them this way.

The family of Tomas Rivera wrote one of the best ones I have read this year.  Here are some highlights of what they said about him. "Tomas and his loving wife Frances created a home that would foster acceptance, understanding, and love. He represented the passion and strong work ethic of a devoted steelworker who supported his family in both the good and the hard times.  Through his children and down to his great grandchildren he exemplified the meaning of dedication and honor.  His presence will never cease to exist as it can be seen in all 53 of his descendants. It is because of him we all know where we come from and where we are going. We thank you for teaching us how to lead and love a family."

Isn't that beautiful?  Did you tear up a little?  I sure did.  What a loving and respectful tribute.

Bob Williams family summed it up with this:  "Bob liked everybody and everybody liked Bob.  Friendly and outgoing with a great sense of humor, he will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him."

And the best name today goes to . . . . . .  (insert drum roll) . . . . . . .


Annie Maude Murphy Norris.  Who goes by the name Maudie.

Which makes her girlhood name Maudie Murphy.

Maudie Murphy!  Like Audie Murphy.  Only Maudie.  Bah!!  I love it!

Maudie lived a full and exciting life.  She traveled, she loved to crochet and grow orchids and African violets, going bowling, making gifts for her friends.  She sounds like a real charmer.  I would have loved to have known her.

I really would love to start hanging out at the senior centers or the retirement homes or something.  But I don't think I would be able to read the obits afterwards, if they were all people I might know.  I don't think my heart would be able to do it and not break into a thousand pieces.

But seriously, for years I have considered taking the training to be a hospice volunteer.  It would be like being a doula for people who are dying and helping them to make the transition peacefully and on their own terms.  That is still on the list of things I want to accomplish.  Like quilting, learning to speak Italian and Russian.

I am off to bake some cookies for a cookie exchange tomorrow.  Enjoy your Monday.

Oh!  And don't forget that tonight is the big full lunar eclipse. Tomorrow is the winter solstice and also the full moon.  It seems exciting to have all this at once, doesn't it?

Musings and maybe a Rant

Well, here it is almost the end of the year.  Time for people to take stock.  Time to re-evaluate their goals, and dreams.  And what has been at the forefront of my brain lately?

WHO ARE THE COMPLETE DOUCHE BAG IDIOTS WHO RUN BURGER KING'S AD CAMPAIGNS???

I ask you, who is in charge of what passes for ads for those idiots?  I haven't stepped foot in a BK in almost 8 years and I aim to keep it that way.  Shame on them!

Watch this creepiness


Back when Quizno's had their horrible little furry creature ads I went quite a long time without going in there.  Bleechh!  I kept getting a mental picture of their food being made from those nasty things.

Check them out here, if you dare!

When I am at Walgreen's (my favorite store) I always buy the Walgreen's brand of Mucinex, because I can't stand those horrible green slimy boogery mucus slobs in their ads.  I do like the product, it works really well, but I am not supporting them and their disgusting ads.

Don't watch this one if you have a weak stomach.  Mucinex ad


Do you have ads that you hate?  If so, will the ad keep you from shopping at that store, buying that product or however you boycott lameness?

Do you have any favorite ads?  Ads that make you happy or touch you?  Will the ad cause you to want to go to that store or buy that product?

Here are a couple of my favorite ads.  Enjoy!

Geico Therapist ad


Geico woodchucks


Jeep Liberty


and if this ad doesn't make you tear up, you must be missing your empathy bone.


And in keeping with the season, here is a great oldie but goody!

Reading the Obits

Good morning!  And a great good morning it is.  I am posting my notes about the weekly obituary reading later than usual as I did indeed have a birth to attend on Monday, and post-partum visits to make on Tuesday.  So without further ado, here are some highlights (and low lights) from this weeks obits.

Nicknames - You would think that nicknames would not need to be a part of an obituary.  This is after all, a part of the present that will be preserved for future generations, not a baseball line-up.  And you might also think that people would know if your name is John or Jack that you have been called Johnny or Jackie a time or two in your life.

However, if your name is Charles Edward it is not always going to occur to people that your nickname is Heinie.  Or Stephanie otherwise known as "Taffie".  How about Ira a.k.a. Polie?

I might have figured out that James William Waggonner goes by "Wag".  I don't know that I could have actually CALLED him Wag, but I would have understood that one!

Almost everyone here either passed away or went to be with the Lord.  We had a few creative obit writers who used these euphemisms:

was welcomed into heaven by his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


passed into his Lord's hands.


peacefully passed away.


passed peacefully.


passed into eternity.


went to join her Heavenly Father.


passed away unexpectedly.


was called home.


was welcomed into heaven.


Now, onto family names.  Sometimes in a family you see that there was a pattern to naming the kids, like this one:  The siblings were Troy, Todd, and Trent.  Son is Trey All the cute names were in the older generations, like Arthur and Stancie, Goldie, Sidney and Stanley.

In another family we have Wilma Lucille who was born to Elizabeth Cathcart Vernon Duke and Luther Vernon.  Wilma Lucille had a beautiful picture and appeared to be a happy woman full of fun.  Here is a really nice passage her family shared : "Joe courted her and she agreed to marry him only if she could be his partner. Harnessed side by side to the plow, not walking two steps behind with her head down.  And so began their life that was love story until Joe died in August 1973 after a long battle with cancer."

And lastly but not leastly, Willidean Stubbs who was born to Etta and Lee Ayers in Eufula, OK.  Willidean was married to Bogner Stubbs.  Her siblings were Duane, Ralph, Dick, Bill and Ila Mae.  You just don't see many Willideans or Ettas or Ila Maes anymore.  People are too busy naming their kids things like Britney, Brittany, Brittaney, Chelsea, and whatever the current pop star flavor of the month is.

Sadly, most all the causes of death listed were cancer or Alzheimer's.  But that is only a small percentage of the obituaries because most people aren't listing a cause of death.  Even Wilma Lucille, they didn't list her cause of death but they put in that her husband had died of the cancer back in 1973.

That's all the news that was fit to repeat.  Have a great day!

Lots of stuff to report

Isn't it interesting how you rock along in your everyday life and nothing spectacular happens and you have to comb through the card catalogue that is your mind for something worthwhile to talk about?

Isn't it interesting that I think of my brain as a card catalogue?  I do.  I think of it as lots and lots of those teeny little card drawers and each little bit of information and facts and trivia are each stored on their own little card.  Many are cross-referenced into lots of locations.  But as I have gotten older I have added more and more files with more and more drawers each just chock-a-block FULL of information.  And as I have gotten older it takes a little longer each time I have to sift through the wealth of knowledge to find just that certain particular bit that I need.  Some people might think I have menopausal brain, or I am a dingbat, but no.  I am here to tell you it just means I have more drawers to sift through.

So, last night was our theatre night.  And we normally go to dinner ahead of time.  There are only so many restaurants downtown around the theatre (don't you like that I am using the British spelling theatre?) that are open on Sunday nights.  The rest of the week?  Hell, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a really good restaurant down there!

Anyhoo, I was reading the paper Sunday morning waiting for Patty Cakes to get up so we could read the obits, and while I was waiting I read the food section.  It's all about recipes, farmers markets, restaurants, people that have re-done their kitchens, etc.  The usual food section faire.  There were 2 articles about this new restaurant that opened less than 2 weeks ago and I was so excited to see that they were in fact, OPEN!

This is John Besh's first foray outside of New Orleans.  We are soooooo happy to have him here in our fair city!  I was beside myself.  Not to mention a year ago when he was on The Next Iron Chef I watched that series on the edge of my seat and was really hoping and praying he would win.  Nope.  Michael Simon won instead.

Here is a photo of the glorious Mr. Besh for you to peruse.

But that's okay.  Because if he had won, we might not have this restaurant to go eat at.  So, when we have theatre tickets we have to dine really early because otherwise everything is closed at 10 p.m. when we leave.  I got online and made reservations for us at 5:30 for a 7:30 curtain call.  The restaurant is only a block or so away from the theatre so it worked out perfectly.

Here's my review of our first dinner at Luke (which has the little umlout thingy over the "u", but I don't know how to do that and don't really care to figure that out right now).  The restaurant is very typical of a New Orleans brasserie/bistro.  I had a couple of complaints that were minor and did not concern the food at all.   First off, the tables are way too small.  Like 28" square.  Small.  Smaller than a card table small.  And for 4 people with water carafes, salt and pepper, glasses, etc. even before the plates and food get there.  Too small.  Secondly, our waiter was new and "overly-trained".  I hate that.  But not near as much as Mr. Big Ed hates that.  I could see him visibly cringe every time the waiter walked up, took in a huge amount of air in his lungs and started talking.  That boy needed to learn to relax and also?  Take a breath!

One more irritating thing and then I will tell you all about the sumptuous food.  The restaurant is on the ground floor with outdoor seating overlooking the river.  The kitchen?  Up a huge curved staircase.  They had more young boys (not the waiters) hauling big heavy trays full of food up and down the staircase than you could count.  That seemed to me to be unnecessarily taking the chance that your food would come flying down the stairs with the poor waiter-wannabe.  It's not as if they had a gorgeous old building and that's the way it was designed and there was nothing they could do about it.  This is a brand spanking new hotel that was just finished.  So someone made a conscious decision to do it this way.

Now, on to the food!  Oh, the food!  It was so wonderful.  In addition to the regular menu there is also a Daily Special section that has a different special every day of the week.  The special is a cup of soup, the special of the day and the bread pudding.  So it's a 3-course dinner for under $30.  You can't beat that with a stick.  The regular menu was beautiful.  And small.  Not tons of offerings, just the right amount of each.

So at our table we had 3 appetizers; the Steak Tartare, a dozen fresh oysters and a rabbit and quail liver pate'.  They were each fabulous.  And gorgeously presented.  The pate' was one of the best I have ever had.  I am sure my arteries clogged up just looking at it.  Spectacular is what it was.

Then for entrees: 2 of us had the daily special which was a cup of the gumbo, smoked brisket with potatoes and bacon lardons, and then the bread pudding for dessert.  Also appearing at our table was the Wild Boar chop with fries and a big steaming pot of mussels with fries and bread to sop up the liquid.

We had the bread puddings and also an order of profiteroles for dessert.

Everything was superb.

Oh!  And guess who was there?  Gregg Popovich!  Coach Pop of the San Antonio Spurs!  Yes, it was a Spurs sighting.  I don't know what he was eating, but I do know he was celebrating our win from earlier in the day.  Go Spurs Go!  Gotta love those Spurs.

One more thing, did anyone watch the finale to Amazing Race?  I came home to watch it on my dvr which very nicely recorded it.  Or so I thought!  It definitely recorded CBS from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. but that isn't what I got.

I have complained (and complained mightily I might add) about fucking football running over. And then 60 minutes runs over.  And then prime time television is off by as much as a whole hour and all the programming of tivo and dvrs all over the world is for naught.  I can't tell you how much this irritates the beejeebers right out of me!  It should not be allowed.  If they are consistently running over, then schedule accordingly!  Why do I have to fix everything?  It doesn't seem that complicated to me.  Either get the game over in the allotted time or cut off the end of the flipping game.  That should rile up some people and then maybe the stupid fucking NFL would quit being such wussies and taking time outs every 5 seconds.  Play through like they do in soccer!  It's ridiculous.  Move the game along or move it off my t.v.

Dastardly dogs.

So I did not get to see the ending of the AR.  I had to wait and go online this morning to find out who won, but I didn't get to see them do it and by how much ahead of the other teams.  Seems like a waste of a whole season.  Like getting a book and having the last chapter removed but someone gives you the very last page.  Aaarrrggh!

And what is up on Wisteria Lane?  Good Lord!  Those people are jacked up on meth or something.  What a strange episode that was!

All done now.  I have a client who may or may not be in labor.  So I may or may not be going to a birth. Wish us luck that she gets a safe, healthy birth with a beautiful baby at the end.

Have a great day and remember just 12 days till Christmas!

yet another post about Christmas songs

I know, I know, you have heard all you want about Christmas music in addition to actually HEARING the flipping songs all day long.  But in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to share a couple more thoughts about this topic.

I make a huge production of finding just the right song to be ringtones for all the people on my cel phone. Then I make another production of getting a separate default ringtone and finally!  one more prodcution for the Caller Tune that you get to listen to while you are waiting for me to answer my damn phone.  Not long after Halloween my Caller Tune gets switched to a Christmas song, because why not!

So I went through the list of songs available and I now have the cheesiest songs available for my ring tone and also for the Caller Tune.  (Why on earth am I capitalizing Caller Tune? Is there a trademark thing?)

Which songs did I choose?  Well, you could call me to find out one of them.  Or you could be in the room with me when someone else calls to hear the other.  But the fastest way would be for me to just get on with it and TELL YOU!

Caller Tune that you get to listen to when you call me is:


All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey - now the ONLY reason I have this one is because of the movie Love, Actually.  I adore that movie and really love when that little girl is singing this song.  I like this even more than I dislike Mariah Carey, so that's something.

And drum roll . . . . . . . . .

The cheesey song I get to hear when you call me is . . . . . .


Last Christmas by Wham!

Hilarious, is what that is!  What on earth could be funnier than George Michael singing Christmas carols?

It's a gorgeous day out there, get out and enjoy it.  Finish up your holiday preparations, whether it be card writing, present shopping, gift wrapping and shipping or planning your menu.  And sing some Christmas carols while you are doing your thing.

Christmas

Last year about this time I posted a rant about the Christmas songs I just can't abide.  You can see that here if you are interested.  I just re-read it and I still firmly believe that those Top 3 songs are an abomination. Horrible crap that never should have been recorded.

So this year, I would like to focus on the really good and fabulous Christmas songs and carols.  Just as a quick little review, Christmas songs are new-ish, they are about Santa, snowmen, bells and buying crap.  Christmas carols are about baby Jesus, stars, Virgin Mary, faith and are usually found in a hymnal.  I am not saying all Christmas songs are bad and all Christmas carols are good.  There is good and bad in all these things.  There are also plenty of songs that are not recorded to celebrate anything other than the record label's ability to separate us from our folding money.

To me, the good songs are the ones that make you feel something.  Joy, love, anticipation or just plain happiness that you can remember all the verses!

And again, in no particular order, here are some of my favorite Carols/Songs.

O Come All Ye Faithful - this has always been one of my favorites.  It really makes you want to stand tall, sing out loud and feel how your soul soars.  Awesome, in every sense of the word.

Away in a Manger - One of the first carols everyone learns.

The First Noel - when you get to the "Born is the King of Is-rael!" part, you can't help but tear up, can you?

The Twelve Days of Christmas - I love this song!  My favorite version is with John Denver and the Muppets.  Such a happy song.

Silent Night - This is the traditional song to end all Christmas Eve church services with all the lights out and everyone with lit candles.  It doesn't get any more reverent than this.

Holly Jolly Christmas - It does not feel like Christmas till Burl Ives sings this one.

I'll Be Home for Christmas - When I lived in Chile our American Women's group would have a huge Christmas luncheon with silent auctions, quilt raffles and all sorts of festive things.  After we ate we would all sing Christmas carols and then finish by standing  in a huge circle holding hands and singing this song.  Never a dry eye by the end.  It was so emotional for many of the long-time residents who never got back home for Christmas.  Then of course, we would walk out into the Chilean summer sunshine and get knocked back into reality.

But for a few hours, we were all cozy wearing our Christmas finery and dreaming of cold snowy holidays.

I listen to Christmas music darn near all year long.  Actually, my home phone ringer is "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" so yeah, I do hear Christmas music all year long!

There are so many good ones to pick from that I could be here listing them all day.  And that makes it all the more ridiculous that they have to play those horrendous Top 3 Songs That Never Need to be Played Again.  Hummmppphh.

What are your favorites?  Do you have any that you despise?  Are they different than mine?

Lemme hear from you!

Tomatoes, dogs and cats, oh my!

Time for more randomness!  My menopausal brain just fires out thoughts one right after the other that have nothing to do with each other and it is damn hard to keep them in a coherent pattern sometimes, so bear with me.

Take a look at what Mr. Big Ed brought in the other day when we were being threatened with a night dipping down to freezing:

There is a HUGE metal sheet pan full of green tomatoes as well.  Aren't those fabulous?  If you live up north and aren't currently growing your own tomatoes, well, all I can say is I am so sorry.

Look at those guys!  All organically grown heirloom stock from our own compost, no chemicals anywhere, and tasty too!

I was sitting on the couch the other evening with Ernest T. Bass (who by the by takes up 3/4 of the damn couch) and looked out and here's what I saw.  I quietly yelled at Mr. Deaf Big Ed to bring my camera and get this shot from both angles so you could also see this.

3 of the 7 all lined up in descending size order.  Bassie on the couch and then Stanley Manley and skinny little Angus MacPhee in front.  Stanley at least has the good sense to bend his front legs a little bit. Those other two look like they are going to have stiff joints when they try to get up if you ask me!

Today is my birthday.  It is also Pearl Harbor Day.  But I am not celebrating Pearl Harbor Day.  Mr. Big Ed woke me up singing to me and brought me a big mug of hot tea in bed and some flowers.  This will be the first time that my son Sparky will make my birthday cake.  Our family tradition is that you get to choose whatever you want for your birthday dinner and cake.  I have always chosen my Nana's Pineapple Upside Down Cake which is the best cake in the whole world.  One of my brothers always gets the chocolate and vanilla pudding layered up dessert thing, so in our family that thing is known as Chris' Birthday Cake.  Anyhoo, it will be Sparky's first time to make the Nana's Pineapple Upside Down Cake and carry on the tradition.  Hooray for Sparky!  And if I haven't already posted the recipe for the best cake ever, let me know and I will get it up here post-haste!

Time for me to head out and get busy.  I have already used up my daily quota of !!! excitement points.

It's my birthday and my wish is that each of you will have a fabulous day and find a little peace in the excitement of the season.

Another O.M.G. moment and then an Awwwww . . .

I know, those of you who aren't reality t.v. show nuts like me, or birth junkies like me probably don't care about the exploits of the 16 and Pregnant girls.  But bear with me on this one.

In the original 16 and Pregnant series there were a few stand-outs that made the cut for the follow-up Teen Mom series.  They included Catelynn and her fiance' Tyler, and Amber and her sometimes boyfriend/sometimes fiance'/sometimes punching bag Gary.

After the series aired it showed Amber repeatedly hitting and smacking the shit out of Gary and he never once fought back.  It was really hard to watch.  Especially since little Leah their now one year old daughter was right there to witness it all.  This relationship is a trainwreck through and through.  Neither are mature enough and she is one of the most self-centered people on the planet.  Poor little Leah will have lots of documentation to take to therapy with her when she is older.  Anyhoo, the city they live in finally got off their asses and filed charges against Amber and removed Leah from her care while this was going on.  I would imagine anger management classes were ordered.  Leah was living with Gary in the meantime. It recently came out in the news that Amber has custody reinstated and Leah is now back home with her.  And what better way to mark the occasion than this:

I am sure this will be lovely the next time she is pregnant.  And by the by?  Leah is way cuter than that tattoo photo makes her out to be.

The next bit of news on the Teen Mom front is this:  Catelynn and Tyler were the only couple who chose adoption for their baby.  It's a fairly open adoption in that they receive regular photos, letters and updates from the adoptive parents.  They also send gifts and were invited to come and spend a weekend for baby Carly's first birthday.  Catelynn and Tyler are so well-grounded and do not engage in lots of teen angst and drama.  Which is a miracle when you see their background and family trees.  Tyler's dad, Butch, spent most of Tyler's life in prison.  He sports a really long salt-and-pepper mullet and a trucker hat.  When he got out of prison a few years ago the first thing he did was to go and marry Catelynn's MOM!!!  Catelynn and Tyler are really the smartest ones not only in their families but on the whole damn series.

Here is an article about them with a photo and yes, those are braces on Catelynn's teeth.  She is managing to keep up with her orthodontia through all this.  Oh!  And when they went to see Carly for her birthday, they brought the most amazing photo/scrap book they had made for her with photos and little memorabilia from each of them throughout their lives.  It was the sweetest most tear-jerking moment on reality t.v.  That little girl is going to treasure it all her life.

When Catelynn gave birth to Carly the adoptive mom came and gave her a beautiful silver bracelet with a heart on it.  She had gotten one for herself, one for Catelynn and one for Carly to wear when she is bigger, as a symbol of how connected the 3 of them are and always will be.  I about fell out of my chair crying over that one.  They chose really good adoptive parents for that baby.

That's it.  Have a great weekend and don't let all the shopping, decorating, baking, wrapping get you down.  Take a deep breath and just relax.

Updates, Gossip and such

I woke up this morning with my head completely stuffed up, my eyes welded shut with sand, itchy inside my ears and down my throat.  All sure signs of what we lovingly call "Cedar Fever" around here. The mountain cedar is horrendous.  It will be the one thing that forces me to wave the white flag and give up and move.

But I have a client who is due in 2 days and the last thing she needs is someone coughing and wheezing all over the delivery room, so I trotted on down to the Med Clinic this morning.  I say "trotted" and it was really more of a hobble with my bad knees.  Anyhoo, I saw a very nice doctor person and after lengthy examinations and conversations he agreed with my self-diagnosis of Cedar Fever and arthritis of the knee bones.  So I am taking steroids.  I am on the 'roids, the juice, the stuff.  I wonder if I am going to bulk up and go postal?

This very nice doctor person also told me I need to do water aerobics and other water exercises to not stress my joints.  In order to do that, I think I might need to get myself a pool.  Wait till I spring this on Mr. Big Ed. Ha!

Then I went and stood in line f o r e v e r at Walgreen's only to find out they are so backed up it will be hours and hours until my 'roids are ready to be picked up.  So I came home and waited a long while and went back and got back into the interminable line in order to pick up my drugs.  Due to having insurance I "saved" $125.00 on one of the prescriptions.  Saved $125.  off of the regular price.  Shocking, isn't it?  Do you know what was in that particular bottle?

Six little tiny pills.

That's all.  Six.

Hmmmmppphh.  The next time I have money to invest in anything it should probably go to the pharmaceutical people that are hosing the general public.

Did y'all see Survivor last night?  o. m. g. !!!!  It was a shocker.  Two stupid twit girls told Jeff that they wanted to quit.  They were tired.  They were hungry.  They were wet.  They were just worn out. Big fat whiners is what they are.  Then if you watched online when those two wieners showed up at the Ponderosa, which is what they call the accomodations for the jury members, the other people there were flabbergasted and highly pissed that they themselves were voted out and wanted to be playing the game and now can't.

I found it interesting that they let them stay at the Ponderosa and continue on the jury.  Seems like they should be booted and bring back the last 2 people before to be on the jury.  Whatever.

Oh!  And I found this little tidbit online.  Celebrity Rehab 4 is coming in January and the cast has been announced.  It is as follows:

Janice Dickinson (who didn't see this coming?)
Leif Garrett (former teen heart throb and current druggie)
Rachel Uchitel (claim to fame is being one of Tiger Woods' women)
Eric Roberts (yep, another train wreck)
Jeremy London (this is the Party of 5 twin, not the Dazed and Confused one)
Jason Wahler (I have no clue)
Jason Davis (his claim to celebrity is being a socialite, whatever that means)
Frankie Lons (again, I have no clue)

Looks like Celebrity Rehab is going to be a bit of a misnomer, kind of like Dancing with the Stars was this season.  Down the tubes with another show, I guess.

Off to make some more hot tea with honey, drink another Emergen-C and carefully swallow a $25.00 pill.  Hope you are feeling great in your neck of the woods!

Look at my loot!

At the Esperanza Peace Market I shopped at last Friday, I got lots of treasures.  I did manage to get a few unique gifts for my list, but I also got a few spur of the moment things for me.  They may still end up as gifts, but who knows!

Take a look at these goodies.

Those two photos above are skeins made of strips of recycled Indian saris.  The top photo has two skeins on top that are made of wider strips and the bottom ones are really thin.  Absolutely gorgeous colors and sheen and shimmer.  Then there are hand-turned rosewood knitting needles.  They are fairly large (size 17) and should work perfectly with those fibers.  My fingers are just a-twitching to get to them!

These solid color skeins are so cool.  Just vibrant and pearly colors on top of being amazing to touch. Guess what it is made from?

If you are like me you probably did not guess Banana Fibers!  Now, is that just most wonderful use of a plant that might be going to waste?  I kept trying to get closer up pics of the sheen and texture, but they just want to reflect the light and that makes them look blurry.  I wish you could touch the screen and see what I am talking about.

This also got me to thinking that I could head to Goodwill and get some tacky 100% silk dresses for dirt cheap and tear them into similar strips and make something out of them.

Guess who would rather be doing something else rather than putting up the stupid Christmas luminarias?  Heee!!

Here's a diet I could get behind

I know, I need to lose weight.  And seriously, before I go any further I just want to say that going into the age of 50 overweight has to be the dumbest, stupidest thing I have ever done.  You always hear it gets harder to drop pounds as you get older, but you don't really understand how much harder it is!  It is flipping hard, is what it is.

And now that my right knee has decided it is oh, maybe the knee of a 100 year old hockey goalie, or a football player or some other person who puts lots of strain on their knees.  Catcher in baseball!  That's another one.  My right knee has for several years bothered me when I would drive for long stretches, such as back and forth to Colorado to see Rachel Pie at school.  But since my last drive out to Grandma's a month ago?  Holy shit.  This knee is just killing me.  And instead of getting better it seems that I am taking more and more doses of Advil (really it is Walgreen's brand Wal-profin) to get through the day.  And if something is in the bottom shelves of the kitchen cabinets?  I would rather drive to Target and buy a new one than have to get down on that bad knee and retrieve said object and get back up again.

I have decided that my bad knee has some arthritis in it.  And being the smart person I am, I chose to research this on the Google rather than going to see a medical professional.  I really hate going to see a doctor.  And I wouldn't have any idea what kind of doctor you go to for arthritis.  Nor do I know what kinds of tests they administer to determine the type of arthritis or anything else.

But what I do know is this:  Without fail every single solitary website about arthritis in the knees says this:

LOSE WEIGHT!!!

LOSE WEIGHT NOW!!

Supposedly every pound you lose takes about 10 pounds of pressure off your knee.  And that should help your poor arthritic knee while you figure out whatever else you are supposed to be doing.

And I read this article today.  Now, this really is a diet that has my name written all over it!  Years ago in a galaxy far, far away I was going to Weight Watchers. This was back when they were strict and not all "oh, let's count points instead of actual nutrition".  I can't even understand the new stuff.  It makes no sense to me.  I like the old way.  Hmmmpph.

Anyhoo, back in the day, the Weight Watcher people told you to keep track of how many servings of Protein, Carbs, Vegetables, Fruits, Fats, and Extras.  I think that was it.  There may be more, but that was  the basis of it.  And it made sense.  And it matched with the guidelines of the pyramid and the heart association and the diabetes people.  I was always going way under on my protein counts and struggled to keep my carbs in check.  This new stupid pointy thing?  I would be all over eating all my points in potatoes, rice, bread and other bad white stuff and screw the damn protein.

When I was a small person in elementary school we had to learn a song about Baked Potatoes.

"A baked potato, burns the fingers, mealy and plump and hot.
A baked potato, burns the fingers, careful because it's hot"

What a lovely ditty that was.  But every time I see a hot, fluffy baked potato with the top cracked open to let all that steam rise out, that is the stupid song I get stuck in my head.

And according to the article  me wanting to eat all those potatoes might not really be such a horrible thing!  Yea!!  I need to research further and see if they are going to list everything he ate for the 60 day challenge.  And also how potatoes fit with arthritis and knees.

So, bring on the wisdom of the masses!  Let me hear from you about what you know about:

A. Knees in general
B. Arthritis in particular
C. Potatoes and diets composed of
D. Losing weight and how horrific it is after you turn 50
E. Why my Christmas decorations are not jumping out of the boxes and draping themselves artfully over all surfaces.

Saturday Stuff

Yes, I am up at the crack of dawn.  Yes, it does suck.  I am not a morning person.  Never have been, never will be.  But my little tiny Rachel Pie had a crack of dawn flight this morning so we had to be at the airport 2 hours before that crack of dawn flight, which meant I had to be up even earlier than that!

I am back home from the airport and drinking my morning tea and thinking about going back to bed.  It's always sad when people leave, but most especially if it is one of my kids.  That's the hardest thing.

Thanksgiving day was really nice.  The food was fabulous, the company was spectacular, and the conversation was great.  The only bad thing that happened that day actually happened to my poor s-i-l, who was making a few of the dishes and bringing them over.  She was loading the food in the car and dropped one pie on top of the other one.  And bam, just like that!  There was no pie.  That's pretty flipping sad, is what that was.

So I trotted on over to Luby's and picked up a few pies and was back in no time.  No harm, no foul.  Except for all the time and ingredients and effort she had put in were in the garbage.

Now we tried some new recipes this year and some tried-and-true ones and here is the scoop on them:

New England Maple Herb Butter Turkey and Gravy (t and t recipe) ***** (that's 5 stars)
This is always fabulous.  The recipe is a few days back if you want to scroll back and find it.

Dressing with Sausage, Apples and Cranberries (t and t recipe) *****
Same thing here.  I make this because it goes perfectly with the turkey and gravy recipes above.  And this year it was just sublime.  Love this dressing.

Cranberries with Grapefruit and Mint (new to the rotation) *****
This was so good, I can't even tell you.  I did make it twice, rather than doubling it.  Sometimes recipes just don't double well and I didn't want to screw up all the cranberries and have to start over, so I just made single batches twice.  I can't even think of a thing this stuff wouldn't be good on.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Smoked Ham and Pecans (new recipe) *****
We doubled this recipe, but did half with ham and half without.  We had a guest who is from Saudi Arabia and doesn't eat from the pork so we split it up this way.  It was really good.  We went around the table and critiqued each recipe so I could make notes on which to keep and which to ditch, and everyone agreed the sprouts were awesome.

Butternut Squash with Tangerine Juice and Sage (t and t recipe) ****
Everyone loved this and went on and on about it, but I thought it was only a 4 star dish.  I am not sure exactly what was missing for me, but it was not quite top-notch.

My s-i-l made a sweet potato dish that was very savory and spicy rather than the usual sweet stuff and it was really good.  She also did some homemade Parkerhouse rolls, and a corn dish.  Also, along with the poor smashed pies she made this Apple, Cranberry, Pineapple crisp recipe that we made last year. It was just delicious.  That one might be 4 and 1/2 or 5 stars.

We served champagne (Korbel Natural), iced tea, jamaica and water.  Jamaica (pronounced Hah - MY - Kah) is a beautiful tea served iced from Mexico that is made of dried hibiscus blossoms.  It looks a lot like cranberry juice in the glass.  Just gorgeous color.  It is loaded with vitamin C and other good things and is a diuretic and so is used as a diet aid to help flush things out of your system.  It tastes good, it's good for your body, it is pretty, I mean, what more can you expect out of a beverage?!

That's my review for this year's recipes.  Someone please remind me next year to find this post so I can remember what to do and what to tweak and which ones to kick to the curb.

Yesterday we did our traditional trip to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. They do an annual shopping extravaganza called the Peace Market that is so much fun.  It is essentially an anti-Black Friday thing to do.  They invite artisans from all over South America and Mexico and local artists to come set up booths and sell their wares.  In addition, there is wonderful food and live music.  It is like the best little street fair you ever attended.  I had such a good time and I bought some great things.  As a matter of fact, I will probably go back today with a friend and see if there are any treasures I missed the first go-round.  I promise to post some photos of my new goodies, all recycled, or made from recycled stuff or just cool and original.  No plastic or crap involved is what I am saying!

It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving week.  I was dreading it and didn't even realize that until we got into it.  Probably because of Grandma dying last Saturday, but I didn't make that connection until Thursday.  When we were sitting down to the Thanksgiving dinner I said how sad I was that this was my first holiday without her and that we needed to all remember her because we were eating off the beautiful dishes she had given me.

Grandma gave me a set, a huge set, of antique Franciscan Desert Rose dinnerware.  Her uncle worked in the factory in California where they made these dishes. They are kind of a rustic pattern and each one is hand-painted.  Not like now.  Franciscan was bought out by some English fine china company and is made there now and each piece is perfect and identical to the last piece. I don't like the new stuff near as much as the older, more charming pieces.  Anyway he worked there way back in the day and he was able to buy the seconds for a song. So he collected a set for each of his nieces.  And that is where Grandma got hers.  And get this, she never used them.  Never.  She carried these boxes and boxes of dishes around with her since the '40s and never used them.  Doesn't that just beat all?  Ever since she gave them to me I have used them every single Thanksgiving.  I will try and remember to post some pictures of  some of the really cool serving pieces I have of this set.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and I hope to do the same.  It sort of seems like a weekend after a weekend, doesn't it?

Cranberries

I know, you probably have your menu lined out, your recipe and ingredients ready or have already bought the can-o-jellied cranberries.  But just in case you haven't,  get a pen and paper and write this down.  I made this last night and after it cooled and thickened up, Mr. Big Ed tasted it and declared that I needed to make a second batch.  One would not be enough!  We all tasted it and agreed, this is some good stuff.

Good tasting, 4 ingredient fabulousness.  What more could you want?

Without further ado, from the 2008 November issue of Bon Appetit I give you:

Cranberry Relish with Grapefruit and Mint

2 large pink grapefruits (we all know that Texas Ruby Red, Star Ruby are the best, please buy them)
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups cranberries (or 10 oz.) **The bag is 12 oz. just use it.
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint

Using vegetable peeler, remove peel (pink-yellow outer layer only) from 1 grapefruit in strips. Cut peel into 2-inch-ling 1/8-inch-wide strips (about 1/2 cup). Squeeze 1 cup juice from grapefruits.

**Note I started doing this as directed and then realized that I own a citrus zester and grabbed it and made short work of this.  Love that zester!

Stir 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add grapefruit peel; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer until peel is soft, about 15 minutes. Add 1 cup grapefruit juice and cranberries; bring back to boil. reduce heat and simmer until berries burst, about 10 minutes.

**Note: My berries both times needed a little more time to be done. Probably between 15 and 20 minutes.

Transfer to medium bowl. Stir in mint. Cover; chill until cold. Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep chilled.

That's it, easy peasy.  And delicious.

Grandma

Violet Mae Hoefert

July 21, 1918 - November 20, 2010

My grandma passed away on Saturday, November 20, 2010 at the age of 92 years, and almost 4 months.  The 92 years were spent full of life, being a driven, independent woman way ahead of her time in that regard and living life on her own terms.  The last 4 months were really trying and sad fighting to keep her body going.

This photo was taken on May 21, 1936 and was her high school graduation picture from Smithland, Iowa.  It is my favorite picture of her.  She had her whole life ahead of her and could do anything she wanted.  Two years later she would be married and a new mother to my father.  Not long after that, they moved with my grandfather's family away from Iowa to Harlingen, Texas.  

The marriage didn't last, and neither she nor my grandpa ever talked about it.  But she took my Papa and moved to Los Angeles and worked at a newspaper there.  Somehow they ended up in Arizona and that is where Grandma stayed the rest of her life.  She loved it there.  She lived in many different parts of the state but settled in Phoenix and lived there for the last 65 years of her life.  That is a long time to stay in one place and bear witness to all the growth and change that occurs there.

She remarried (as did my Grandpa) and gave birth to a daughter.  My Papa loved his baby sister so much.  She was always really important to him and he carried her in the softest spot of his heart.

Grandma leaves behind her daughter (my own Papa died in 1995), 4 grandchildren, we would have been 5 but my cousin was killed tragically when he was in high school.  And there are also 10 great-grandchildren.

During the 12 years that my family and I spent living as ex-patriates in Mexico and South America it meant so much to all of us that Grandma would come visit us in each place.  She loved to travel and learn all about a new place.  Grandma seemed to live her life fearlessly.  For Grandma it wasn't about collecting things, it was about collecting memories and enjoying the moment.  You know how people always say, "never met a stranger"?  Well, that phrase describes Grandma perfectly.  She was happy to while away the hours talking to whomever she met at the airport, on a bus, in a shop, just whoever.  She met some really interesting people and traded addresses and kept in contact with people.  Grandma was a letter writer.  She appreciated a hand-written letter so much more than an international long-distance phone call.  She saved these letters, all the cards and photos that people sent her in boxes.  Everything was categorized and labeled.

There is no way to talk about Grandma without mentioning dachshunds.  She loved those dogs. And over the years amassed a collection of dachshund memorabilia that you can not believe.  Two storage units full of dachshund stuff.  There are needlepoints that she worked on, postcards, jewelry, ceramic figurines, pretty much anything that can be made into the shape of a dachshund, she had.  There are copious notations for each as to provenance, dates, prices, value in today's market, etc.  She was a regular at all the antique fairs and knew all the dealers and they knew her.

My grandma was an extraordinary woman who survived divorce and living as a single mom back in the '40s and '50s when it was not nearly as common or accepted as it is now.  She herself was raised in the depression and knew the hardship of being poor and living on a farm and the hard work that entailed.  She raised her children to be honest, hardworking, educated and most of all honorable people.  I am proud to come from her stock.

This, of course, is not her real obituary.  This is just what I wanted to share here with any of you who care to read it.  I have been conspicuously absent and wanted to explain my absence and get these thoughts down.

I do know how lucky I am to have had a grandma for all these years.  I miss her greatly and am heartbroken that I won't see her again.

DNA Clarified

I wrote to the people who did Ernest T. Bass' DNA test and asked what gives with the results.  And believe it or don't but they actually sent me a nice long reply.  On the same day!  What they said was that the reason there were 3 Intermediate breeds is this:

Each of those breeds showed up with at least a 25% of his DNA, so one grandparent was a purebred American Bulldog, one was a St. Bernard, and one was an American Staffordshire Terrier.  The other one was a mixed breed mutt dog.

Obviously there was no Significant breed to list since nothing was of 50% or greater in his profile.  The testing picks up the purebreed markers and the blank spot is where there is a mixed breed.

That makes it a lot more clear to me.

Except for the St. Bernard part.  I am sorry I just sat on the couch this evening with Ernest T. and watched the Spurs trounce Deron Williams and the rest of the Utah Jazz (Go Spurs Go!!) and kept looking at my mixed breed brown doggie wearing his striped rugby sweater and looking for any trace of St. Bernard. Can you imagine any St. Bernard wearing a sweater?

I hope Ernest T. Bass will never be judged for being 2 parts American, 1 part Swiss and 1 part Mutt Dog. You know how cruel those other snooty dogs can be at obedience school.  Plus he lives with a purebred Siberian Husky and a Miniature Schnauzer that have pedigrees back several generations.  I tell him all the time "It gets better".

Years ago I read about this doggie intelligence test and have tried it with each of the 3 dogs we currently have.  First we got Nikita Babushka the Siberian Princess and then Maxwell Banks II and more recently Ernest T. was dumped here.  So they have each had the test done in their own time of puppyhood.

Here's the test:  you take your dog to the kitchen and make them sit and stay.  Then you show them a treat and lay it on the floor.  Next you get a kitchen tea towel and lay it over the treat.  Then release the dog from stay and see what they do.  A smart dog will know that the treat is still there under the towel and will remove the towel and take the treat.

That is what Nikita did.  And swiftly too, I might add. She's a clever girl.  Then we tried it with Maxwell Banks.  It didn't go so well.  Even with Rachel Pie laying on the floor coaching him on and being a cheerleader for him and trying to show him where to cheat.  Nope, that boy never figured it out.  You could see it in his face, he just said, "Oh well, I thought there was a treat, but it sure seems to be gone now." and walked off.  Sad day for that little brain trust.  Hmmmpphh.

So when it came time for Ernest T. to get tested we sat him down and made him stay, set down the treat, layed the towel down over and let him go.  You want to guess what he did?

Did you guess that that he thought "Hey that towel looks pretty tasty and it smells like a treat, let's just eat the whole damn thing!"?  If so, you would be right.  That boy has eaten more than 12 beds and countless blankets and toys.  He is so orally fixated it is unreal.

Must be that 25% St. Bernard coming through.

Ernest T. Bass

I swear as much page time as Ernest T. gets you might think he was the only child.  The adored, fair-haired one.  The one I love the most.  But that is not true.  I really do love all my furry babies.  He is just the youngest, the newest and the one who is having a hard time fitting in with the rest of the herd.

So, remember a couple days ago when I posted photos of him and the Presa Canario dogs that I believe he is related to?  And remember that I sent off for his DNA results?  And that the Presa Canario is not a breed they test for?

Drum roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The results are here!

Now, they show Significant Breed as being 50% of your dog's DNA, then going up the page is the Intermediate Breed that shows at least 25% of the DNA, and finally at the top is the Minor Breed that is at least 12.5% of the dog's DNA.

The results of Ernest T.'s test has 3 breeds but they are all across the middle in the Intermediate line.  I am not sure how to interpret this.  Does this mean they didn't find the significant more than 50% breed line? I don't really know.

Without further ado, the 3 breeds they found are:

American Bulldog which looks like this -

Saint Bernard looking like this

and finally the American Staffordshire Terrier

That last guy would be so much cuter without the stupid ear-cropping.

Now here is one more look at the Presa Canario:

What do you think?  Out of those 4 breeds which would you place in the Significant, the Intermediate and the Minor Breed categories for little Ernest T. Bass?