Day of Giving, Day of Winning

Some days I wish I played the lottery, but I just don’t like leaving things up to luck. Today is the Durham Academy Day of giving. Carter was planning on going over to visit school since she is home and hasn’t been able to visit school, her friends still there and teachers all year. Kelly Ushpol, who was the treasurer for our senior class party last spring, has been holding onto the leftover money from the party waiting for an idea on how to donate it to the school.

She is absolutely brilliant at matching gifts with the recipient. So this morning she texted me first thing about having the entire class of 2017 give the money that is leftover from our party to the day of giving since it will be matched. When I told her Carter was going over and could bring it on behalf of the whole class the plan was hatched.

So if you are a member of the DA class of 2017 you gave about $9 each to DA today. You can still give more, it’s never too late. But it was so nice that Kelly thought this up.

While Carter was off visiting school I was playing bridge with my bridge mentor Deanna. Playing duplicate bridge is a competitive situation and since I am just in my infancy of learning the current way of bidding I often mutter to myself while bidding, “I wish I knew how to play this game.”

I am not sure how many tables there were today because we we broken into three sections, but it must have been something like 40. I knew that we were playing fairly well, but the thing about duplicate is you are playing the same hands of bridge as everyone else and although you might win a hand you have no idea if someone else played it better until it is all over.

At the end of four hours when everyone finished the director came in and announced who the winners were and lo and behold Deanna and I finished first in the whole thing. I got 3.50 master points. It won’t mean a thing to you if you don’t play bridge, but take my word for it, it was a big day for me. Sometimes it helps to be a novice because opponents had no idea what I meant when I bid something and I tricked them. No matter, I am very grateful that I have such a wonderful mentor, teacher and friend in Deanna. She makes playing so much fun.

The Real Oscar Gold

Last night was the Academy Awards. I have never missed watching one since I was in double digits. The Oscars do a great job at focusing the spot light on all things Hollywood. Usually I have seen most, if not all, the films nominated for the big award and have a fairly strong opinion about which one should win. That usually keeps me up to watch to the bitter end.

Not this year. If it wasn’t a British World War II film I didn’t see it. That right, I saw The Darkest Hour and Dunkirk and no other nominated film. No Post, No Billboards, I’m not calling anyone by any name, I didn’t think water had a shape, I stayed in and since I lived through the Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding real world I already knew that story.

So this year I watched for other reasons. I wanted to see if any mistakes were made, or politicians were called out, or interesting stands were taken. I bet that the POTUS was mad no one mentioned him by name. I loved what Frances McDormand did and now I know what an Inclusion rider is.

I usually watch for the In Memorium section and live for those greats we lost in the last year, but it was a light year on talent lost, which of course is actually a good thing, or maybe there just aren’t that many greats left to lose.

The one question that I took away from watching the Oscars is what the hell is Jane Fonda’s beauty treatment? I have little doubt that she has had some work done, and kudos to her doctors because she doesn’t look surprised at all. And certainly years of doing aerobics has been good for her body, which we all must admit is outstanding. The thing I want to know is how is her skin on her chest and neck so young looking? She hardly has a wrinkled or a sag and nothing about her could be described as crepe like. The photo of her taken on my TV does not do her justice since the TV is digital.

Yeah, I know the whole thing is about the movies, but if you haven’t watched them you go to how all the old broads look. Of course Helen Marin looked great too, but not like Jane. And by the way, Meryl Streep looked fabulous in that red dress. I know the Oscars are about selling more tickets to the movies, but I think the best way is to promise that Jane Fonda will give one beauty secret out at the end of every movie. I would go to the movies every week for that and I hardly give a damn what I look like.

Don’t Complain About Laughter

Since it is Academy Awards night and I have not seen most of the nominated movies, so what did I do this afternoon? I went to the movies with my best movie loving friend Lynn and Carter. What did we see? Not the Shape of Water or Three Billboards, No, we went to see Game Night.

When we walked in the theatre we joined the only other couple in the movie, my favorite way to see a movie, practically alone with a big screen. We watched through all the previews and suddenly just as the movie was about to start four men in their twenties came in and sat in the row in front of us, just off to the side of us. No worries, they didn’t sit right in front and the movie was just starting.

Now Game Night is probably not going to win any awards, but damn it was funny. And actually very well told. Maybe it could win something…

If you know me, you know I am naturally loud. Try as I might, even when I’m whispering I am loud. Then if I think something if funny I laugh, not exactly a titter, but a big belly laugh.

As the movie was progressing I was laughing. Carter was telling me who different actors were. We were having fun. Then one of the twenty something guys leaned back and asked us to keep it down. Against my normal self, I whispered an apology and said, “sure, sure, sorry, sorry.”

We went on watching, and laughing, but not talking. It wasn’t good enough for this guy so he got up in a huff and moved to the front of the theatre. Good answer. Until he came back and sat in his original seat and complained he could still hear me laughing. Lighten up Francis.

“Hey, its a funny movie, try and have a little fun,” I said. His friends gave me a big thumbs up. I guess I wasn’t bothering any of them. The guy stomped out of the theatre, probably to go tell the management that a woman was laughing in a comedy movie.

He huffed back in a little later and slumped down despondently in another seat in the front. No manager at the AMC was going to come to his aid, they don’t bother to vacuum that place but once a year, or care of the sound is not working on a movie, they certainly were not going to come tell a woman to laugh less. Laugh loud and often.

Cursed Flying

Carter’s spring break started yesterday. After only being home eight days since August she really wanted to come home and chill. She had a late bio class Friday where the prof. gave a big incentive to stay for class of five extra points on the final if you made class. Not being one to look her nose down at five extra points Carter smartly opted to stay for class.

All week I was watching the weather since Carter had a 7:30 PM Friday flight. Not having a TV, it did not register with Carter when I said I was worried about the weather. Thursday night she got notice from Delta that they were already canceling her Friday flight and rebooked her on a 7:00 AM Saturday trip from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale with a half hour connection to RDU. “Balls!” was the response from Carter.

Russ found a Jet Blue flight that was leaving at 9:00PM Friday that had its aircraft in Boston. He got her a ticket on that. She went to the airport in plenty of time and waited, and waited and then at 8:00 PM they canceled that flight. The tears came fast over the phone.

“Better to be safe on the ground in a place you have a free bed, than throwing up on a scary flight, like the people flying into Dulles,” I told her as I recounted the news stories to her. She thought the weather wasn’t that bad, and wanted the airlines to “grow a pair.” Remember she had not watched any TV about how bad this storm was.

Russ, fearing she might over sleep asked if she would text him at 5:30 AM when she got up this morning in her dorm to go back to Logan. Apparently Russ was worried enough that he woke up at 3:00AM waiting for her. He didn’t know until later that she too woke up at 3:00.

Well all things worked out. She got to Logan in plenty of time, made friends with some other Northeastern kids on the flight. Got to Ft.Lauderdale early, thanks to the winds and made her connection. Shay greeted her at the airport and we all were happy.

Now both Carter and Russ are enjoying afternoon naps. The perfect beginning to spring break. The best news is Jet Blue refunded her whole ticket.

Healing Gravy

When I started 2018 the only thing I had in my sights, after getting Carter settled in Boston, was helping my dearest friend Lynn through her medical procedure and helping Russ through his. I was dedicated to be on the bench, ready to chauffeur, cook, read, do whatever was necessary for both of them.

I found it very convenient that they scheduled their operations just a few weeks apart. Lynn went first. Since she had a procedure on her dominant arm and was going to be in a cast for six weeks I knew it was my job to cook and drive. Although she mastered driving fairly quickly, cooking was not something that interested her enough to ever conquer.

Lynn had to grow a new bone so thank goodness she listened to her cravings and ate lots of protein. This made her happy with the meals I made. She especially liked my friend chicken and gravy. We have now renamed my gravy, “bone growing gravy.”

Today I took her back to see the famous Dr. Mack Aldridge, who did this fine procedure on Lynn. Since it involved a six inch incision on her arm she was very concerned with what kind of scar she was going to be left with. I think I was there in case she needed to be carried home after seeing her scar.

True to his famous reputation when Mack removed the steri strips holding her incision together the only thing Lynn had on her arm looked like a paper cut. Even better was the new bone she grew that we got to see on her x-ray. She still has three months of recovery to get back her strength and range of motion, but I have to say it was a very successful procedure over all.

After visiting the custom splint making therapist, who I knew well from Carter’s many visits with broken bones, Lynn and I went to lunch with our friend Shelayne. She still is using her left hand for many things, like eating, until she can fully recover, but she is well on her way.

I think that my job as medical support is almost finished. Both Russ and Lynn came through with flying colors. I think the gravy had something to do with it. That is the extent of my medical helpfulness.

Cleaning Satisfaction

It has been a few months since I have been my own housekeeper and I have to say I really am not half as unhappy as I thought I might be. First, I love paying myself to clean. When I think about the annual total of paying others it is quite a lot of money. Considering the cost of my hobbies I think doing my own cleaning is the least I can do to contribute to the cost of my addictions.

The second benefit is the workout I get from cleaning. Today I decided to wax my game table in the living room. This is a job no house keeper ever did and since I was not doing the daily cleaning I seemed to let it slide. Now that I do the dusting I also am more aware when something is in need of more TLC than the lambs wool wand.

My game table gets quite a workout with Mah Jongg tiles and racks being moved across it every week. While playing on a Wednesday I noticed that the finish was a little dull so I got out my English Briwax today and did a proper application. That involves putting a thin layer of the clear paste wax on, letting it dry and then buff, buff, buffing it until it is hard and shiny.

All the while I was buffing, the robot vacuum was doing its job. I just had to make sure I was not tripping on it as it wooshed by me, sucking up dirt and dust.

After I cleaned the living room, dining room, breakfast room and playroom I went to the garage to get my gallon of simple green and string mop to clean the kitchen floor. As I was pulling the jug off the high shelf I felt a big splash of wet cleaner soak into my arm and leg. Apparently I had not fastened the cap back on tightly last time I mopped.

Of course I wasn’t in “cleaning clothes,” but was already dressed up to go out to lunch with my friends Jan and Judy. Fearing simple green in concentrate form might harm my clothes I stripped them right off and washed them immediately. I was tempted to go mop the floor in my underwear, but feared I might cause the UPS man a stroke if he delivered something right then.

Eventually the floor was done and I was redressed in clean clothes. I looked around at the sparkling glass at the front door and the dust free dining room table and immaculate floors and felt a huge amount of satisfaction. It may be a very small thing, but having a well waxed game table makes me very happy. I do worry about the next generation. I can’t imagine who is going to wax furniture properly in the future, but then again, mine hardly ever got waxed before I became my own maid.

Best Simple Tools

I do a lot of stitching. I needlepoint, I use a sewing machine, I hand stitch. I started when I was a little girl. At fifty-six years old I estimate that I have stitched hundreds of billions of stitches in my lifetime. I must confess that it was not until today that I ever used a thimble. Why has no one ever told me about this thing?

On Tuesday I picked up the king sized quilt I made for my mother from my long arm quilter? The only thing left to complete this project was to hand stitch the binding on the edge of the quilt. Hand stitching the 415 inches of binding is my least favorite part of making a quilt.

On my way home I stopped by a quilting store to pick up some fabric for my next project. Whole I was waiting in line to pay I saw a bucket of colorful rubber thimble on the counter. Over the last few quilts I have made I noticed that my finger got very raw and irritated trying to push the needle through the quilt sandwich of top, batting, back and binding.

So I chose a thimble that fit one of my fingers, not actually sure which finger I was supposed to wear it on. Today, after Mah Jongg, I got the quilt out to start the binding process. I dug the thimble out of the pocket in my purse. I put it on the middle finger of my dominant hand and started stitching. The thimble protected the side of my finger that I used to push the needle through the thick middle of the quilt. At first it felt a little odd, but eventually I was stitching faster and more pain free than I ever had before.

Why had no one ever told me about thimbles before. Although I watch plenty of you tube quilting videos I guess I have never watched anyone doing the final hand sewing. Now I am in love this simple old fashioned sewing tool that has been around for hundreds of years.

I guess that the old tools are still the best. I wish they made you tube videos a hundred years ago so I could go back and learn more tricks from the best tailors.

I’m A Lunch Kind Of Person

There is a general question people get asked, “Are you a morning person or a night owl?” I understand that there are those people who generally get up very early and those who stay up very late, but what about the rest of us? If you ask me that question I say “I am a lunch person.” If pushed to pick between early morning and late night I will take morning, but if you want me at my best, let’s do lunch.

Today is a perfect example. Since Russ was away I got to sleep until I naturally woke up. It was after seven. I drove to Raleigh to pick up my latest quilt from my long arm quilter (I’ll post photos after I give it to the recipient.). Then I went to meet my friend Karen for lunch. I was at my peak performance right then. Sitting, eating and talking, what I do best. I returned home, did some house keeping, sewing went to a meeting at five, came home and am going to another meeting at seven.

At the five o’clock meeting I was invited to a nine PM basketball game. Such a nice invitation, but do you know how far nine is from my peak performance time of 12:30? It is nice to be of the age that I don’t feel compelled to do things morning, noon and night. Pick two times of the day as long as one of them is noon and I’m good, but not three.

So here’s to lunch! And my friends that are happy to have it with me. I will stay your friend much longer that way.

Once A Basketball Mom, Always A Basketball Mom

When Carter played basketball at DA we used to have team dinners at our house. I love the team and the parents and have missed sitting in the bleachers with them.

A few weeks ago one of the team Moms called and asked if I would cook the food for the team year end dinner since she was not much of a cook. I gladly agreed.

Today I made butternut squash lasagnas, two with sausage and two without. I made salad dressing, and prepped the salad. I made Carter’s favorite Texas sheet cake that she always requested for team dinners. Just as I finished cooking everything I got a text from the Mom who was hosting the dinner.

“I’m stuck in Florida, and my flight is not getting in until late tonight so we are going to have to postpone the dinner. Can you just donate the food somewhere?”

I wanted to see the team so I texted back. “Let’s just have the dinner at my house.”

So we did.

The team had only one new player this year so most everyone was used to coming here. It was great to have them all back around my table. Carter FaceTimed once everyone was here. It made my heart happy to see their smiling faces. I guess once you are a basketball Mom, you always are one.

Some Dreams Never Should Come True

I’m not talking about that dream you are going to become a ballerina or a surgeon. I’m talking about those crazy dreams you have when you haven’t slept well all night.

Last night I hardly slept. I moved from my regular bed where Russ and Shay slept soundly to the guest room where my tossing and turning would not bother them. Once there I could not fall asleep despite my exhaustion. I rearranged every pillow over and over. I changed positions. I tried everything. Eventually I fell into a fitful on again and off again light sleep.

Just as I thought I was about to fall asleep at three in the morning Russ opened the guest room door and that fully woke me up. After another hour or so tossing and turning I finally fell into a crazy dream.

I dreamt my friends Lynn and Logan had a little baby and some kidnapping robbers come to a party at their house and cleaned out Lynn’s closet of a dozen designer handbags and the baby. Some unidentified friend and I went and snatched the baby back from the robbers’ car as well as one cork Prada bag. Then I woke up.

It was the worst night’s sleep and craziest dream. As if not getting any satisfying sleep wasn’t bad enough, I don’t have a satisfactory ending to the crazy dream. There are just times when I wish that I could stay asleep and rectify what is going on in crazy dreams. Waking up in the middle of a story with no meaning ruins my whole day.

I have basically been a zombie all day, but am afraid to fall asleep because in my subconscious I feel like those kidnappers are still around and I don’t know how to protect Lynn’s baby. The only thing I know is that Ellis, Lynn’s real baby was not this one because the one in the dream had black curly hair.

Please god, let me sleep well tonight and not have these crazy dreams and fitful sleep.

Namu-WooHoo

I had to check my watch twice to see that it really is February 24 and we were planning on eating dinner outside and it was lovely. Our friends Lane and Jon were coming over from Raleigh to have dinner with us. Russ is the keeper of the “what’s new and hip in the dining” list. There are always more places on the list than available meals we are eating out. Usually because Russ also has a “foods I want Dana to cook me” list.

Lane asked Russ to pick a dining spot. Since Jon likes casual (he just had to buy pair of nice pants to wear in NYC because the last time he bought pants they had pleats) Russ picked a Korean place that evolved from a food truck. I also think that watching all these Olympics had gotten us craving Korean.

The place is called Namu and it is in the Straw Valley Center where the Black House restaurant used to be. It is huge. It is a little like food truck met a beautiful garden and decided to stay put.

You come in and order your food at a counter and they give you a number to put on your table. There is an inside section which looks mostly like a coffee house. The real treat is the rambling gardens where there are tables throughout the property. You would never worry that there are people eavesdropping on your conversation there.

Despite the size and the ordering at a counter, the food comes amazingly quickly by one of the friendly servers. But true to food truck land it is served in little cardboard boats. Ignore the boat and just enjoy the yummy Korean. I had a spicy chicken bibimbap, which is a rice bowl with lots of veggies and delicious chicken. We had some homemade dumplings and spicy edamame for the table which was a great.

The miracle was that we spent two and half hours sitting our doors on a February night enjoying our friends with good food. I know I should hate climate change, but this one was lovely.

Lakewood Renewal

When Carter was an itty bitty we used to spend lots of time at a children’s museum called Busy Street in Lakewood. The shopping area had seen better days and thus the rent was cheep for the non-profit that was set up as a miniature town, with a fire station, restaurant, doctors office and other fun stations for toddlers. It was a sad day when Busy Street closed when Carter was about four. It was the last time I had any reason to go to Lakewood until recently.

The neighborhood is in such close proximity to Duke and downtown it seems like a no brainer that it was due for renewal. Last year Phoebe Lawless opened the Lakewood and mini Scratch bakery in the old Davis Baking building. Coco Cinnamon opened another branch of its highly popular coffee shop across the street.

The big shopping center with practically an unlimited amount of parking is now ripe for improvement. The Dollar General and the Food Lion on one end are fine tenants, but not special. At the other end of the big center is the new home of the Scrap Exchange which was priced out of downtown. It’s end of the shopping center has been renamed as the reuse arts center. The inexpensive rents attracted a small business called Freeman’s Creative a crafts supply business. It is just the kind of small business that the area needs.

A young woman opened the fabric, yarn and arts store with the idea to have classes in fabric and fiber arts. There are a group of sewing machines in the back where a fiber artist was working when I visited the store yesterday. I purchased some fabric to add to my quilting stash. I am ever hopeful that people will find these kinds of businesses early enough for them to take hold and stay in business.

If you are a knitter, quilter, seamstress or someone who wants to learn to be any of these stop by and visit the Freeman’s Creative. They have a little section of artist made crafts for sale, which make unique gifts. It takes us supporting these local businesses to help turn areas around. If this business can succeed it will attract others and you might just learn to make something cute.

Not Always Correct, But Never In Doubt

Years ago my friend Carol described herself to me this way and I knew in an instant we were kindred spirits. Being sure of myself is a trait that I have carried since grade school, that more often than not it hid what I did not know, but had people follow me when they should have known better. Another trait we share is a hearty sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Today a group of friends gathered to celebrate Carol’s birthday. Carol generously brought gifts for all her guests. As she handed out the small terry cloth colorful bundles we asked her what in the world they might be. Carol wasted no time demonstrating the magic hair drying towel she loved. She stood up and put it on, awkwardly trying to attach the twisted top through a loop. Voila! We all understood her cute gift, even if we thought it seemed difficult to put on after watch Carol struggle.

After a yummy lunch we agreed to all put our head wraps on for a group photo. Only Carol did not have one since she had given them all to us. Denise put hers on first and Carol said she was doing it backwards. Denise knew better. It was Carol, who had been putting it on backwards forever. Not always correct, but never in doubt. Her motto holds up.

Either way you wear it, it works and that is the great thing about old friends. None of us are perfect and we just accept each other the way we are. Carol is my friend and in that I am correct and am not in doubt. Happy Birthday!

Tiny Nest

As my friend Lynn and I were going into a meeting at church LYnn noticed this little bird’s nest. Lynn, a great animal lover is always looking out for the small creatures of the world. This little tiny nest was a work of art. Carefully woven soft needles and straw were gently, but securely placed in the branches of a little tree.

I got to thinking about how much work building that little nest was for the bird who did the work. Gathering each twig and carrying it back to the nest and placing it or weaving it together. I wish that I could have been able to spy the bird as she was doing the first few pieces. How does she get the first one to stay in place and then place the second one without knocking the first one out of the tree?

This small tiny nest must represent hours of work. It only serves for one season of egg laying and then probably does not last the elements and she must do it all again the next year. Such faith the bird must have that she has made a strong enough structure to hold her eggs. That she has placed it in a place safe enough from prying squirrels and inquisitive little hands of the children who pass by everyday on their way to pre-school.

I have no idea what kind of bird she is but I fear that she has chosen a space to close to the ground and too near the walkway to be able to nest there undisturbed. But what Can I do? I can not touch the nest and contaminate it. I cannot move it to a higher branch. I am left just to pray that she will be safe and sound on hallowed grounds.

The one thing I am certain of is that Lynn will look out for this mama bird whomever she is and all her soon to come eggs. There never was a better protector of the wildlife than Lynn, nor one that had more faith in the good of nature. I guess the mama bird might have picked a good spot after all.

It’s National Love Your Pet Day

There are days for everything now, National coloring book day, world coffee day, garlic appreciation day. Most of these kind of days are a promotion for a product. But if there was ever a day that had no agenda It’s National Love your Pet day. Sure, some dog toy manufacture might have made it up to sell more squeaky toys, but that is not the best way to love your pet; a good belly rub or ear scratch will suffice.

I have previously sung the praises of other countries lax rules about where dogs can go. Seems like it is time for us to join their ranks. I hate that dogs can’t go into restaurants unless it is on an outside terrace. My dog is probably cleaner than your shoes. Why can’t she sit on the floor under my table.

Today I had a meeting at a co-working office in RTP called The Frontier. I got there a little early and looked around for the woman I was meeting with. It w a big open office with lots of different desks, tables, sofas and gathering areas. I noticed a lot of dogs sleeping on dog beds beside their humans. There was a sign that read, “first floor dog friendly work space.” I am not sure if it was the atmosphere or the fact that the dogs got to come to work, but everyone there looked fairly happy. The dogs were very well behaved, maybe they knew it was love your pet Day.

Kind of like valentines, I don’t need one day to love my pet. I love her everyday, but I would like thee to be many more places for her to go with me. Having her around makes me a nicer person and she brings joy to all she lets pet her. I hate to see that sad face looking out at me when I leave her home.

Stitching Circle Day

There is something so comforting about sitting in a circle of friends doing needlepoint and enjoying each other’s company. My friend Kathi has just taken up needlepoint and has quickly gotten the bug. She has a very good eye and great design sense so it makes her desire to master more advanced stitches overwhelming. To help her improve she invited a few stitching friends to come and sit around her breakfast room table.

Of course there is nothing I like more than sharing my knowledge with others. It brings me great joy to see what other friends have stitched and help them learn new techniques. I was blessed to be taken in by a group of expert stitchers who have done Nd continue to do this for me. It seems that there is always more to learn and stitches to improve.

We gathered today at 10. I had a canvas that I was almost done with that I wanted to finish. We stitched until we needed food so around 1:30 we had a cup of soup and stitched some more. Suddenly it was al day 2:30 and I had to stop and renter the modern world.

It sounds so old fashioned for a group of ladies to gather with no other purpose than doing needlework, but it was so much more. It is a fellowship that is disappearing in our technological age. Don’t get me wrong, I love tech, but your iPad can’t give you a hug.

It was practically decadent to have no agenda, but so restorative. I can stitch everyday alone, and as much as I love to lay the fiber in the canvas it does not compare with the joy of teaching a friend a new stitch and watching them do it beside you. Not to mention the great conversation that takes place at the circle which is bound to stay within the circle.

There are some old fashioned things we need to nurture and keep alive not for the sake of creating more treasures but for the camaraderie. I am not sure many people think of needlepoint as a team sport, but once it is done together you find it even more satisfying and good for the soul.

Thanks Kathi for gathering this circle. I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

Mass Start Biathlon

The other day, just after the Florida shootings, I was watching The View. As the women were discussing the gun control issue, which our politicians seems to ignore, Megan McCain was defending the NRA. One of her rebuts to the group who wanted the NRA to get out of donating to politicians was, “You didn’t grow up in a place with gun culture.” McCain grew up in Arizona, where her father, John has been the senator and is the number one receiver of NRA money over his lifetime in politics. (Granted his lifetime in politics is very long.)

I got to thinking about that phrase, “gun culture” and wondering what could possibly be good about gun culture anywhere? Yes, Arizona used to be the “Wild West” where at any moment a band of outlaws might ride into town and try and shoot up a stage coach carrying innocent women folk. Oh, that was only in the movies. I could not come up with any positives about “gun culture.”

Then today, while I was watching my addiction, the Winter Olympics, I saw an event that is all about being a good shot, the Mass Start Biathlon. Athletes have to cross country ski on a difficult course and at set intervals have to stop skiing to shoot targets, both lying down and standing up. “Ah ha,” I practically said out loud. Here is a sport where coming from “gun culture” is a huge advantage. The winners are almost always the ones who shoot best.

There were 30 contestants who were chosen based on previous races won this season. 30 of them and not one was from the USA, land of more guns than any place on earth. So I am wondering what good is this “gun culture” if we are not even good at it for sport? The gun advocates all scream that having guns is a sporting thing that you just don’t understand if you are not doing it.

They are right. I just don’t understand it. I don’t think it is sport to kill a defenseless animal with a gun. Most people don’t kill food for eating. The gun and the ammo are more expensive than buying the food. Then there is self defense argument, but the statistics about toddlers killing someone in their house with a gun they find makes me more nervous than the potential for an armed robber to come into my house. Then there is target shooting. Yeah, that’s fun, but you can go to a range and do it there and leave the gun there.

If we had such a fantastic “gun culture” we should at least have one athlete in the men’s mass start biathlon. Seems like we have this gun culture thing all wrong. If it is a sport then let’s do it as a sport. Otherwise it is for killing, stop pretending it’s not.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

It’s my longest best friend Suzanne’s birthday today. She is always one who is up for fun, even though between us she was the more studious. We met in college. She was the nice, good girl and I was the bad influence. Although she didn’t really need me to have fun we definitely had lots of fun together and have continued ever since.

There is something so wonderful about having a close friend who has known you through all the phases of your life and loves you through each one. We had the crazy college years, with a close group of loving friends. After college she went to NYC and I to DC we found lots of reasons to see each other often. Mostly though parties and weekends away.

This photo was one of those weekend parties where everyone came dressed as a movie,TV star or singer. Suzanne came as Cindy Lauper. Once everyone arrived we wrote a script based on the characters assembled and filmed the movie…sadly that VHS tape has gone the way of all old technology, but perhaps it was best not to have that evidence. Thank goodness I always documented everything in photographs.

Then there was the professional work years, which meant we had more money to take better trips together. Followed by weddings and children and then trips with children. I love Suzanne’s husband Steve and kids Grace, Jack and Oliver and am thankful they are my family too. Suzanne is Carter’s godmother which comforts me to no end.

It was luck that we went to the same college, where in the same pledge class and became such good friends. I am grateful we had that start, but thrilled that we always stayed together and in constant touch long before the internet and Facebook made it easy. We share the same sense of humor and a long history of fun as well as support.

I know that we will be together with our grandchildren. So happy birthday Suzanne. I have celebrated over 38 birthdays with you and I look forward to the next 38. Hope it is a big day. I love you.

Best Time To Be Alive

This week has been full of things I love, games and Olympics! I played Mah Jongg, taught Mah Jongg then played Bridge today. And every night I have been glued to the Olympics watching people do things I could never imagine trying, but love to watch. Then of course I played plenty of games on my iPad, trying to limit myself to only one or two Catan games a day.

I could not imagine my life without games. I am thankful that I live in an age when I don’t have to spend all my time searching for food and shelter and fighting off predators. It would have been terrible to grow up in an age when there was no such thing as free time because keeping house took every waking moment. Today I have a robot vacuum to do the serious work so I am free to play a game.

Thanks to my great friend Deanna she has pulled me back into bridge and today I finally felt competent. Since she is a life master I have to play against people at her level and not mine, but then I also get to play with a life master. Despite my love of games it can still be challenging to say the least. The people we are playing against are life long bridge masters. Today was my best day, coming in second in our grouping and earning my first silver points. What a time to be alive.

Now I get to watch skating and skiing and play games while I do. Alleluia, hooray for games.

Anti-NRA PAC Needed

Today between my electrician coming to fix the circuit breaker that controls my ovens, (which was the problem, so I thankfully did not have to buy new ovens) and teaching advanced Mah Jongg to the lovely Chapel Hill Players pictured here, I was thinking about the Florida school shootings and the President’s press conference where he did not once mentioned guns or gun control.

It is clear to me that the NRA owns too many politicians. The two senators from North Carolina are two of the worst, receiving over $7,000,000 together from the NRA. I heard a clip of Trump during the campaign saying at an NRA rally, “You’ve supported me and I will support you.”

This pay for protection is clear as can be. Why do we as the electorate continue to allow one industry to determine policy. And guns are an industry. The NRA is all about their gun producing members being able to sell more guns, which is about revenue and profits.

The shooter yesterday had an AR-15 assault rifle which he bought legally. Yes, he may have some mental illness, anyone who carries out such an act probably does, but why should anyone outside of the military buy an assault rifle?

We are the only country that has such a huge issue with mass shootings of this scale. How can we force our politicians to start a conversation about how to change our current reality? One way is we create an anti-NRA PAC that donates to candidates who refuse to take money from the NRA. Money is at the core of this issue. It is hard for candidates to win against better funded opponents.

Currently there is a law before Congress that would allow people with a concealed carry permit in one state to be able to use that permit for all states despite the individual state’s actual laws. This is idiocy. It flaunts states rights.

It is time for us to make guns a more hot button issue for those of us who want gun control and not just for those who want more guns. I am not against hunting, or sport. If you want to kill a defenseless animal that is not for me to say you can’t. After my garden has been decimated by more than a few deer I understand, but I can’t be the one to actually do it. I just don’t think that allowing people less supervision when they want to buy a gun is the way to go and that is the direction things are headed all the while we have mass shootings multiple times a month.

Unfortunately this is an issue that must have government control. It is not like ending hunger. We can’t have a No Guns Bank like a Food Bank. But we can have a PAC and make gun control a plank in political campaigns that is more prominent.

Politicians who take this NRA money and refuse to even talk about gun control should be ashamed. They have the blood of the victims of these shootings on their hands.

Stacey to the Rescue

Valentine’s Day used to be easy for Russ. He would call up our favorite florist Family Garden and they would say, “We have something perfect in mind for Dana.” Russ never had to describe anything, think up what he might want or even give them a credit card. Everything was taken care of and whatever arrived, I always loved. Family Garden always knew best. Then they closed. Poor Russ, his life got a lot more stressful.

See Russ has Valentines PSTD. Our first Valentines together, before we were even married he gave me a lens for a camera that I did not like. Not that I didn’t like the lens, but the lens did not improve the functions of the camera I was already unhappy with so it felt like a terrible waste. It was a creative idea on Russ’ part, but very unromantic.

I am not a big Valentines girl. I don’t need a big gift. A sweet note is fine, but Russ feels the pressure to do more. This year the answer came in a friend and neighbor, Stacey, who is terrifically talented in so many ways, offering her flower arranging skills in bouquets. Russ jumped right on that and tonight Stacey’s daughter and husband delivered a gorgeous flower arrangement.

I Stacey how much I loved them. Each side of the arrangement is different and I wish I had an electric turning carousel to display them on. Stacey told me that Russ had asked her to use the latest quilt as the inspiration for my arrangement. It was a very sweet connection for him to make. The flowers certainly do go well with that quilt.

I hope that Stacey continues this venture because it would relieve Russ of the worry and pressure to continually overcome the camera lens gift. For the record I would have forgotten about that lens so many years ago, but Russ constantly brings it up. It is his only true gift fail.

Just having him home is Valentines gift enough.

Torn Between People and Passions

Last night I had a dinner meeting over at a neighbor’s house. I was in my quilting room working away right until the moment I needed to walk out the door. I had not noticed the time I was so involved with designing my next quilt that I did not have time to change my clothes, or even pull the stray white threads that were all over me off my sweater.

This morning I got up and went right back to my quilting room to continue the design process, but was almost late for Garden club, again with many small white threads attached to my black pants.

At both events, where my friends were all in attendance, I had a great time. I loved seeing them and there was not enough time to get to talk to everyone. The bad thing is I could hardly wait to get back home to sequester myself in my quilting cave and work on my next creation. I feel like I am quickly sliding down the extrovert scale from “most energized being with other people” to the introvert side of “gets energy being alone.”

It’s not that I want to be alone, I just want to be creating. My love of fabric and color and patterns is changing my natural personality. If only some of my friends would come over and quilt with me. Well, not exactly. I also want them to be happy to binge watch whatever series I am following while quilting.

I can’t exactly explain how this has happened. I am neglecting almost all other work in favor of quilting. Yesterday I had to force myself to clean the bathroom before I allowed myself to go to my work room. Who knew it wold take me an hour to clean. Mail piles up in my office and the laundry hamper is over flowing. Forget being an actual member of society. I am just becoming a stitching hermit. I think I need an intervention.

Miracle…?

Last year I had a hurt shoulder so I went to physical therapy. While I was there I mentioned that my knee also hurt so I I started doing exercises for both my right shoulder and right knee. Eventually my shoulder got better so I had to stop going to physical therapy. My knee improved some, but not perfectly. I struck it up to gaining weight and aging.

Recently my left foot started hurting so I had a bad foot on one side and a bad knee on the other. Come on! This was not good for my exercising, which was not good for my weight, which was not good for my knee. Oh the vicious cycle.

I made sure I was always wearing the ugliest, but best shoes I could. I did my physical therapy exercises. My trainer took to training my upper body exclusively. You should see my biceps. But really I just wanted my knee to feel better. It really hurt going upstairs. I was not interested in any major surgery.

Last week while I was looking for lotion or tooth paste at Costco I passed by the “joint health” display. This was not an area I had ever studied at Costco. But I stopped and read a few of the bottles and boxes. Without any real medical advice I decided to try a joint health supplement. Since I was self medicating I went for the generic Kirkland brand since it was less than half price the name brand I had heard advertised on CBS Sunday morning along with all the other old people products that only are advertised during the news.

I started taking the recommended dosage. After five days I noticed that my knee was not hurting as much. On day seven it hardly hurt at all. I did not lose any weight in these seven days and I doubt that my PT finally kicked in after more than a year. I am not going to push it and try and do a very long walk until I am really certain I am actually feeling better, but I can’t imagine that my mind just made the pain go away because I am taking something. It does seem a little like a miracle.

Quilt #6 or is it #5?

While I am waiting for the king sized quilt I am making for my mother to come back from my long arm quilter Tina, I decided I would make a baby quilt to practice more difficult skills. I took a charm pack, that’s 42 five inch squares and made half square triangles with one colored fabric attached to a white one. I had no pattern in mind, but have pinned dozens of half square triangle inspirations.

After I had all the half square triangles sewn together I laid them out and decided on this pinwheel design. Once I finished the top it was obvious that it needed a good border. This was a learning quilt so I just used some yellow fabric from my stash that I had enough of to make a border and the back.

Then the real learning time began. I wanted to quilt this piece myself. I thought that by making a baby quilt I might be able to handle it on my regular sewing machine. By regular, I don’t have a sewing machine with a deep throat, that is the space between the needle and the right side of the machine. The reason this is an issue is while quilting you have to push your whole quilt through the throat while still stitching. By the time I added the border I had made the quilt a little larger than I originally planned. At 51inches square it is still a baby quilt, because it just isn’t big enough to be anything else. It’s just for a big baby.

It took me a couple of try’s. I did not do the best job of making my quilt sandwich, the pieced top, batting middle and plain backing. After quilting three long lines I realized my error and had to rip the whole thing out and remake my sandwich. Eventually I was able to do the quilting, but now have confirmation that I can’t do the quilting on my sewing machine for anything bigger than 36 inches square.

I used another fabric I had in my leftover collection to make the binding. Watching curling and speed skating on the Olympics was the best way to spend the afternoon hand finishing the binding. This is the sixth quilt I have made since August, but maybe it is really the fifth with my mother’s being sixth since it is not really finished yet.

Either way, I think I can self diagnose this as a true addiction. When I showed the quilt to Russ and told him is it was a baby quilt he asked, with some fear in his voice, who it was for. I told him it was for a yet unknown baby and he was happy to learn that no one he was close to was having a baby.

I am still interested in more half square triangle designs, so I’m off to my graph paper to work on my next quilt. Sorry I am not able to do anything else more productive, but at least I am making the most of my quilting room.

A British and American Judge

Our friends Michelle and Richard came over for supper and some Olympics watching. Since Richard is a Brit he brought an international flair to our amateur judging. We watched ice dancing in the team competition because Michelle and Richard are friends with the American siblings who skated beautifully.

As happens every Olympics we all quickly became experts on whatever event we were watching. Well, almost experts. We had some trouble figuring out if a skater was on their edges or not. One thing we did not have trouble with was deciding if we liked the outfits, make-up and jewelry. Michelle and I did not like the Russian (not that we can say they are Russian, but the athlete from Russia) ice dancer’s blue tassel earnings. Michelle described them as two extra distracting pony tails.

We felt terribly for the Japanese skater who had a wardrobe malfunction and had the top of outfit almost come off when the back broke. You don’t have to be a skating expert to recognize when your clothes go wrong.

Despite none of us ever have snowboarded before, let alone do jumps and flips we quickly become experts judges as we watched the finals. “I don’t think he stayed on the rails long enough,” Richard said confidently as he rated a Norwegian contender. It was just thrilling that the 17 yer old American Red won the event. All I can say is “Gnarly Dude.”

This is just the beginning of two weeks every other years when I become enthralled with sports I care nothing about any other time of the year.

I Want A Cable Concierge

After five days of my internet being down, six phone calls to Spectrum, two tech visits, the first one breaking more than he fixed and then reporting to the company that everything was fixed, which it was not, and finally a tech who came and listened to me when I told him exactly what was wrong my service is back and running. It was frustrating, exhausting, maddening and a bunch of other words that are not fit for polite company.

During this ordeal I came up with a business idea I am incapable of doing, but would like to hire, so I am throwing it out in the universe in the hopes that a young person will take this on and become rich.

I want a cable concierge that deals with the cable company. I want a person who checks all the internal devices, wiring, etc. and then talks to the cable company, stays at my house when the the cable person comes and makes sure everything is fixed during the first visit. Basically it is a person with the power of attorney over my cable.

I don’t ever want to have to talk to the cable company on the phone, visit the service center, meet the cable repairman, or listen to an automated call from the cable company ever again. If a DVR goes bad, my personal cable concierge will replace it. If new services are offered, my concierge will determine if they are something that I need and will order and have them installed and only once they are working will train me on how to use them.

I really wouldn’t mind my cable concierge lived on site and could manage my DVR recordings, decide what shows I might like and set everything up so I never even have to look at the program guide.

Since they are on site, maybe the cable concierge could just change the channels for me and one more little thing, make the lights from my cable box dimmer so they don’t shine in my eyes while I am trying to sleep. I don’t think this is too much to ask. Please, please, if you are young, technical and trust worthy this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I am will to pay and I am certain I know others who would hire you.

Shakshuka

Eggs poached in a tomato sauce is a popular dish all around the Mediterranean. I like the North African version the best so I made this for Mah Jongg lunch yesterday. It is best if you make the sauce a day or more before hand so the flavors can marry, but if you do the whole thing at the last moment you won’t be disappointed.

1 large yellow onion- thinly slices

1 large red bell pepper- thinly sliced

1 T. Olive oil

1 fresh red chili pepper like a Serrano – thinly sliced

3 cloves of garlic-minced

1 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes

2 T. Smoked paprika

2 T. Cumin

1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Handful of oil cured black olives

6 eggs

Cilantro

In a big cast iron skillet on a big heat put the olive oil and the onions, Serrano and the bell peppers. Cook on high without stirring until they start to get a little charred. Then stir a little and contain cooking until a little more charred on the other sides. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Turn the heat down to medium, add the spices and stir around and cook for another minute.

Drain the tomatoes and add them to the pan. Chop up the whole tomatoes in the pan. Cook for another 15 minutes on medium. Taste and add salt and pepper. If you are doing this in advance stop here and store the sauce.

Heat the sauce in a fry pan and once hot make little Wells in the sauce one at a time a break eggs in the wells. Once all the eggs are in, sprinkle feta cheese on the whole thing and dot with olives. Cover the pan with a lid and let the eggs cook on medium heat. Sprinkle with cilantro when whites are cooked and yellows are stilly runny.

Eye Update

Today I went with Russ to his follow-up appointment with his miracle worker Dr. Terry Kim. The first thing I watched Russ do was take the eye exam. I was sitting on a bench half as far away from the eye chart as Russ and I could barley read it, as he was knocking the “SVEGB” out of the park. We went in to see Terry and he practically fell off his chair when he read that Russ now had 20/20 vision. He now officially has better vision than me or Terry.

All the stars lined up right and this potentially dangerous situation came out better than all the experts expected. Russ now does not even need glasses, although he currently is wearing clear glass ones to protect his eye from being hit, poked or bumped.

We are so thankful for the medical team at Duke, our friends and family who prayed, sent well wishes, brought food and offered support.There is no gift anyone could have given us that was more valuable and cherished than that of good vision.

Make sure you have your eyes checked regularly. There are so many treatments that can preserve and improve your eyes. Russ says the world had never been more colorful and detailed. I am going to do everything to keep it that way for him.

NOOOOO, Not the Cable Again

Yesterday I noticed that my internet was slowwwwwwinnng ddddoooowwwwnnnn to just under a stop. I alerted my IT manager Russ and he had me run a speed test. Sure enough the download speed had gone from the 200’s to 1.4. For those of you not so good at math, that’s less than 1% what it should be.

A few months ago we had this happen and I became quite good at testing modems and routers to whittle down the possibilities of whAt the exact problem was. After I reported all my testing to manager Russ he said, “It’s in the line outside and will all the rain it probably means there is water in the line.”

“Nooooo, not Again.”

I called Spectrum. They ran all their remote tests and said I needed a technician to visit. He arrived 24 hours after I called. I told him the whole history and gave him the stats. He didn’t believe me when I told him it was the line. He spent two hours looking at stuff and replacing an amplifier only to tell me that the problem was in the line to our house and that construction would have to call me and come out and that is a 7-10 day window.

Last summer when our line was replaced it took six weeks, and four different crews, the third one, broke our water line and I thought I would kill someone. How can this line only have lasted six months?

I am now interested in other providers, but I don’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire. If you use Google or AT&T and live in Hope Valley can you let me know. I am interested in how service is with other providers and how was your installation experience and reliability.

The third party installers that Spectrum uses are, in my humble opinion and vast experience, not good enough. Six weeks and four crews is not acceptable. The tech today said their had to be a nick in the line and that is how water gets into it and makes my service go out.

There has to be something better.

Super Bowl Scallops

Russ grew up outside Philly. He went to school in Philly. In his lifetime he has never seen the Eagles win a Super Bowl. Well, no one has ever seen the Eagles win a Super Bowl. Following the Eagles, even from afar has usually not been a happy thing to do, until this year. But even with their year of great play Russ was sure that something bad would happen, like a hail Mary in the last second that would steal Philly of a celebration. Sometimes it’s wonderful to be wrong.

Because of the gravity of the game we opted to watch it alone, in case there would be crying or worse, throwing something at the TV. This is only something you can do in your own home. Russ had bought chips and we had avocados and some sausages from the farmers market so we were prepared to have a traditionally unhealthy meal and watch the game and scream at the TV.

Then I remembered the Scallops I had bought at the farmer’s market and I said they would be better fresher. So while Philly scored their first nine points, missing the field goal, which Russ lamented might lose them the game, I whipped up this odd, but wonderful combination for dinner. Scallops on a sunchoke, Brussels sprout and ginger hash. It was the fanciest Super Bowl food I have ever made. Not only was it delicious, we did not feel bad after eating it and we felt even better when the Eagles won!

Bunch of Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes

Equal amount of Brussels sprouts

Two tablespoons of ginger/turmeric syrup which came from the durham Farmers Market

Equal amount of balsamic vinegar – a good quality thick one

A pinch of red pepper flakes

Scallops

Butter

Lime juice.

Preheat the oven to 400°

Sunchokes are notoriously dirty. You need to scrub them well with a vegetable brush under running water. Even then, when you slice then in 1/2 inch chunks you may find some more dirt in the nooks and crannies. Just rinse them again.

Cut the end off the Brussels sprouts and then cut them in half.

Cover a sheet pan with foil and spray it with vegetable spray. Lay out the cut Sunchokes and Brussels sprouts in a single layer. Spray them with vegetable oil and salt everything and put in the oven to roast for 25 minutes.

When done put in a bowl with this ginger sauce, the vinegar and chili flakes. Salt and pepper.

Heat a frying pan to very high heat. Place a tablespoon of butter in the pan and place each scallops in the pan in an order you can remember so you can turn them over in the same order. Cook on one side for about two minutes, until they start to brown. Turn them over with tongs and cook the other side for a minute and a half. Squeeze lime juice, or lemon over it and serve them on top of a bed of the vegetable hash. Salt and pepper the scallops.

My Super Bowl Tradition

For the second year in a row we had a cake auction at church for the youth group today. I have been adopted by the youth group as their official auctioneer. We all know this is my favorite activity, so I happily obliged.

It was pouring down rain at church time which is never a good thing when you are hoping to get a full house for the auction. The youth brilliantly met parishioners with umbrellas as they left the sanctuary offering them a covered escort to the fellowship hall for a yummy soup and grilled cheese lunch. This bit of hospitality gained the youth a higher percentage of auction attendees than they might have gotten.

Once everyone was seated I started the auction aided by Conner Garcia as my Vanna White. Many great cooks donated beautiful baked goods. I reminded the audience that we were there to raise a lot of money for the youth mission trips so they were not to look for bargains. I was encouraging wild bidding.

It all, went great. Kids bid without parents permission, but the parents stood by jr’s bids. Families bid against each other knowingly. People bid their friends up with no hurt feelings.

In the end, everyone who wanted something yummy to eat won something. Some kind adults who beat out kids surprised the kids by giving them the cupcakes they overpaid for by outbidding them. Everyone was friendly, kind and generous.

We raised over $4,100 which is really a great thing to do in an hour. Thanks to everyone who baked, bid and won. I think I know where I’ll be next Super Bowl Sunday.

Les Miserables, the Soundtrack of My Adulthood

Some French class I took, either in high school or college I had to read Les Miserables, in French. I wish that the musical had been created before then because I really could have used it to help me know what was going on in the incredibly complicated story. Once a better French student than me explained what was going on I was hooked. It was every kind of story all in one, a love story, a tragedy, a war, a comedy, an epic.

I can’t ever remember being an adult and not knowing every word in the whole Les Mis soundtrack. I have the two disk album from the 80’s and from that I made a cassette tape. I played that tape in my car as I drove up and down the east coast selling mail opening machines. I listened to that cassette in my Walkman on Rehoboth Beach every summer I had my summer house with my Washington friends.

I saw the original Broadway show in New York. Then I passed my love of Les Mis on to my child who listened on CD and then on iPod to the musical. It was the first show I took her to in London when she was in 8th grade. We went to see the movie version together, twice. And tonight I finally saw it at the DPAC with Russ.

The French Revolution may not have anything to do with my adulthood, but when I hear any song from the show I feel like I am in my twenties again, or maybe my thirties, forties and fifties.

There are a few albums that I have listened to so many times over such a long period of my life, like Jackson Browne’s The Pretender, or James Taylor’s JT, the Beatles’ Abby Road and Let it Be or Carole King’s Tapestry that I can bring myself right back to the place I first was when I started listening to them. Les Mis was one of those albums.

The thing about music that was different back when I was young was that if you got an album you loved you listened to it over and over again. I even had a repeat function on my turn table so it would just keep replaying the same side until you stopped it. I kind of miss that looping of music to the point that it is completely ingrained in your soul.

There is nothing I like better than being able to sing every word along with an album, especially if no one else is around to hear how badly I sing. It took all my energy to not sing tonight at the show, but I did love listening to live people sing it and sing it well. I don’t see any end in sight for Les Mis in my life, except I just don’t ever want to try and read it in French again.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I have always been of the mind that I can teach myself almost anything I really want to do. The fake it ‘til you make it motto has been at the forefront of my thought. It helps that most of the things I want to learn to do don’t involve major calculus or extra human endurance. But if I wall of a sudden had a burning desire to walk across the country I am fairly certain I could do it. But so can you.

Learning to do new things has gotten so much easier with the likes of You Tube. I bet you can’t think of one thing you would like to learn that someone has not already put on You Tube, now I would not like to have someone operate on my eyes who did their training with You Tube, but, I have not looked this up, I bet there are You Tubes about how to administer Botox.

In August I decided I wanted to learn to make quilts. I had no idea exactly how to do it, It I watched two or three videos and just started trying. My first quilt was a fairly easy pattern and it turned out great. Then I made up a simple pattern for a quilt for Carter and it turned out great. But both of those quilts involved some simple squares, nothing that tricky.

I wanted to learn to work with triangles. I made a Christmas placemat and although the finished product is cute, my first attempt at triangles was not so great. You can see from this photo how the white material with green lines does not have a pointy angle. It should meet at a point with the white material with polka dots.

Today I worked on a baby quilt made of all half square triangle and I have to say I was very happy with how my points were, especially where I had eight points meeting at the same place. I didn’t have anyone teach me how to do it, it just took practice.

Now that I have mastered half square triangles I want to learn to do curved pieces. It is all in the layering on of skills. You start with the easiest thing and once you are comfortable with it you can move on. It also helped that my first attempt at triangles was a placement. If it was really terrible I could throw it away and not feel despondent that I wasted a lot of time and materials. As imperfect as it is, I still ended up using it because the overall look is not bad. I just had not mastered that skill yet.

There is a great amount of self satisfaction you get from teaching yourself a new skill. I think it is the best way to stay young, if you are always learning new things. I can hardly wait to try out circles, the hardest thing to quilt ever.

Prepare Now

Seems like I have had a lot of friends lose loved ones this year. It is inevitable. There is no way we are getting out of this alive. One thing I have learned that is common is that hardly anyone of these loved ones left their “affairs in order” to the extent that would be easy for their family.

Some thought they had their financial life in order, but even though they had tried they left many lose ends. Some had prepared their final wishes, but living up to them was sometimes hard for the family. Some had downsized their home and belongings, but moving things to storage units does not count as dealing with your belongings.

After learning from the various friends of the things that were hard for them, especially when a parent passed away, I have started amassing a big list of what I need to do.

First, have a will. Russ and I have a will we had drafted when we got married. Although we made provisions for future children we have not really updated it recently. Second, if you are asking someone to be your executor, tell them in advance so it does not come as a surprise. And if you are asking one child and not another tell them both what the plan is. Don’t make the one who is chosen to be the executor tell the one that is not that they were not chosen. Not that it is a job anyone wants.

Clean out your paperwork regularly. My father-in-law has been doing this, bless his sole, but there is no reason to save 55 years of MasterCard bills where the ink has disappeared from them. I know that we personally have every tax return and all supporting documents for thirty years in my office. There is no need for this. No one, not even the government cares about things that are more than seven years old and in most cases it is only three years. I am yet to meet anyone who liked to look lovingly at how much their grandparents paid in taxes as a way of reminiscing about them.

If you own any valuable furniture, jewelry or art let your loved ones know it is valuable. Don’t hide valuable things around your house and expect your kids to find it. Then again, what was once valuable to you may not be valuable to anyone else ever again.

One great bit of advice I learned today is for you to put the executor to your estate as a signer on your checking account while you are alive. My friend Nancy’s father passed away a few days before the end of the year and left bills she needed to pay for him. Being on his checking account makes things easier in the short run.

Talk about your funeral, memorial service or other celebrations of life while you are well and happy. Even better go on and write a draft of your obituary. It saves the grieving loved ones from one more thing to do and perhaps your legacy. You can always tell when the black sheep of the family writes the obituary and the newspaper prints some scandalous obit. It makes for great reading but you may not want your dirty laundry or family squabbles aired as the last thing printed about you.

Put together all the important stuff in one folder and tell your people where it is. If you don’t want them to read it before you go give it to a lawyer. But for goodness sake don’t mix your life insurance, titles of the cars with your high school love letters. Speaking of love letters, get rid of anything you don’t want others to know about, why are you keeping it anyway?

Personally we are way behind doing all this. When Russ went in for his operation I got to worrying, but thankfully it was premature. But as friends this year have told me, it’s not just your 94 year old mother you need to worry about. So prepare now and your family will love you even more. The last thing you want is them cursing you about your basement full of glass jars you had been saving your whole life.

Eye Follow-Up

Russ had an early morning appointment for the follow-up from his eye operations yesterday. Since he had both retinal and cornea procedures there were a lot of doctors interested in the outcome. No one was more interested than Russ and me.

We sat in the waiting in with a lot of other much older couples with one partner with a giant eye patch just like Russ’. Nurses would come out and call a name and they would go back to the examine rooms. One of Russ’ surgeon’s fellow came and got us from the waiting room. Russ sat down in the big eye exam chair in the dark room with a TV screen on the wall behind him with a giant letter “N” displayed on it. The fellow removed his patch and asked Russ to look at the mirror on the wall in front of him and tell her what letter was displayed on the screen behind him. This was the moment of truth. Could he see?

He looked in the mirror and said, “What screen?” I held my breath. The fellow realized that Russ was so tall in the giant chair that the angle of the mirror was off and he was looking at the ceiling. She adjusted the mirror and he immediately said, “N.”

“I can see.” It was exciting, he wasn’t made worse by the operation, but the N was huge. The the fellow changed the letters on the screen to be a little smaller. “Can you read those?”

Russ read out the three letters with no problem. “Z G T F H.” And again smaller, and again smaller. Until he got to what was the equivalent to 20/25 where he got four of the five letters right . He got 2 of the five in 20/20. Not only could he see, he could see better than he ever had in his whole life.

It was a joyous moment. The next fellow came in and did some more tests. Everything was going great. Then his retinal surgeon, Dr. Postal came in. He looked in Russ’s eye. Declared it a win. Lastly Terry Kim came in. It was not his day to work in the hospital clinic, but over at the Page Road facility, but he made the early morning trip especially to check on Russ. He declared he was better than they had ever expected.

This was a life changing operation. Russ pulled out his iPhone and read things without glasses. “I had no idea that the screen on this phone was so clear and look at these colors.” You don’t know how bad something is until you have something to compare it to.

Russ eye is still red and in recovery, but for the first day it is absolutely miraculous. The Drs gave each other a high five in the hallway. Nothing about operating on eyes is guaranteed, especially when you have to coordinate two different things. We are so incredibly grateful for their expertise, kindness and diligence.

I drove Russ home and he was amazed at things he had not really been able to see well that he was noticing for the first time now. Three years ago I redecorated the play room and when we walked in the house he said, “Wow, the playroom is really beautiful. I love the blues.” Neither of us had realized how grey his world had become.

I am so appreciative of all the messages of support and prayers we got yesterday. I am not discounting that there are bigger powers at work here.

We had to get him some glasses with juts plain glass in them to protect his eye from getting bumped. The only bad thing is now he can see so well he went right back to work on his computer in his office at home. I fear for his team now that he can see what everyone else is doing.

Not the Good Eye

Russ was born with one good eye and one non-working eye. Since that was all he ever knew his brain learned depth perception in ways different from those of us with two eyes. For the most part it was not an issue except for 3-d movies. As a child his mother guarded his good eye.

Then he married me and it was my turn to be the protector of the good eye. About ten years ago he had a serious eye problem in his bad eye and we weren’t that worried because what could happen? He was already blind in that eye. Recently his good eye has been getting worse.

He went to our good friend, world renowned Dr. Terry Kim and for months they discussed options. Russ tried to hide from me how bad his good eye was, but really there was no hiding from me. As his close vision got worse and worse he would hold his iPhone an inch from his face.

I begged him to schedule the surgery that was needed which now involved two surgeons of differing specialties, Dr. Postal and Dr. Kim. In the small world of Durham both doctors had daughters who were friends of Carter’s from school, so I ways happy to have that close connection.

Today was the surgery. I took Russ over to Duke eye hospital at 5:45, worried about the outcome of his only useful eye. Thank goodness for the wonderful medical team at Duke. Both Drs said the respective surgeries went well. When I was reunited with him in recovery he was in fine shape, except for the giant patch over the good eye.

I brought in a practically blind man and brought home a totally blind man. We won’t know how the repairs have worked until we go back first thing in the morning and they take the pirate patch off. Even then it will take a week or more for his vision to return.

So now I am nurse maid, email and text reader, driver and all things Russ needs. In a miraculous turn of events Russ’ previous useless blind eye, which does not have a lens is stepping up and working in a way never detected before. He is able to see a little light from it and can make out lights and darks in big swaths. It is not much, but it is much better for getting around the house.

Not being able to read is the worse part of this whole thing. Russ generally reads six to eight hours every night. So with no work to do, and nothing to read he insisted he needed to at least get his steps today. He got on the treadmill and did his 12,000 steps. I called him blind man walking.

I am ever so thankful for the friends who have helped us out. I did not say much about this before it happened, but this past week I finally had to let some people know. Thanks to Christy and Paige who dropped off food for us. I know it may seem like bringing coals to New Castle, but I really appreciated not having to cook on top of reading texts and emails.

The true test was I had to be Russ’ tech support and fix somethings on his iPad. He was ready to give up on me being able to fix his issues, but eventually I got it, of course with his coaching.

So I ask for your prayers for Russ’ continued recovery and the return of the sight in his good eye. And don’t send him any texts that say something bad about me since I will be reading them to him for a while.

Not Original, But A Good Start

I opened my Costco Connection Magazine to this story today. If only Acme Supermarket had a magazine in 1991 then this might have been me and Russ. I am very happy for this couple, Brian and Veronica, who got engaged in the Costco Parking lot. I am happy to verify that 26 years after getting engaged in a supermarket parking lot in Cinnaminson, NJ we are still going strong.

We did not have the added pressure of a shared Costco membership, but we did have a shared employer who my father was certain would fire both of us for daring to mix engineering with sales.

It is not where you start that determines the success of a marriage, but how you deal with the day to day stuff. What could be more mundane than doing the grocery shopping. The fact that Russ asked me to marry him in the parking lot, before we went to and decided chicken or fish, was a sign that he would carry the burden of the chores with me. And he has done more than his share everyday.

Although he was raised in a “dinner was on the table when Dad got home from work,” kind of house he never has held that there were women’s roles and men’s roles in our own house. It shows that equality is something that can happen without lots of pain.

Only once did I ever have to have an equality type talk with Russ and it was only out of blindness did it need to happen. When we first were married and had two houses one in New Jersey and one in Washington, DC. The Washington House was always immaculate because I had a house keeper. The New Jersey house was not, because Russ has terrible eye sight and could not see cat hair. So one weekend, after I had worked all week and arrived in New Jersey I had to clean that house because my eye sight was perfect. After a few hours of cleaning I broke down crying that I couldn’t keep two houses and travel all week working. Russ got a house keeper that week and made sure I never had to do everything.

I am sure the crying had a lot to do with it, but I think that starting out in the parking lot of the Acme, not a more mundane name for a store could ever be found, is the real tip off that he would shoulder more than half the burden.

Christmas Coupon

When you are a kid and give your parents Christmas present coupons for things like walking the dog, mowing the lawn and hugs you secretly hope they will not redeem them. It is the worst kind of kid gift. This year I gave my mother a coupon kind of gift, a king sized quilt where she got to pick out the materials. When Your Mom is 80 there is no waiting around to redeem her coupon.

We went to pick out the fabric she wanted the first day we could drive after the big snow storm. I had some ideas about the kind of pattern I wanted but I let my mother make the ultimate decision. So I got to work making the squares with her fabrics. I had set a deadline of finishing the quilt top in January which was ambitious since it is a big California King.

Realizing that I had a lot to do this coming week I decided I needed to finish the quilt this weekend so I could take it to my longarm quilter on Monday. I worked diligently all day yesterday. I was sure I had just a little left to do today. I was wrong. It took me all day today to finish it up, but I made it.

It helps that I binged watched a good series on Amazon called Good Girls Revolt about women who worked at a news magazine in 1969. After that I watched a Kate Winslet movie called The Dressmaker. Both shows had strong women standing up for themselves and seemed very timely given what’s been going on in the country lately.

The more the women got what they were fighting for the faster I pushed the sewing machine pedal. If it weren’t my choice to sew these quilts I might seem very old fashioned. Instead I consider my self lucky that my husband affords me the time and money to make these creations. Even when it is at his loss because I had no time to do anything else this weekend and he ate leftovers for every meal.

I hope my mother is happy with the finished product once I get it quilted and do the binding on the edge. This is one Christmas coupon that I am happy to redeem quickly.

Time to Start Some Thyme

I was looking at the bare dirt of my front garden this week. The place where I usually transplant Thyme to was devoid of anything living. Just a few brown twigs of my once robust thyme plants remained. I love cooking with Thyme, especially fresh, but sadly my plants only last about seven or eight months and then they are gone. This leaves me with a few months of no home grown fresh Thyme.

I usually buy plants from the nursery and no matter how many I buy I never seem to have as much Thyme as I want. It is disappointing since the plants are not cheap. Last year I planted about ten and they hardly covered much space to be good ground cover in the garden and I was not helping the situation by harvesting handfuls of the tender stalks and leaves to use in my cooking.

Upon looking at my Thyme area I decided I need to blanket the garden with Thyme this year. The only economical way to do this is to grow my plants from seeds myself. This is a project I have undertaken for various vegetables over the years and I usually decided that it is mor trouble than its worth, or I find I had started my seedlings too late and am disappointed in the lateness of my harvest.

Well, not this year. I ordered 500 seeds on Friday and they will be here Monday. I am bound and determined to grow my own Thyme crop this year. Given that my sends cost $4 with shipping and my plants usually cost $3.29 a piece I should be saving money. As long as I get more then two plants out of the 500 seeds I will be ahead.

The germinating is the easy part. It is the thinning of the seedlings and getting plants big enough to go outside along with the hardening off, otherwise known as acclimating the plants to the outdoors that is difficult. I am not going to be too ambitious and start lots of things from seeds. If I can master Thyme I will be happy.

Presidential Divorce?

I am wondering what would happen if the spouse of the President ever wanted a divorce? I am sure there have been plenty of times throughout history that either the First Lady or the President wanted out of the relationship. Being residents of the White House can not be easy on a marriage.

This week’s events seem to show some serious cracks in the marital life of our current POTUS and FLOTUS. I have been trying to limit my exposure to 45 because I find he is not good for my eating habits, so I missed the story about Stormy Daniels, the porn star who allegedly was paid $130,000 right before DJT entered the presidential race to keep quite about their supposed year long sexual relationship in 2006. The Donald having an affair is not news. Just look at his marital status history.

But this latest public reporting of the paper trail of paying off this porn star could have gotten to the current Mrs. since she canceled her planned trip to Davos, Switzerland and instead made a quick getaway to Palm Beach. And DJT’s wooden, read off the TelePrompTer, lack luster speech to the high and mighty at Davos made me think he had his heart on other matters, like how he was going to patch this mess up with the current Mrs.

Just attending Davos seemed like the invite DJT would always have coveted, but never would be invited because in the big world of real successful people he was a nobody. Only by tricking poor coal miners to believe he could save their jobs was he able to gain an invitation to the prestigious conference. Then Melania threw a big bucket of ice water on his potential moment of glory among the elite he always wanted to be, by refusing to go with him.

Sorry that having your way with porn stars might be ruining a life long dream come true, but you know that things will always catch up with you, when you least want them too. As for the current Mrs. You should know that if he cheats with you he will cheat on you. You are not so special that he will change. But you don’t have to endure him. Just because no President has never gotten a divorce before doesn’t mean it can’t happen. We also have never had a president who has had three living wives before either. We all knew what we were getting, especially you, Mrs. DJT.

Wanna Meet Vivian?

Are you a Fan of Vivian Howard, Star of the PBS series A Chef’s Life? Have you wanted to go eat at her Kingston restaurant Chef and the Farmer, but not been able to get a reservation? Well, I have an opportunity for you to not only eat her food, but also meet her right here in the triangle.

Thursday, March 22 Vivian is staring at the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina’s Chef’s Feast dinner at Fearrington Inn. She cooks, she talks, and trust me she is as nice in person and her food is as delicious and she donates a special one of a kind experience that you can try and win in the auction.

Colin Bedford, the award winning Chef of the Fearrington Inn is also one of the participating chefs. If you have never eaten at the Fearrington Inn this is the best of all worlds, getting two of the best chefs in the south cooking the same meal. If you have been to Fearrington then you know this is going to be nirvana.

Wait, you don’t just get two chef’s, there’s more. Durham’s own John May, currently chef at Piedmont, but formally of Chef and the Farmer is reuniting with his former boss Vivian for this special night. As well as Phoebe Lawless, award winning baker and chef will round out the dream team of chef’s making your dinner this night.

All of these talented artists in food do it for their love of feeding you to help feed our hungry neighbors. For the price of a ticket you can listen to the chef’s talk about what they make while you eat it. At the end of the dinner I will be the auctioneer for the one of a kind culinary experience donated by each of the chefs.

Seating is very limited. There are some tickets available at https://chefsfeastfearringtonvillage.eventbrite.com/. I also have one table in the station chef sponsorship category left for $3,000 for a table of 8. Trust me it promises to be an evening you won’t forget. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, but don’t wait long. I can’t get you in once the tickets Re gone.

Tomorrow My Mom Turns 80

It is hard for me to believe that my Mon is going to be 80 tomorrow. She has always been beautiful, but she looks extra fantastic for 80. She is still sharp as she has ever been. If you don’t believe me try and beat her at Bridge. She has always been a talented artist, but she has hardly ever been more prolific than she is now, still painting everyday.

I am thankful for all the good things she has given me. She has a strong faith, is kind and is fair as can be. Many Christmases I might get a check for something like $3.34 along with my presents. Why such a strange check? It was the difference in the cost of my gifts a compared to my sister’s.

My love of needlepoint definitely is a genetic thing I get from her. Unfortunately I am not as talented as she is, doing free hand needlepoint, meaning there is no painting on the canvas. She also passed on her love of doing laundry. Her frugality has also been passed down to me. She is a voracious reader, so her favorite place is the library. Why wold she ever buy a book when she could read it for free from the library.

She is not much of one for social media, but if you know her send her an e-mail tomorrow. janie@carter.net. Turning 80 with your mind and body still in tact is a good day. Happy Birthday Mom!

Baby Traumas

Today while pursuing through Facebook I saw a darling group of photos of my young friend Kim’s two month old daughter. The photos were darling but the words brought back horrible memories. Kim clipped her daughter’s thumb while trying to cut her nails. Of course baby Morgan is fine, but as a mother there is almost no worse job than trying to cut paper thin nails. The worst part about it is that if you don’t cut their nails it in a timely manner the baby can scratch themselves badly. So you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

I can remember crying after cutting Carter with the nail clippers. I think I cried harder than she did. Why in the world was there not a baby manicurist? By the time I finally learned how to do it, she was practically old enough to paint her own nails.

There are somethings that I wish I had been trained in before becoming a parent. The on the job training is woefully inadequate. Despite reading many parenting books and having plenty of friends who had raised successful children I still made many mistakes.

One glaring example was the bottle. I somehow skimmed over the chapter about how long you give a baby a bottle. I don’t mean how many minutes when you feed but for how many months you allow her to still drink from a bottle. I never forgot when a friend, upon seeing Carter drinking from a bottle just before her second birthday, told me I was supposed to ween her from it by her first birthday.

100% over the recommended time was way off the good parenting mark. Since I had breast fed Carter for more than six months, the recommended amount of time back then I probably should have skipped the bottle all together.

Weening Carter was almost as painful as cutting her infant nails. We used platex bottles with plastic liners called drop ins. Carter only had a bottle at bed time and getting her to fall asleep without it was proving difficult. One night I was at a meeting and a Russ called me with the desperate message that we were out of drop ins. I told him to tell Carter she just had to go to sleep without the bottle because we had no liners, and she did.

When I got home that night and Russ reported that the lack of liners excuse pacified Carter I thought we were on to something. The next night I used the same excuse. “Mommy, just get some more at the store.”

The next day she asked, “Any liners?” I lied to her that they were out of them at the store. I knew then that I had to stop taking Carter to the Harris Teeter when I went shopping. For weeks she questioned about the availability of liners and even wondered how good a store it could be if they never restocked liners. Eventually she gave up and forgot all about drinking from a bottle. I knew then that the real reason to stop a bottle at one was it was before they could have discussions about it.

Those early problems seemed so big then. I hardly knew they were just a training ground to have to deal with harder and harder issues later. I know that cutting your baby’s finger clipping their nails kills you, but the good news is it doesn’t scare your child, physically of emotionally. Those things come later.

Smart Not Perfect

I have become way too dependent on my iPhone. I got a new one for Christmas and it has this feature where it automatically puts things on your calendar that are in text messages, or email. This is something I thought I loved, until today.

It was my friend Shelayne’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. As is our custom we planned a lunch out to celebrate with our friend Lynn. The confirmation for the date and time came in a text. My phone logged it in my calendar and once I saw it there I just assumed all the details we correct. Never assume.

I made plans with Lynn to pick her up at 11:30 for a noon lunch. Since I am now her lady in waiting, with her unusable right arm in a cast, we made a stop at the post office to mail a package. Plenty of time for that errand arriving at Thai Cafe right at noon.

After rejecting the first table offered us we settled in a booth and ordered drinks while we waited for Shelayne. After ten minutes I looked at my phone to confirm that we had the right place to meet. On my calendar it all looked right, so I decided to go to my text to see the original source material. Right day, right place, wrong time. Our lunch was at 1:00!

I asked Lynn if she knew that and her reply was, “I am just the B team, I depend on you to tell me where and when.” That is my roll, to get the details right, but I failed.

So we paid for our drinks and went out and drove around looking at houses for 45 minutes. It was actually very fun. We went back to Thai Cafe and Shelayne pulled up right after us. It was a lovely birthday celebration, but without coconut cake so we had no guilt.

Lesson learned, double check the details of the automatic things my phone does. I may lose my standing as member of The A Team if I don’t verify everything.

Tim Raue

Since I’m busy watching football I decided to give you some major eye candy for the blog today. This is in no way a healthy food post, and I had nothing to do with the creation of this food.

These are photos from the best meal either Russ, Carter or I have ever had. It was our last night in Berlin we went to Tim Raue for dinner. If you don’t know who Tim Raue is or why his Berlin self named restaurant is number 48 in the prestigious 50 Best Restaurants in the world. There is a fabulous series on Netflix called The Chef’s Table, where they do an hour on each of the chefs from these fabulous restaurants. If you watch the Tim Raue episode you will have an idea why we wanted to go eat there.

I had made the reservation when I booked our plane tickets to go to Berlin. It was a major Christmas present ourselves and I would do it all again. What I did not know when I made the reservation is we had been placed at the Krug Table, which was the Chef’s table where we could see into the kitchen. They gave us menus to take home so for all the dishes that were listed on out menu I have put the descriptions. Sadly I did not take notes on all the extra food they gave us between courses. Not that I cold ever recreate it, but I can’t describe it to you here.

We started with a number of fish and cashew appetizers that were off menu. Suffice it to say each one was more fabulous than the next.

The next item was Brussels Sprouts that had been lightly cooked and hollowed out and stuffed with Brussels spout purée, mashed banana, stock of kaffir lime leaves, smoked oil, coriander and wild peanut. Who knew mashed bananas go so well with Brussels sprouts.

An Ikarimi Salmon followed. And those light look like cherry tomatoes next to the fish, but they were round tomato like balls. Oil confined ikarimi salmon filet, buttered stock of tomato juice and marukan rice vinegar, compote of tomato and Star anis and green anis.

The best thing we had was the Langoustine wasabi Cantonese style. Stock make from fish sauce, mango and carrot, langoustine turned over in starch flour and deep fried in wok, marinated with wasabi mayonnaise and deep fried green rice. This description in no way describes how this crunchy on the outside and silky on the inside lobster tail like dish tastes. Trust me it is worth the trip.

Suckling Pig, dashi and Japanese mustard. Berlin knuckle of pork, cream of Japanese mustard, young pickled ginger and dashi jelly. The pork was roasted then fried. Decedent.

Veal Neck, water chestnut and black truffle. Veal neck marinated with rice wine, steamed for 12 hours and fried in hot oil, truffle husband topinambur foam, salad of water chestnut and topinambur with prim nam pla chili Brough, Piedmont hazelnut and picked grapes.

Peking duck- interpretation Tim Raue

-breast , crispy skin flavored with five spice, apple and leek, jus of duck feet, wafer cream

-duck liver terrine, pickled cucumber, ginger, leek cream, powder of duck skin

-brew, tongue, heart and stomach, winter melon, bamboo mushroom.

Yazusian cheesecake, caramel Berrey salé

Dulcet valrhona chocolate koi carp filled with spcheesecake mousse, caramel burre salé sauce and dulcet crunch, Yusuf sorbet and jelly organ lemon jam, lime cress leaves

As if that dessert wasn’t enough we had another mouse like dessert with a meringue crisp on top then some little sweet nibbles.

It was a night to remember.

The Joy of Staying In

I love being my age. One of my favorite parts about it is that Russ and I can chose to stay in on a Saturday night and not consider we might be missing a damn thing. Not that we ever really care if we are missing something because there is hardly anything that can go on that is more fun than being home. The only thing that might be better is being home with friends, as long a sit is our home.

Maybe we are really getting old because we did venture out today in the middle of the day and felt like that was all we needed. After taking a painting of my mother’s to the framers we went to the UNC basketball game with our friends Lynn and Logan. This was Baby Chick’s, that’s Lynn, first foray out into the world since her wing operation. She was instructed by Mack, her doctor extradinare, to be careful as can be, my medical term, not his, and not move her arm under any circumstances. I told her she needed to follow his advice since she was growing a bone.

So I acted as her body guard protecting her from well wishing friends who wanted to hug her, or ice she might fall on. It was a successful first outing. The boys dropped us off and parked the car. The walk into the Dean Dome was not too taxing for someone who was growing a new bone and the game was a winning one, even though the play was not spectacular.

Long chauffeured us home and Russ and I went to opposites sides of the house to work on our various hobbies. Then we ate leftovers for dinner and went back to our hobbies. Perfect day. We did not have to get dressed up, we spent time with the people we really like and our team won. Oh it’s great to be old and not give a shit about much else.

It Really Pays To Be a Good Customer

I joke around a lot about the fact that my friend Lynn lives on green tea lattes and movie theatre popcorn. It’s not every green tea latte though. Specifically it is Starbucks. This has been such a long term habit that we had a birthday party for her five years ago where everyone came with a Starbuck’s cup with Lynn spelled a different way.

Lynn doesn’t care how you spell her name as long as you make her drink to her exacting order. She is well known by legions of baristas throughout the Starbucks universe. I swear that knowing the Lynn green tea latte recipe is a requirement for passing the Starbucks employee training exam.

Today I went to visit her and check in on her healing broken wing. Her husband Logan was home with her, but working on a serious deadline for work. After I had been there an hour I noticed that there were no Starbucks cups on her bedside table. Concerned about her lack of calcium to help her grow a new arm bone I asked where her Starbucks was. “They have been closed due to the snow for the last two days,” Lynn said in a slightly desperate voice.

I jumped into action and said I would go that moment and remedy the situation. Logan, in a thankful pose thrust his well worn Starbucks gold card in my hand and told me to go to the drive through Starbucks. (It is usually Logan who picks Lynn’s drinks up, but they still know it is for Lynn.)

Off to Starbucks I flew. I ordered at the speaker and pulled around to meet Mike. He recognized the very particular order as Lynn’s and asked if it were so. When I told him that is was but that she was home recovering from an arm operation he went into a complete tizzy. “You should have told me this was for Lynn before I rang it up. It would have been on the house.” Then he got a glint in his eye and said, wait a minute. I had no other choice since he had not given me the drinks yet. He came back to the window with a little bag of treats. “Please tell her to get well soon, we miss her.” And he handed me her two Green tea lattes.

I delivered the healing elixir along with the gift from Mike to Lynn. I apologized to Logan that I had missed the opportunity to get the drinks for free because I did not announce in advance they were for Lynn. What I did note is that if you are so brand loyal and get the majority of your sustenance from one place, and are always nice to everyone who works there, as Lynn most certainly is, they will take care of you in a time of need.

I know this advice is lost on most of us because we will vary what and where we eat, but it is nice to know that the highest form of brand loyalty is rewarded. Also if you know Lynn’s secret and complicated order you might be able to get it for free if you tell the barista it is for Lynn, but that does you no good unless you want to drink it.

28 Chicken Pies

What is the best thing to do on a snow day? Make 28 chicken pies of course. Russ was in New England for work and I had all the makings and orders for the pies. So why waste a forced day at home and not be productive.

I always forget how much work making these pies is. Each individual ingredient has to be cooked individually to ensure that the pie is right. There is no recipe so making the right amount of green beans or chicken is an art and not a science. The longest ingredient to prep is the caramelized garlic cloves. I had made the whole soufflé dish full of garlic two days ago which made things easier since that alone takes six hours to cook.

I cooked the chicken and made the stock. Diced and boiled the red potatoes. Peeled, diced and roasted the sweet potatoes. Carefully cleaned the mushrooms, sliced and sautéed them. Cooked the green beans. Roasted the carrots. Steamed the broccoli. I thought I was almost done. I was not.

I had to make the sauce with a roux, the garlic, stock, and herbs. Am I almost done? My kitchen was beginning to look like a bomb had gone off it it. Every major pot I own was dirty and when I say major I mean like 24 quart pots. But I was not close to being done.

I had to set out 28 foil pans and carefully dole out each ingredient evenly among the lot. Then I had to spoon the sauce in. Done… NOT EVEN CLOSE. The worst part of the job was the making of the phyllo crust. I had to melt gobs of butter and then tenderly layer one sheet of phyllo on the top of the pie, butter it and then gently fold it over and repeat and repeat and repeat.

I was exhausted, and sore. I covered each pan in foil put some in my car to deliver to the home bound, since our roads still have six inches of ice on them. Some friends came by to pick theirs up and other asked me to keep theirs until they could get out.

Russ was flying in at 6:30 and I told him I would pick him up at the airport since he drove the Smart car there. He was a little late and declared that the smart cold have made it home. I told him dinner would be ready in half an hour since I needed to bake our pie fresh. He said he was happy to eat something else, but I told him after all the work that had gone into making these pies we were having that for dinner, if he wanted it or not.

Snowier Day Than Expected

At first this snow day was supposed to be a 1-3 inch event. No big deal. Then yesterday some weather guys were upping the top number to five or six. So Russ left town late last night to fly north for an important meeting that takes place tomorrow. That should have been the sign for me that this was going to be a much bigger snow. In the almost 25 years we have lived here Russ has missed practically every big snow.

My trainer has told me if there was any snow that she would not be in. I awoke to no snow so I texted her and she said to come work out. I was one of three people at the gym. We all were kind of laughing about why no one else had come, but then the snow started half way through my work out. Consequently I was my trainers only client today as she was going to leave after I did.

I had twelve people planning on coming to my house for Mah Jongg and lunch today. The perfect thing to do in the snow, that is as long as you can get here and you are not leaving young kids at home alone. Well the 12 got down to five. One walked through the snow with an American Girl Doll umbrella. One had her son drop her off and the others came together in a Suburban. It was a better thing to do than sit around and watch the snow pour down and think that you should make hot chocolate and grilled cheese.

After everyone had won and eaten cilantro chili lime shrimp salad they departed the way they had come except now two walked home. I put Shay’s new coat on her and out we went to get the mail, frolic with her friends Harry and Winston and do an initial shoveling of the walkway and brushing off of the cars. I measured what we had gotten then and it had passed the six inch mark. I knew it was premature to do that work because when I went out an hour later there was a new inch and a half on the cars.

Trying not to succumb to snow day food I made myself another salad for dinner and sat down to watch TV. That plan was a no go as the cable and the internet were out. Russ had told me to download some shows on my IPad, but I must not have done it right because they won’t play either. My back up to my back up plan is to watch some DVD’s. Thank goodness we still have some old fashioned players, as long as I can figure out how they work. At this point I am praying the snow actually stops and I make it through one movie without hot chocolate.

Snowier Day Than Expected

At first this snow day was supposed to be a 1-3 inch event. No big deal. Then yesterday some weather guys were upping the top number to five or six. So Russ left town late last night to fly north for an important meeting that takes place tomorrow. That should have been the sign for me that this was going to be a much bigger snow. In the almost 25 years we have lived here Russ has missed practically every big snow.

My trainer has told me if there was any snow that she would not be in. I awoke to no snow so I texted her and she said to come work out. I was one of three people at the gym. We all were kind of laughing about why no one else had come, but then the snow started half way through my work out. Consequently I was my trainers only client today as she was going to leave after I did.

I had twelve people planning on coming to my house for Mah Jongg and lunch today. The perfect thing to do in the snow, that is as long as you can get here and you are not leaving young kids at home alone. Well the 12 got down to five. One walked through the snow with an American Girl Doll umbrella. One had her son drop her off and the others came together in a Suburban. It was a better thing to do than sit around and watch the snow pour down and think that you should make hot chocolate and grilled cheese.

After everyone had won and eaten cilantro chili lime shrimp salad they departed the way they had come except now two walked home. I put Shay’s new coat on her and out we went to get the mail, frolic with her friends Harry and Winston and do an initial shoveling of the walkway and brushing off of the cars. I measured what we had gotten then and it had passed the six inch mark. I knew it was premature to do that work because when I went out an hour later there was a new inch and a half on the cars.

Trying not to succumb to snow day food I made myself another salad for dinner and sat down to watch TV. That plan was a no go as the cable and the internet were out. Russ had told me to download some shows on my IPad, but I must not have done it right because they won’t play either. My back up to my back up plan is to watch some DVD’s. Thank goodness we still have some old fashioned players, as long as I can figure out how they work. At this point I am praying the snow actually stops and I make it through one movie without hot chocolate.