52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2

This week's prompt is Favorite Photo.  Now I have a load of photos of ancestors but what I chose was something different.

Have a look.

This is a drawing of the original plat of the city of New Haven, CT.  My 10th great grandfather was William Tuttle, one of the founders of this city.  That he had his name on the plat as one of the founders and got a cool corner lot is rather cool, I think.  I like how the town was built around the square.  I have more information of the Tuttles than I will probably ever get to in my lifetime.  They were a prominent family in the area and not always known for good things. There seems to be a strain of insanity in their blood.  The axe-murdering kind of insanity.  Surely, after 10 dilutions to me most of that should be gone.  Let's just say they were not a boring bunch, those Tuttles.  Anyway, this area is now the commons of Yale University.

And here we have a drawing of a painting of the venerable William Tuttle.

Doesn't he look like the life of the party?  What a dour face.  He did have a herd of kids and a lot of responsibilities and was the first of his family to leave jolly old England.  So there's that.  Also, two of his kids would become axe murderers.

I would bet when you clicked to see this blog post you didn't think you were going to see this, did you?  I wasn't sure which photo I would use right up until I chose.

I hope you are enjoying doing some genealogy and ancestry research on your own tree.

Seriously Random Thoughts

This is something I have thought for a while but haven't really shared with other people.  Have you ever looked at your pets in the mirror?  My cats love to jump up on the sink and drink water from the slowly dripping, trickling faucet so I have looked at them in the mirror on many occasions and I am struck by the way they look different to me when I look at them straight on or at their reflection.

And that led me to thinking about how we mostly see ourselves in a mirror 90% of the time and maybe the other 10% is in photographs.  Which is the real self?  The backwards reflection?  Or the photographed image?

And is this why people always say they hate photos of themselves?  Because our perception of what we should look like is just enough changed from what we see on a daily basis?

This is what happens when you are sick for too long and have way too much time on your hands so you ponder weird shit like this.

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A few years back I posted loads of pictures of all the different kinds of candy corn at the Walgreen's. This year, had I taken pictures of all the new candy corns you would be looking at about 5 more new flavors.  Now, why on earth do we need any new types of candy corn?  I like regular candy corn and see no reason to add Caramel Macchiato or Pumpkin Spice or S'more flavoring to it.  Those things are never going to taste as good as you think they will.  I promise to take some pics of the damn candy corn aisle next time I am over there.

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If I had had any idea back at the first part of April when I got sick and started coughing that damn near SIX MONTHS LATER I would still be sick the smart thing to do would have been to buy Walgreen's stock.  It's a good thing I didn't have any idea that this thing would hang in here this long because it is just too ridiculous for words.  My next move is to find a good allergist and get some extensive testing done.  The fall allergy season is upon us and I am not at all ready to take it on.

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Usually by now I have my Christmas list made and worked out what gifts I will be making and made good headway on having a bunch of them done.  And you would think with all the time I have spent at home doing nothing I could have achieved that and even finished most of them by now.  And yet, no.  I am blaming my lack of energy and stamina on the 93% oxygen saturation that I was at for all summer long and just being exhausted by the never-ending coughing.  So the truth is that I have done next to nothing and really have no clue about the Christmas list and gifting.  That's sad for me to admit.

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I was really looking forward to The Bastard Executioner, the new show by Kurt Sutter who did the Sons of Anarchy.  It premiered last night and was a big 2 hour extravaganza.  It took me damn near the first hour to get involved in it and figure out who was who.  I can't really tell how it will go yet.  There was a LOT of set up of time, place, characters, conflict, etc.  It is very reminiscent of The Vikings.

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Just so you know, I am done D U N with talking about my health and being sick this year.  It is boring and a pain in my ass and I am quite sure no one else wants to hear this crap either.  So rest assured, if you come back here to read again, there will be no more of the sick talk.

I am also done with using the cute little spacers between my random thoughts.  I thought it was a good idea, but now I don't think so.

Hope you are having a really good day in your part of the world.  Let me hear from you on the mirror vs photograph idea.

Hi, My Name is LisaPie

And all you 12-steppers just said "Hi Lisa Pie" in your heads, didn't you?  I am a self-professed recovering codependent person.  If you had told me 10 years ago that I was codependent I would have laughed at you and shown you the door.  If you had suggested to me that my way of handling things wasn't working and I need to learn a new way, I would have told you that my way was just right and it was all those OTHER jack wagons who were impeding the progress I had so carefully laid out.

Fear and a need to try and control things in your life and around you and in your loved ones' lives is a full-time job.  A full-time job with no benefits and lots of heart ache and resentment.  And it will suck the life right out of you and leave you with sadness and sometimes bad health due to focusing so much on fixing others and ignoring your own self.  That is after you damn near kill your alcoholic/addict with kindness trying to handle everything for them.

If I were to list here all the completely crazy things I have done that made perfect sense to me at the time your own head might explode.  You might start to wonder how I am able to get up every day and walk around like I have good sense.  And this was all back when I thought I only had one addict in my life.

You know how they say that you are given a lesson over and over again until you get it right?  Just recently I was listening to what is called a "speaker tape" even though it is now on CD rather than tape.  And it was a man speaking to a gathering of AA and Al-Anon members.  What he said was so perfectly in tune with my life he could have been speaking directly to me and about me.  And it was as if a light had been turned on in a dark corner of my brain where I was keeping all the files that would show me how codependent I really am.  Now in order for that particular analogy to make any sense you should know that I picture my brain much like an old, old library with nothing but card catalog file drawers.  And all my thoughts, memories, etc are all in there.  So of course, as I have gotten older and older I get more and more file drawers for all of these things.  That's why it sometimes takes me a while to find the right drawer and rifle through it for the exact thought I am looking for.  This is my story and I am sticking with it.

So what happened when that light was turned on was this:  I was suddenly aware of all the times I had chosen the addicted person, the alcoholic, the person with the most stuff to work on to be attracted to. I can pick out a person with an addictive personality at 20 paces.  Now to be fair, they tend to be funny, inviting, smart, interesting people.  But there is something in me that is drawn to them like a moth to a flame, or you could say like an alcoholic to a bottle of vodka.  And I mean friends, boyfriends, lovers, all people. There before me was this long list of people that I had to look at and take stock of.  What is the deal that I never saw this before?  The speaker on the tape/CD said this "if you are ever questioning whether you think you might be an alcoholic and want an answer here is a surefire way to find out:  just come up to me and ask "do you find me attractive?" and  that is exactly what I do!

How did I get to be 55 years of age before I was aware of this about myself?  I can't answer that. And here's a better question:  how is it that my chemical makeup is such that I am drawn to the addictive person rather than to the drugs or the alcohol?  I mean, I have used alcohol and cigarettes and some drugs in my life, but I could always quit.  And I have.  I quit smoking cigarettes 35 years ago.  I quit taking drugs/smoking pot not long after that.  And I have gradually cut back on my alcohol consumption to the point where I might have 6 or 8 drinks a year.  That has come about due to having arthritis and other health issues that require medication and I don't want to overload my liver with the meds and the alcohol.  It's just not a big deal for me.  Not like eggplant parmigiana.  Now, that is a big deal to give up.  I am certainly not trying to make light of people who have an addiction that they are struggling with. I am only pointing out that this is one way I can see that I am not a member of that tribe.  Anyhoo, I don't know how I could NOT see this as a pattern in my life except to say that it sure is easy to walk around with blinders on and not notice the big obvious elephant in the room.

I am now a loud and proud member of the struggling to improve codependent crew.  This will be a life-long endeavor for me.  Reading books, doing some step work, going to meetings are a part of my life.  I want to be better.  I want to be a healthy example of what you can be if you are willing to take the hard looks at yourself and face up to what you have done and what you can do differently.  And I will most likely be a glaring example of how to fuck things up occasionally.  But I am trying and learning and growing.  And I am here if you ever need to talk or need something because that is part of who I am; I am a nurturer and a care-giver.  As one of my friends from the meetings said "I never thought I was controlling, I always thought I was just being helpful!"

And just to be a little bit more helpful here is a list of some books that are outstanding:

 

Actually, if you go to Melody Beattie's website you can read all about her and all her great books.  These are just 2 of hers that have been really helpful to me.  The one by Sarah Hepola is new and very good.  I was surprised at how many things she wrote about that applied to me.  And the Daily Meditation one by Misti B I just got and am just starting it.  She is taking a humorous approach to the daily meditations that are usually quite serious.  I am loving what I am reading so far.

Hope you have a great day out there!

David Sedaris

Oh my.  Sparky and I went to see David Sedaris last night and it was so much fun.  It was well worth every penny.  We got there really early, like an hour and a half early, and believe it or don't we found a good parking spot!  Gasp!  That NEVER happens!

We wander inside the building and right up to a table that is selling DS books.  There will be time for a book signing and they wanted to make sure we have all the books we need to be signed.  Guess who had to buy more DS books?

All my effing books are either on my Kindle (heart the Kindle) or audio books.  No actual books for signing.  This might be the biggest drawback to the Kindle.  So I chose 2 of my favorites and was just standing around there in the big hallway next to a sign.  It said "No Photographs".  Maybe people thought I  was famous and carried that signage around with me everywhere I go?

Anyhoo, there I am standing and waiting. Sparky had to find the restroom and we were waiting for 2 other people to join us and we had their tickets.  So I am standing around being conspicuous.  With my sign.  And an official-looking lady comes over and says "Good job, being first in line!"  And I said "Really?" Then she answered me that "Yes, you are first in line for the early book signing.  He is going to do a signing before and after the show."

Yay!  I was first in line.  So eventually, David Sedaris showed up at the table and asked me to come over.  We chatted and it was wonderful.  He signed my books.  And I rambled on about how I love his books and I have all his books, just on the Kindle, so I had to get new copies so that I could stand in line to get him to sign them.  He very cleverly signed one of my books and drew a picture of my Kindle on it and said "There!  There's a picture of your Kindle.  In case it ever gets stolen you can show this to the police so they will know what it looks like."  Heeee!

He signed my second book and drew me a picture of a rabbit wearing glasses.  Just because.

Then he asked me who I was with and I called Sparky over and introduced them.  And then he gave us some postcards he had made up.  One is a picture of a dog skull and skeleton and it says "Pekingese"  and the other is like a hand-written sign that says "Abortions $3.00"  O. M. G.!!

We stood, we visited, we schmoozed.  It was wonderful.  I could have gone home right then.  But no, we stood around f o r e v e r waiting for the stupid people to open the auditorium doors.  Thousands of people milling about in a tiny area outside the doors and it was hot and claustrophobia-inducing and uncomfortable and gross.  I kept smelling other people, their breath, their sweat, their heavily-applied colognes and was getting on the verge.  You know what I mean?

So, they at long last opened up the auditorium doors and we went in and found our seats.  It was airy, cool and fresh in there and praise the Lord for that!

David Sedaris came on stage and was charming, witty and hilarious.  He read us stories that are new and not-yet-titled.  He read us stories from The New Yorker.  And then he read to us from his diaries.  Hilarious entries from his diaries.  And if that weren't enough he read to us from his favorite new book and I can't even remember this guy's name to pass it on to you.  I will ask Sparky tonight and post something about it tomorrow.  Then he asked them to raise the lights and did a Q&A just taking random questions from the audience.  And you know how in his stories he starts out on one topic and rambles over to here and then there and flits all over and is nowhere near the original paragraph?  That is exactly what happened when he was answering questions too.  I love that so much!

Tomorrow I will tell you all about a story he shared with us from his diaries.  It was hysterically funny, is what it was.

Day 3 Plastic No More

Here it is Day 3 of the Plastic No More Challenge.  I have done a really good job of limiting or eliminating plastic coming in to my home so far.  Here's the lowdown on how I have fared.

1. I haven't had to grocery shop yet.  So that is good.

2. I have dedicated a small bucket to collect any plastic that I do end up with and will take pics of it so you can see what I am dealing with.  For example, the first thing to go in the bucket is the plastic pull strip from around the top of the frozen juice concentrate paper can thing.  The paper gets composted, leaving just the tear strip and the two metal ends to dispose of.

3. When we run out of frozen juice to use, I am buying a bag of oranges and setting them and the juicer out on the counter.  You want juice?  Cut yourself 2 oranges and squeeze them.  Now, wasn't that fast and easy!  Not to mention, good tasting and better for you.

4. I am going to have to go back to making my own laundry detergent when I run out of the liquid we currently have.  The borax and the washing soda are in paper board cartons but the soap to grate is in a clear plastic wrapper.  Alternatively, I can buy a box of Tide powder, but it comes with a plastic scoop inside.  Either way, there will be a bit of plastic to go in the bucket.

5. When we run out of milk, I will have to decide which is the lesser of the evils.
     A. Gallon of milk in a plastic jug, cheaper cost-wise.
     B. Half gallons in the waxed paper cartons, but they have a plastic spigot and cap.
     C. Tetra-pak liters that are completely non-recyclable and still have a plastic top.
     D. Can of evaporated milk and dilute it.  Cost-wise this isn't bad, but taste-wise?  Gaaahhgg!
     E. Box of powdered milk.  I like the Nido milk from Mexico that is whole milk rather than the non-fat kind they sell here in the U.S.  It comes in a metal can with a metal top.  So this might be the way to go. I am the only one who drinks milk or puts it on cereal, so I am just pleasing myself anyway.

****Ding ding ding!!! We might have a winner on this deal!

6. Yesterday I bought 6 books in Japanese from my local used book store to gift my nephew who is studying Japanese in college.  And before my brain had kicked into gear I was out the door with all those books in a damn plastic bag.  Grrrrr.

I am blaming the lady who was in line behind me.  She distracted me by being a wiener and being wrong.  Here's what happened:  She walked in whilst I was at the check-out counter having the guy look up the ISBN number of all these Japanese books to make sure they were in fact Japanese and not Chinese.  Also to make sure they weren't porn or something I didn't want to be gifting my nephew.  So the lady walks in and looks all impatient and stands there with a paper.  The dude working there  looks up from the computer and says to her, "I'll be right with you."

She says "I am looking for books by (consults her paper) Maud Lucy Montgomery"

He says "Who????"

I butt in and said "She wrote the Anne of Green Gable series. They should be in young teenager section back there" and pointed in the right direction.

Then I said "I believe her name is Lucy Maud Montgomery, in case you can't find it the way you have it".

She looked me straight in the eye and said "No.  Her name was Maud.  She just went by LUCY!"

Okaay.

Which is what I said to her. And then went back to my business of making sure I had Japanese and not Chinese and not porn.

So see what I mean about being flustered when I grabbed my bag and left?

Anyhoo, get this.  I went next door to the Bubble Tea place and met up with the rest of my group and we decided to head over to Goodwill.  So I go and put my books in the car and backed out of my parking space and was headed up the aisle of the parking lot when the same lady was coming towards me in her car waved me down.  I rolled down my window and she said, "I found what I was looking for. And I wanted to apologize for correcting you.  You were right."

Awwww.  Wasn't that nice?  Most people would never bother to do that.  Afterwards I said to myself, I should have apologized to her for butting my fat nose into her business in the first place.

I get to Goodwill and what did I find?  A 20th Anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit in very good, damn near brand-new condition.  That's what I found!

In case you don't know this about me, I love games.  And I love, love, love Trivial Pursuit games.  And I don't have this edition.  And it was marked 1.99.

Who do you think got herself a new Trivial Pursuit game?  And who do you think played the game with Sparky last night and WON?

And who do you think remembered to tell the GW clerk to keep her plastic bag and carried her own game out in her own little hands?

Have a great plastic-free day!

Count so far:
Plastic - 2 items

Obsession

Oh Lord above, it might be a really L O O O O O N N N N N N G G G G G G  summer!

I am spending every free moment glued, and I mean glued to the screen watching the Casey Anthony Trial live.  And it is excruciatingly s l o w going.  Her lawyer seems to be a douchebag and I don't care for him one whit.  The judge is no Lance Ito, that's for sure.  He's not even anywhere near a good old-fashioned Judge Wapner.  He is slow.  s l o w.

Have I mentioned this trial is moving slowly?  It might still be going 20 years from now.  Someone will come in here and find my decrepit, stiff dried-up corpse with my claw-like hand stuck to the mouse STILL watching this oh-so-unquick-like moving trial.  I can sit here and watch cold molasses move faster than this trial moves.

This new obsession is in addition to my usual summertime Big Brother watching. Big Brother comes on 3 times a week, and (hopefully) they have late-night live feeds on showtime every night, AND if that isn't enough watching time you can also subscribe to the live feeds on your computer and watch those crazy houseguests/hamsters all day every day.  Please note that I did NOT say 24/7, because I loathe that little set of numbers.

Anyhoo, that is what I am doing.  When I am not working, I mean.  What are you doing?  Any new obsessions you care to share with the class?

He's Home!!!

Yesterday was one of the worst days I have ever had.  I took Lester Buster's "recent pic" and made copies and took it to the vet's office, the Humane Society and wandered the streets.  I posted to our HOA website and fielded phone calls from old ladies who swore they have had him in their backyard since before he went missing.

My son and his girlfriend got home in the afternoon and first thing wanted to know if little Lester Buster had come.  She took off roaming the streets and calling for him after I told them no, sadly my little boy had not yet turned up.

I started freaking out a little bit and doing the whole "make a deal with God" thing.  If only Lester could be okay and come home, I will do x, y and z.  And then my over-active imagination kicked in and I started thinking about how this exact situation must have been the catalyst for Stephen King to write Pet Sematary. And how I would be one of those over-wrought idiots who would take a Zombie-Lester over no Lester. And how it wouldn't be that bad, having a Zombie-Lester.

I had to go to my fortnightly Mah Jongg game and on my way home, I started praying that if it was God's will that Lester Buster NOT come home, that I hoped he would be safe and healthy wherever he was.  Because truly that is what I want.  More than I want him for my own happiness, I want his health and comfort.  But as I drove up my street I looked expectantly at the front of my house to see if he might be up there at the front steps.  Nope, no Lester.

About every 20 minutes I would get up from whatever I was doing and go check the front to see if he had wandered up.  Nope, no Lester.  And I would sit back down and just cry.  I cried so much yesterday.  And I am crying right now while typing this, too.  I guess it is just over-flow.

Anyhoo, the girlfriend-almost-daughter-in-law kept checking and calling for him as well, and about midnight she went out and hollered "Lester!!!" and then it was "Lester! He's here!!"  We all jumped up and went running to the door and here trots Lester.  Going right past us and heading for the food and water bowls.  Like he didn't even give a shit about us.

And I wish so bad that I had had my camera out to show you some pictures of that boy.  But I was in such a state yesterday there was no way I could believe that I would ever get another picture of him, so that didn't happen.  But try to picture this:  all of Lester's white parts looked like his black parts.  He looked like a coal miner!  We kept patting him with warm damp towels to clean him up and we opened up cans of wet food (only for very special occasions) and shooed the other cats away from his canned food and kept asking him "Where were you, Lester?"  "What on earth were you doing, Lester, to get so effing filthy?"  And he just looked at us with his beady red-rimmed eyes from behind all the dust and dirt and said . . . nothing.

Nothing.  Well, in his defense he is a cat and he doesn't speak a whole lot anyway.  But seriously, nothing. No whining or mowing to give us his side of things.  Not a damn word.

So while we are semi-cleaning him and loving him and showering him with affection, I was also secretly looking at his eyes to see if this was a filthy regular Lester or if this was a Pet Sematary Zombie-Lester who just got up from his dirt nap.

The mind is a powerful thing, isn't it?  My plan for the day is to stay at home with Lester Buster.  I had plans but they were cancelled on me, so I am going to stay home with my prodigal cat and pat him and hold him and keep checking his eyes for any signs of Zombie-ism.  : )

Many thanks and lots of love right back at all of you for caring whether he made it home or not.

Oh, and you will hopefully want to stay tuned here because next week is the first of the month and time for another Tea Giveaway!!

p.s. You will be relieved to know that since Lester Buster is back in the fold safe and sound, Mr. Big Ed has been given a reprieve.

Updated, necessary or not?

I saw these and thought to myself, "Self, these are genius!!"

Some were of course, better than others, but still very clever.  I am showing you the best ones.

Enjoy!

My Little Pony never looked like this much fun before.  What a hoot!

The Reading of the Obits

I sure hope you read "The Reading of the Obits" with a lovely Irish lilt in your voice in your head, or out loud.  When I read it it comes out like "Ah, the readin' of the O'Bits!  Faith and Begorrah!"

And this week, I surely wish you could see all these O'Bits.  It was a week for the wearin' of the hats.  There were hats of all kinds worn in these photos.

Cowboy hats

Then there was dude who looked exactly like Lee Marvin in Paint your Wagon, hat and all.  Except this guy had more whiskers.  That my friends, is a gutsy fashion statement!  : )

And then there was a guy who also had a full face of whiskers and an Amish hat although his obit said he was a life-long Catholic.

Of course, there were baseball caps a-plenty.  Is that the best your family can do?  A baseball cap pic?  Some of these were side views with no smile, so I don't think it was the best picture ever taken by the dearly loved and newly deceased.  I am curious as to how certain pictures make the cut, I guess.

We had new euphemisms for dead this week too.  Firstly there was Wilma Center Bass who transitioned to her new life on January 7, surrounded by her loving family.

Then the guy with the Amish hat.  He was lifted up from this life to eternal rest.  He gets an honorable mention for his parents' beautiful names: Charles Joseph and Viola Brigid.

Raymond C. (known as Smiley) passed away. He is now in heaven with his loving and best friend, his wife, Celia. By his side was his girlfriend and companion of 14 years, Sylvia.


**Holy Moly!  Who wrote this?  Smiley was one handsome silver fox in his photo.  I am guessing there is a really interesting back story on this!


Mark Christian was born on December 11 and peacefully entered the kingdom of our Lord on Dec 29 after a brave battle with throat cancer.  


**If you can be peaceful after a battle with throat cancer, you are a better person than I am.  His obituary was very loving and said wonderful things about him.  They did a great job.


There was a really sweet picture that looked by the hairstyle to be from the late '40s or early '50s. This woman had beautiful things said about her. "She was selfless and generous. She graciously overlooked our flaws and forever believed in us. She was a woman of strength and character, the youngest and the last of her generation."


This next one got me on two different points.  First, it was so beautifully done. "Rachel was born July 12, 1935 and went peacefully at home to be with the Lord and grandmother Petra on Dec. 31. She was surrounded by her loving family and her last words were "It's a beautiful day!" Rachel led a simple life yet had a profound faith and wisdom. She had an honest, refreshing, and humorous charisma wherever she went. Rachel left a trail of frinds in her wake that were inspired by her sense of wonder; she charmed even the most resisting of souls. Rachel was a sweet lady who showed genuine concern for others."  Then it goes on to list survivors:  her mother Margaret, sisters Judy and Christina, Brother Robert and numerous grand and great grand nephews, nieces.


**Now, how many people who were born in 1935 do you imagine still have their mothers around to mourn them?  Amazing.


Loving child of God Rosalinda has gone to sit beside the throne of her father Thursday, January 6. At the mere age of 57 Rosalinda now stands next to brother pepe and sister Rachel to guide remaining siblings Connie, Nora and Delfina through the next chapter of their lives before they once again reunite.


and lastly we have Gladys, best known as Jean, passed away on Wednesday evening of End-Stage Alzheimer's. "She is no longer suffering from the debilitating disease known as Alzheimer's. She is now at peace."


So  . . . questions.  


1. Do you care about your obituary?
2. Do you care which photo your family puts in the paper?
3. Will you write out a draft or guidelines of what you would prefer to have as your written legacy?
4. Do you find this as interesting as I do?

New idea and possible free stuff

Ok, hear me out.  I have an idea that may just work to keep me on task with de-cluttering my life (and my tea pantry).  I am thinking of doing a Give-Away each month to one of you lovely readers.

What would I be giving away, you ask?  I will start with the overflowing teas (only sealed and brand new teas of course.  No half-used old crappy teas for you!) and then move on to whatever else needs to be cleared.  Trust me, we have tea to give out for six months before it is time to look in other cabinets.

I was thinking of the first week of each month for this exciting event.  And guess what?  It IS the first of the month already!

So shoot me a comment here on why you want to be the very first recipient of my tea largesse and I will find a way to randomly pick one of the three of you and then will mail you a lovely package of tea.

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.  : )

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!

News of the Weird and getting Weirder

You are just never going to believe this story I have for you today.  I was shocked at the get-go. But then it got weirder and weirder.

Go here and read this.  I will wait.  It's not that long, but it is chock-full of OMG moments!

Here is the readers digest version:

Someone in Boise Idaho was going in to bars and telling random women that they would free breast exams and giving out the phone number to a real plastic surgeon's office.  And get this!!!

Several women were dumb enough to let themselves get felt up in a bar and think it was a "real" breast exam.  Really?  Seriously?

So when calls started coming in to the real plastic surgeon's office saying "Hey, when the Dr. felt me up at the bar, I was also given an appointment"  they contacted the police, who then put out a warrant for the offender.

Who (get this) was a woman!  It wasn't even a sleazy pervy old guy like you would imagine!  Amazing.

So when the warrant for this woman goes out, it ends up being for a man's name.

Huh?

She was in the system already but under a man's name.  Double huh?

Turns out she is a Male to Female transgender!  I am telling you, if Hollywoood were writing this story no one would believe it.  And yet, back in Boise, Idaho . . .

May I just say that it doesn't help the story-telling any that every single time I say Idaho, I think of that stupid joke about which of the Miss America contestants is a prostitute.  It's the one that is Miss I-da-ho!  Bahh!!!  I know, you would think I was a 12 year old boy.

So Miss Kristina Ross who used to be Mr. Kristoffer Ross is going back to the pokey!  Hee!  I wonder if she will be offering free exams to her new cellmates?

What time is it?

I have shared my tea hoarding collection with y'all.  And I have shared my penchant for collecting all sorts of crap.  Yesterday I shared just a bit of my aunt's beautiful museum quality nurse collection.  Not actual nurses, but nurse's stuff.

When I got to my Grandma's place, I was so tired from my trek through the forest being followed by the Big Bad Wolf that I immediately took off my red riding cloak and  . . . . spied this!

I know, you are wonderin what the hell is this a photo of!  This little table has 4, count them 4 watches sitting in front of the phone.  Just above the phone on the shelf thing is yet another watch.  And what is that right to the left of the watch?  It's a digital clock!

Here is a closer-up shot of the watches.

And then . . .

Hanging on the wall to the immediate right of the digital clock and watch, what do we have here?

Why, it's a regular clock!

But wait!  If we look to the left what would we find?

A faux-stained-glass clock featuring one of 323,345,657,856 dachshunds that Grandma has collected in her lifetime.  You might notice that the wiener dog clock is not keeping time with all the other watches and clocks!

I thought it was hilarious that the resting spot for Grandma's watches was right smack in the middle of 3 different ways to see what time it is.

As a matter of fact, I am still chuckling over that!

Totally Ripped-Off Post

I stole this from my s-i-l and have added in my own little comments.  Enjoy!

1. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you

realize you're wrong.  **We have some friends who are hilarious. He says

 that whenever that particular situation arises with them, he doesn't 

hear "I'm Sorry" so much as "Never Mind".

2. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your 

computer history if you die.   **And update your facebook status and remove

any incriminating photos and tell all your blog friends.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

**I married into a family of nappers.  These people are HUGE on taking naps.

It has taken me a while to learn and appreciate the value of just resting for a bit 

during the day.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

**Actually, I can fold and iron fitted sheets.  I like them that way!  Jealous?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary? 

**Yes it was.  And so is writing a real letter

with pen and paper.

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty

 sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.   

**Map Quest sucks. I use Google Maps exclusively. 

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how 

the person died.

**You should know how I feel about that already. 

 But yes, Hear Hear!! on cause of death.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories. 

**Any time you hear "Hey!  Y'all watch this!" 

you need to get your camera ready.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment 

at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive 

for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to

 have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to

 save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make

 any changes to.  

**My OCD self will have to double and then triple check, I hate that!

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to

 answer when they call.  **Sorry to say, I really do this.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday

 night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay. Martinis in my case.

**This one has to be my favorite!

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and

 smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to

 prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty,

 and you can wear them forever. **Except at my house where we have 4 

cats and 3 dogs and plenty of loose hair.  You will need to at the very 

least lint-roll those pants occasionally!

22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not

 know what time it is.

23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys

 in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey -

 but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away,

 in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first

 helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize

 that their brain is also important.  **Now, THAT is funny!

What's in a name?

You know the old Shakespeare line, would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?

Here's something you might not know about me, I love Crayola crayons.  I love the smell of them.  I love opening the big box of 64 and looking at all of them in their pristine condition.  When I color I try to keep the tips as close as original as I can for as long as I can.  And you can imagine my horror if you were to try to peel the paper off my crayons or gasp, God forbid, break one!!!!


I know, OCD much?

If you go to the Crayola website and click on to this page you can see the names of all the colors from the inception of the company.  The original eight are as you might think they would be named 107 years ago. Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, and Violet.  

Then as the years went by, they introduced more and more colors.  Lots of shades of the original colors.  And then the names were Red Orange, and Orange Red, Blue Green, and Green Blue.  Specific to what they were.

Then the 1990's happened, and the names became "cute".  Not what you would look for in an art store, that's for sure.  Yellow Orange became "macaroni and cheese".  Do you think any kindergartener today knows what color Timber Wolf is?  Or why it is called that?

Purple Mountain Majesty is a pretty name for a purple.  But I am going to have to quibble with "Tickle Me Pink".  Does anyone here besides me remember Boone's Farm Tickle Pink?

I went online to find a picture of it, but it is sadly a retired flavor (may it rest in peace).  Here is a picture of it's older cousin, Strawberry Hill.

Not exactly the mental picture I want when I am choosing a crayon.

And what color exactly is "Inch Worm"?  That is one of the new 120 colors available.

Here on this page you can see all of the current 120 colors and decide which color names are good and which are stupid.  Then hop over to this page and see how your favorites rank against everyone else's choices.

Sh*t you just won't believe

I'll get right to the point here.  I was over at June's Place like I am every ding dang day, and we were all discussing tasteless Christmas ornaments.  And let me just say here, there are some T A C K Y ornaments out there that people want to sell you to put up on your own tree.  So June and her friend Dottie exchange really tacky ornaments each year, and she posted some pics of some pretty tasteless and tacky ones to ask our opinions.  Cause why not share the tackiness with all of us!

Anyhoo, as we were all commenting along, one commenter posted that she had the tackiest ornament known to man in her own collection.  It was a gift and she was willing to part with this sad little piece of tackiness and send it to June who could then wrap it up and give it to Dottie.  Did you follow all that?

What, you might ask, could be the tackiest ornament known to man?  To that question I would have to answer:  This

In case it isn't obvious right off the bat, this is an angel made from a tampon.

That's right, tampon.  Shall I say it again?  T A M P O N.

I thought there was no way this was real, and so I googled Chrimas ornament angel tampon and lo and behold, a plethora of sites popped up all dedicated to making angels out of tampons.  Most prefer the Playtex brand.

But then I came across this site.  Go there now.  I will wait.  Just peruse that page for a minute or two.

And when you get your jaw off your desk and your teeth back in your mouth, come on back here.

Are you in shock?  Did you have any idea you could do this?  Would any of you seriously ever in a gazillion years make any of this crap?  Can you imagine, first making this stuff, and then second, GIVING it to someone?

Of course, then I had to figure out which was the tackiest thing on that page.  And my first choice was the snowflake/star thing made of tampon holders.  That is just so tacky it made me want to gag. But then, I decided that no, the absolute worst and most tacky and white trash of all of them was the Father's Day Toupee.  Because really.  What man would actually put a toupee made of tampons on his head?

The answer to that would be some Goober who would marry a woman who would MAKE him a tampon toupee!  Hee!!!

Horrible + Hilarious = Hilarrible!

Yes, I am quirky. Thank you for asking.

Do you admit to your quirks?  Do you go beyond admitting to them and embrace them?  Are your quirks part of what makes you you???

I have quite a few quirks.  My quirks are many.  They are legion.  There is a plethora, a host, a herd of quirks in my make-up.  : )  Yes indeedy.  Quirks abound in LisaPie-Land.

For example:  I have a ton of socks.  I have lots, and lots of socks.  I have socks from high school.  But keeping my socks is not my quirky behavior.  Keeping my socks orderly and in their proper compartments in the socks bank-of-drawers is a little quirky.  Requiring that my socks are ALWAYS placed on the left or right foot is downright quirky.  And I am proudly admitting to the fact that before I put on a new pair of socks I look at them and find a distinguishing mark that always lets me know which will be Lefty and which will be the Righty.  And never do I switch that around.  My feet would never be comfortable with socks on the wrong feet any more than if I were to wear my shoes on the wrong feet.

I am one of those people that do sock, sock, shoe, shoe.  Some people are sock, shoe, sock, shoe.  Which I think is weird as batshit.  I don't like that at all!

I like to keep things in its original packaging as long as possible.  I like to keep the little plastic thingy that is on the glass of a watch face to prevent scratches, and the same goes for the screen on my cel phone.  Keep the little protective plastic thingy as long as possible to ward off scratches.

I take all my Mah Jongg tiles out and clean them carefully with a soft damp cloth so that they aren't filthy and germ-ridden.  Maybe that's really not a quirk?

Oh!  Here's another:  it irritates the beejeebers out of me when I see toilet paper hung so that it rolls back and under rather than forward and over.  If I come across one wrong, I will change it.  No matter whose house I am at!

I like to label things.  With my handy-dandy Dymo label gun.  I do love that label gun!

And I will sign off now before I scare off the 10 readers I have.  Consider this a safe place to announce your quirks and revel in them!