A Party at Ten

When the invitation for a friend’s 50th birthday arrived I was thrilled to see it was a party from ten until two. That is until I realized it is ten at night. I am much too old to go to a party that starts at ten. I didn’t like starting parties at ten in college. What a waste of seven, eight and nine it was.
Despite the late hour I like this friend and certainly don’t want to forgo the celebration. I made the mistake of working in my sweat shop all day rather than taking a nap. Now I have a sore back and am exhausted. I would be pumped if I had finished the dress, but the review is “good” except for the list of alterations, Can this be tighter? Can this be lower? I have at least one more full day in the sweat shop and now I am going our to a party that goes until two.
Oh yeah, tomorrow is Easter and my parents will be arriving for church and lunch and my house is just going to have to remain covered in threads and pins. There will be no time for cleaning up since I am going to have to get sleep at some point. Do you think it would be rude to bring my seam ripper and dress to church to work on during the sitting parts of the service?
So much for a long holiday weekend. I’ll post a picture of me at a party at a bar after ten tonight. It will be a rare sighting. Even rarer will be that Russ is going too.  

The Sweat Shop Life

In the continuation of my trying to design and create a dress for Carter I sat hunched over my sewing machine for the better part of eight hours today. I now have great respect for the millions of real sweat shop workers who make the world’s clothing. Designers have it much easier. Standing and draping fabric is the fun part. Picking out material and colors is easy in comparison to the work of the people at the bottom of the rung who are tethered to the sewing machine do.
Since I have made this creation without a pattern I have even more respect for pattern makers and cutters. To be able to look at a sleeve and know exactly what shape to cut so that it is big enough to go around the shoulder and down to the arm pit and not strangle the appendage is a true art. I avoided this hurdle by making this dress basically sleeveless.
Life would have been easier if I had not put the zipper in correctly on one side and backwards on the other. It also would have been better if I could have found my seam ripper. I have also realized that I desperately need to get to the eye doctor to see what can be done about my mid-distance vision, but that is certainly not going to get fixed before I am done with this project.  
Happily I am almost done with the top half which is by far the more complicated portion. I am in the tailoring and getting the fit just right phase on the top and then I will turn my attention to the long flowing shirt that will be a welcome reprieve.
For now I just need my back to recover from my sweatshop hunch. Hopefully one good night’s sleep will do that. Thank goodness my family does not depend on me to make all their clothes. I would quickly lobby for nudity and trust me that is not a good thing.

Slow Eggs In Time For Easter

When we went to visit our friends for spring break I made my slow cooked eggs for breakfast. My friend asked me for the recipe and I thought I should write this dish for everyone, since it is the best way to have scrambled eggs ever. So if you are having a bunch of people over for the Holiday weekend this is the perfect thing to get your brother-in-law to do while you are whipping everything else up.
Use a high side sauce pan. Melt a tablespoon of butter in the pot on very low. Then take the pot off the heat. The key to this is use as little heat as possible.  
Use 2-3 eggs per person. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add 1-2 tablespoons of cold water. 

Don’t add salt or pepper until the very end because they break up the strands. 
Put the eggs in the pot and put it on the lowest heat. With a wooden spoon stir the eggs very slowly in one direction. You don’t have to stir constantly in the beginning, but as they start to thicken you need to stir more so they don’t stick. 
It will take between 20-25 minutes to make these eggs.
Salt and pepper after they are finished.
They will be very creamy and will taste nothing like a diner.

Another Candy Holiday

I went to the store today and was confronted with the giant display of Easter Candy. If you are under ten and reading this you should know that of course the Easter bunny gets his candy some place else. That candy at the store is just for grown ups.
I am just wondering when Easter went from a holiday about Jesus rising from the dead, to Easter eggs to candy? I’m just unsure about that leap from Jesus getting to be with his father to jelly beans. I get the symbolism of eggs equaling rebirth, but candy is more like certain death.
Were churches involved with bribing kids to like church through the strategic use of candy? Or is it just another way the candy manufacturers and sugar producers could get candy into the hands of kids? Germans brought the tradition of Easter baskets to Pennsylvania when they immigrated, but considering the dislike of all things German during World War II you would think that Americans would have thrown out all German born traditions. Then again they never gave up Budweiser.
But of course by the 1940’s kids were already hooked on candy, even though it was scarce during the war. I guess that once sugar stopped being rationed parents must have thought their children deserved a bit of candy. But why give the bunny the credit for bringing it?
I feel like holidays that revolve around candy need a make over. Easter can get back to being about rebirth and spring and maybe ham or a lamb. Halloween,the biggest candy fest of them all, should just be about scaring the shit out of people. No more going to strange people’s houses and asking them for free candy, that is really scary.
Nobody needs all that sugar and I certainly don’t need to see all those Reece’s peanut butter eggs at the store. I can withstand a regular peanut butter cup, but those eggs, they are pure sin and that is just not what Easter should be about.

Terrorism Continues

Another morning where Good Morning America is consumed by one breaking news story of terrorism. Sadly, this is becoming too common place and could begin to have the effect of being just background noise because it it is happening more often. I don’t want to diminish how horrible the bombings on Brussels today were, but I also don’t want to let terrorist set the agenda.
Yes, these people don’t like Western life and they don’t like how we treated their countries, twenty, thirty, or more years ago during wars like dessert storm. Some people in the west act like these people just sprung up and started hating us for no reason, but most certainly that is not the case. We, meaning Americans and Europeans, most likely did lots of things to create generations of people who are willing to die to get back at us.  
We can’t fight terrorist by just searching for bad guys and shutting them down, like Donald Trump thinks we should do. We can’t go back to the beginning and undo all the bad things we did in the middle east to create generations of people that hate us. Nothing is going to be easy about changing the senecio we are in now with terrorist cells waiting all over the world to try and wreck havoc and make us feel unsettled.
All we can do is not stop living, not stop traveling, and try to be more understanding of people who are different than us and more loving of all people, even terrorists. Walls, isolationism, hate, torture, bombs, fear and ugliness will not make us safer.
I do not know exactly what these people experienced in life that makes them think that bombing innocent people will help their cause. It had to be something and until we try and understand the root cause we will continue to have these kind of incidents like we did in Brussels today. It took years of doing something to Syrians to get where we are. I am not saying that it was even something we did, but we need to pull back the lens and look at the big long range picture and figure out how did we get to this place and how can we change it. If we don’t study the history from more than just our American perspective we are doomed to have more days like today.

There Is No Resting On Your Laurels

The ancient Greeks used to bestow a laurel wreath on the head of a champion or great scholar. From that came the idiom, “to rest on your laurels” meaning you just don’t try anymore now that you have gotten the wreath.  
The problem is that laurels can’t be spent, eaten or traded for cash so what good are they. As humans we just can’t rest on our laurels we have constantly got to keep trying and improving.  
I, for one, don’t have any laurels so I don’t have anything to think I can rest on. But I know that I can’t slow down or stop trying in everything or I slide backwards and backwards is worse than resting.  
My friend Suzanne ran the New York Half Marathon yesterday. She has never been a runner, but she has children who are good runners. She wanted to raise money for Summer Search, a program that helps low income teenagers transform what they believe is possible for themselves. So Suzanne transformed herself into a runner. Her motto for this run was “You can do more than you think you can.”
After her run she wrote, “I wasn’t a runner before I set this goal for myself, and today I have the medal to prove that, actually I AM a runner! Not everything is possible, but I know now that more is possible than I believed.”
Suzanne has been a TV producer, produced three successful children and could have rested on her laurels, but she didn’t. She picked a goal that was hard, to start running at age fifty-five and then on a bitterly cold day run 13.6 miles in about two hours. That is more than I imagine I could do in five hours.
If you want to contribute to her fundraising it is not too late and you can help kids too, http://www.crowdrise.com/summersearchnychalf16/fundraiser/Suzanneworden.
I wish I had been in NYC to see her at the finish line, but I did get to watch her progress live on my I-pad. I was inspired as her little initials kept moving along the route of the race, never stopping or even slowing down much. It inspires me to not rest, to keep going and try to do more than I imagined.

Project Runway at My House

I used to sew, but that was a lifetime ago. When I wrote about my making dresses in college for myself and Carter’s godmother Suzanne I opened a pandora’s box. “Mom, do you think you can make a dress for me?” Carter asked me.
“Sure,” I replied. Then she showed me an idea for a dress.
Now I am draping material over a dress form to try and create a look that Carter wants without the aid of a pattern. I am not sure what I have gotten myself into, but I hope she will like it.

At least she does not need it for a couple of weeks so I have time to perfect it.
Not like my sewing my high school graduation dress the night before graduation. The requirement of a long white dress sounds easy, but when you are at boarding school it is not so simple to find time or transportation to go find such a dress. That is why I was hunched over my sewing machine trying to perfectly alter the strapless dress so I would not have any wardrobe malfunctions as I walked down the grass with my classmates. If I had an extra hour I could have made straps to ensure the dress would be held up, but those last hours were fleeting and I still had to pack my room so I could move out right after graduation.
Today, as I was working on draping the bodice I at least had the benefit of YouTube, something I could have used in my youth. Now if I had the time I could practically become a tailor via the Internet, but who has the time to watch all those tutorials?
I am just hoping I can figure out the right sleeve treatment on this green dress. Where is Tim Gunn when I need him? I’m just going to have to make it work.

Things Airlines Should Never Say

  
At last we are home from our flying spring break. Flying was not the purpose of the break, just the only way we could maximize our time to visit colleges in three different cities. This meant we had to go from RDU to New York, New York to Pittsburgh, Pitt to Washington DC, and DC back to RDU. This schedule makes my desire to get home even stronger than ever.
When I planned this trip I thought we should have two days of fun at the end, but in reality the most fun thing would be to get home early to Shay Shay. So today we did our best to waste time shopping with our suit cases in tow. This meant Russ sat surrounded by roller bags while Carter and I were on the prowl for shoes. After lunch and more shopping we headed out to the airport with just an hour until our flight.
Well, that was the scheduled time. First it was pushed back twenty minutes. Then an hour, then an hour and a half and without telling us two hours. We were hardly going to get home with much time to snuggle with Shay before passing out.
As we pulled into our gate at the very empty RDU, two hours and twenty minutes after our scheduled arrival time, I looked out the window at the jetway. It sat there, ten feet from the plane. Five minutes later, after no movement by the jetway, the pilot came on the intercom, “Seems like we sneaked up on the gate agent.”  
WTF! There is no sneaking in air travel. Your every movement is tracked. Since we were already so late there was no incentive for anyone to move their ass to the gate and let us off the plane because they already screwed up their on-time arrival. Seems like airlines should not be judged just on on-time take off and arrival, but on how many minutes you are late once they missed the on-time window.  
We sat for almost fifteen minutes so close, yet still trapped. The next thing I hate is when the pilot says, “We know you have a choice in air travel, thanks for choosing us.” Ha! We hardly had a choice. When I booked this trip I was trapped into one airline I hate for three of the four legs because it was the only airline that went to these three places. I could have booked all different airlines, but it would have cost four times as much. So we just did not have a choice.
Please pilots stop saying stupid stuff. Just apologize for being late, being slow and having dirty planes. I would respect you a lot more for your honesty. “Sorry we are so late and there is no excuse that no one is here to drive the jetway.” Be real airlines, sugar coating does not pay.

Your Know You’re Old When…

  
Today while Russ was at his Georgetown office working during his vacation, Carter and I were doing tourist things. After having lunch with friends who had been looking at schools this week too and comparing notes, Carter and I went off to the Smithsonian. We had already done art this trip, and since Russ was not with us we did not have to go to Air and Space so we went to the museum that makes Carter and I happiest…American History.
Carter wanted to see the Julia Child’s kitchen exhibit and true to our luck it was closed so that the walls around it could be repainted. So instead we went to the war section where we relived all the wars America ever fought in. This was a very useful review for AP US History for Carter. As we neared the end of the exhibit with Vietnam and the World Trade Center attacks I recognized many of the famous photographs in the exhibit as ones I had seen in real time as a child and adult.
After finishing wars we went to see the First Ladies dress collection. Donating your inaugural dress to the Smithsonian is a relatively new concept for First Ladies. Of course the museum did not exist during many of the first ladies’ lifetimes so they did not have a place to donate the dress to and second most First Ladies probably wore their inaugural dress more than once since those things were expensive. But as we looked at the dresses on display I realized that I had lived through quite a few First Ladies. I recognized everyone since Pat Nixon as a personal memory and that was at least eight. 
When Carter and I were thirsty we went to the basement cafe that had a display case of lunch boxes and although I remembered many of them from my childhood I was most shocked to see a Partridge Family lunch box that was the exact model I took to school everyday in fifth grade.  
It was one thing to look at famous photos I had seen as a child in an exhibit, or the actual gowns I had seen First Ladies where on TV, but to see my exact same lunch box in a Smithsonian exhibit really made me feel old. To me the American History museum was full of old stuff from days of yore, not from days of me. How could stuff of my generation be worthy of a museum? I wish I had held onto that lunchbox now, as well as my Monkey’s one and all the others. They might be worth something, more than just the memory of loving David Cassidy and Davey Jones.

What’s Your Major? Who Knows

  
Looking at colleges is exhausting. I am not sure how people with multiple children do this over and over again. Today was our last school for this trip. Since we have a friend that works here we had a little extra tour so it was more like looking at two schools than one since we got to look more in depth into one of the colleges at a University.

The admissions lady who ran the information session asked all the prospective students in the room what they were interested in studying and I was amazed at how specific almost all of the high school juniors were about their perspective majors. I was happy that one lone boy was brave enough to say undecided.  
The daunting thing is that if you want to go to a University that is made up of different colleges you have to apply to that college that has your major. I went to a liberal arts college, that was helpful since I went thinking I was interested in economics, but after first semester macro I clearly knew it was not for me. It took a while before I realized that I was going to have enough art credits to make it my major. In the end it did not hurt me any that I did not know what the hell I wanted to do when I was seventeen.
At one of our previous tours this week there was a boy on our tour who wanted to study pharmacy. I was very interested in how, at his young age, he got to that point. Perhaps his parents owned a pharmacy and he liked standing on his feet all day. I was restrained and did not ask him.
Carter is very interested in the “where” she is going to college, as in which city, and she wants a city. DC has a big draw in that it is such a beautiful city. Although she claims she is not interested in politics, that is until you get her to actually talk about the current flock of presidential candidates and then she has quite a bit to say on the matter, she does love Washington.
It does not hurt that the diversity is high and the people are nice. After lunch today we stopped in a Starbucks and one of the baristas asked Carter if she’s would try a new drink they were creating. She said, “No thank you.” The guy then said, “I want to give it to you, on me.” No one else in the place was being offered a free drink. “If you don’t like it you won’t be out anything,” he said. This was not even the barista who was ringing us up, so he got our guy to ring it up and then put in his employee code so it was free. This does not happen to us at home, at least it has never happened to me. This kind of stuff certainly makes one like a city.

  
I think we have explored a few cities that each give Carter a different idea about places to go to college. I just hope we now can navigate the what to study question. I don’t feel like there is any harm in being undecided. The world is changing fast and maybe there will be a totally new major by the time Carter actually goes to college. As long as she is someplace with nice people she will be fine. I just don’t think she can count on getting another free Starbucks. That is a once in a lifetime happening.

Part Visiting Colleges Part Revisiting Former Lives

We spent last night in Pittsburgh. Save many layovers at the Pittsburgh airport back in the nineties when US Air used to have a big hub there I have not spent much time there since my summer of 1982. I went west from Carlisle for the summer to take advantage of the introduction of cable television into the city of seven hills, or as we cable sales people liked to call it, “the land of bad television reception.” 
It was a paradise to sell cable television to people who lived in a city of four TV channels, but depending on where you lived you could only get one or two since they all emanated from different towers on different hills. Although it was my summer job, it was my first big time sales job and I was the only “summer employee” amongst a group of young people for whom this was a real career.
I quickly learned the various neighborhoods that make Pittsburgh a patchwork quilt of many ethnicities who were not necessarily aware who else lived in adjoining neighborhoods and definitely not who lived across town. This made my job interesting in a time of Rand McNalley atlas’ and city street maps.  
Everyday I would go into my office where I would wait in a bull pen type arena of desks waiting to be given the cards of my prospects for the day. If I was lucky they were homes where the newly built cable was just being dropped to their street and I had first crack at selling them cable TV. If there were no new streets ready for sales I got “resale” cards where the cable had been available for a while, but some people had resisted purchasing it so far.
I will never forget the first house I went to sell. It was a nice neighborhood and I rang the door bell and a middle aged woman answered the door. She was quite excited to see me and invited me into her mid-century modern all-white living room. Remember, mid-century modern was not so hot in 1982.  
The woman had a giant plate glass window that looked out on her front yard and on the opposite wall from the window was a twelve foot curved white leather sofa and she asked me to sit in a chair facing the sofa, where she sat. I took out my promotional material to begin my first ever solo spiel and as I looked up at her sitting on the sofa, I noticed for the life sized painting above the sofa that was a nude portrait of the same woman lying stretched out on a rug. It took me a moment to compose myself, but I launched right into my sales pitch making sure I pointed out the playboy channel. She bought the “full boat” which was every channel we offered, including HBO, Showtime and the playboy channel and was a big commission for me.
I left her house after writing up the order and as I walked down her sidewalk and to her neighbor’s to try and get another sale I looked back at the front of her house and could see that portrait plain as day through the big plate glass window. I was worried that they neighbor’s had no need to buy the playboy channel since they had it for free right on their very street.
Today after visiting a college Carter and I drove out Fifth Avenue so I could find the house I lived in that summer. I recognized it immediately and got out to take a photo. It was hardly as glamorous as it as was almost 35 years ago. There was some indoor furniture on the front porch and cardboard cases of beer out back. Despite that I still looked fondly on that house. It was the first place I ever lived alone where a I had a job and supported myself. It felt like yesterday. I did not go looking for the house where I made my first sale. I was worried it would look exactly the same and I did not want to scare Carter. At least mid-century modern is in now.

College Viewing

Yesterday Carter, Russ and I had the pleasure of looking at two colleges with Carter’s best twin friends, Cait and Adam. It makes such a big difference when a good friend can look at a school and say, “I can see you here.”

Russ and I try our hardest not to have opinions that we voice out loud until Carter has had a chance to give us hers. It is not always easy since we both are so opinionated.

Today we got up early in NYC, where we kissed and hugged our friends goodbye to go off to a new city to look at more schools. I am very thankful that we made the trip to Philly last December to get TSA Precheck, not only because we get to skip the really long lines which were extra long at regular security today, but also because sometimes you see celebrities in the pre-check line. Like this morning Anne Burrell, wild platinum haired chef on the Food Network was behind us in line wearing a fireman’s looking raincoat.
    
We arrived at our second city and went straight to a University where Russ had a friend who was a professor. His daughter is also a student there. They generously gave us a tour and we went to lunch together. Nice as they both were it quickly became apparent to Carter that this was not her place. I felt the same way. They were not her people. Poor Russ loved everything about this school and was drooling wishing he had gone here, but was a good sport when Carter broke the news to him. We went to the info session, but skipped the official tour since we had seen enough.

I am happy Carter gave it a try. So many people have told us stories about driving a kid seven hours to a school and when they pull up the kid says, “I’m not getting out.” It’s all about a feeling and if you don’t feel it there is nothing you can do.

Thank goodness we have another school to see in this city tomorrow so that we have another chance to make coming here worth it. Of course every school Carter knocks off her list reenforces other decisions already made. This is one long marathon.

Time with Friends Instead of Time Blogging

I have not slept, only toured, played, visited, reminisced, walked, talked, eaten and talked some more. I have run out of time to write tonight in favor of spending my last precious moments with my friends Suzanne and Steve before I try and get a few hours sleep and have to get up to catch an early morning flight.  
In place of my blog today I am just posting this wonderful picture of Carter that says it all. For the record I got this in one shot so it is a true reaction to how we were feeling today.

The Extroverts Answer to Daylight Savings Time

 For most Americans today is the day we hate most of all…the one day a year we lose an hour of precious sleep thanks to the practice of setting our clocks forward an hour to gain an hour of sunlight later in the day. Many studies have been done documenting an increase in accidents, a decrease in productivity and a general malaise amongst the populist during the first few days following the torturous spring ahead.
I am generally one of those thrown off by losing an hour of sleep since I tend to need a regular eight hours nightly. This year is the first time I can remember that I have been on vacation in America at the spring forward since the last few years I was out of the country and on a screwy time zone to begin with. But today I have to say I have not been off at all.
I got up fairly early, for a vacation day and since my friend Suzanne who I am staying with is training for a half marathon, Russ and I went with her to the park and we walked while she ran. Starting the day with a good five miles under my belt helped me get to a total of eleven miles walked today.
After our constitutional we went back to Suzanne and Steve’s house where we made a fabulous brunch with all the yummies we purchased at Russ and Daughter’s yesterday. Carter and I then walked up to the Met and had a most delightful mother daughter afternoon. I am already sad now thinking about what I am going to be missing with her when she goes to college because we had such an adult time today.
After returning home we got ready for dinner and Carter did my makeup which is a skill she is an expert at and I looked better than normal. The Lange’s departed to meet our Lange cousins, Jon and Ali who are expecting their first child. It was great to catch up and talk about how their life is going to change.
After dinner it was back to Steve and Suzanne’s where I got to learn a most fun game, the Settlers of Catan. Suzanne, her youngest son Oliver and I played as late as Oliver and I could convince Suzanne that he could stay up. For a game playing extrovert like myself I was just getting more energized. Sadly we had to leave the game, but it is still occupying the dining room table awaiting its completion tomorrow.  
Between the exercise, many friends and game playing I think I have found the recipe for me not to feel the pain of spring forward. For the introverts around me I am sure that this is completely the opposite. My only problem now is that all the introverts are sound asleep and I am wide awake worrying about getting enough sleep before I have to go tour two colleges tomorrow, when the thing I am really going to be waiting to do is finish the Settlers of Catan game.

College Tour Crash at Your House Excuse

It is worth getting up at five in the morning to come to NYC to get to spend time with my best college friend, Suzanne. Since she is Carter’s godmother it is only appropriate that she host us for longer than fish stays fresh so Carter can look at colleges. A truly gracious and generous hostess does not say, “Why are you coming two days before your college tour and stay a day after?” Instead she says, “My house is your house and of course I want to go to the tenement museum tour with you.”
So we arrived at the ungodly hour of nine AM on a Saturday morning, moved into the rooms of her two college away children (who we miss badly and promise not to mess up your space) and then after a coffee and catching up, Russ, Carter and I took the subway down to the lower East Side to try and get breakfast at the Russ and Daughter’s cafe, the brilliant off shoot of the popular hundred year old appetizing store of the same name. Sadly, we did not have an hour my fifteen minutes to wait for a table and instead went around the corner and grab brunch at an Italian joint named Sauce. It was fine, but no smoked salmon that my mouth had been craving.
The reason we could not wait at Russ and Daughter’s was Suzanne was meeting us at the Tenement Museum tour of the Irish Outsiders. If you have never been to the museum of the lower east side you really should go. We had been once before when Carter was in third grade and she did not remember it. Now that she is enthralled with her two history classes at school she was dying to see one of the places she had been studying.
Our small group of 12 met our educator, Sara, who took us into a building that had been a five story apartment building since the 1860’s with over 7,000 documents different families living in the 20 — three room flats that occupied the building. We learned about Bridget, the Irish girl who emigrated to America alone and eventually married Joseph P. Moore, a waiter, who lived in the building with their three daughters until their youngest, Agnes, died at the tender age of 3. We learned about life in the Lower East side and the various ethnic groups, first Germans, then Irish, Italians, Jews, Chinese and Puerto Ricans who all have lived in the same most populated area of New York for many years. History was brought to life for us as we were able to ask questions and all members of our group contributed stories of their own family immigration path.  
Since my family’s immigration story is more Mayflower than Ellis Island I almost got in trouble when the guide asked me to describe my personal story when I made a comment concerning some immigrants loss of their native languages in one generation in haste to assimilate. Suzanne, understanding what I was awkwardly getting at, saved me by describing her relatives desire to fit in the new world and that a common language was the fastest way to “be American.” A good friend knows when you might be putting your foot in your mouth and how to help you extract it.
After the tour and a rest for some tea afterwards we went down two blocks to the original Russ and Daughter’s and bought enough smoked salmon for a feast for breakfast tomorrow. My fix will just be delayed one day.
A nap and then back downtown with Suzanne and Steve, her husband, for a Laotian restaurant dinner. We had our own immigrant tour of food today. No matter what happens with looking at colleges we are at least getting our fix of friends this weekend. I’m sorry I only have one child to uses as an excuse to come crash at Suzanne and Steve’s house. But at least they still have one child left to come and look at Duke so I can return the favor. 

The Auction is Coming, The Auction is Coming

  
The Durham Academy Under The Big Top Gala and Auction is happening this year on April 9th. This year’s leadership Team of Harriet Putnam, Jamie Spatola, Kemi Nonez and the always present Kristin Teer have been working all year to bring us what is sure to be one big fun night.
Russ and I stared going to the DA auction when Carter was just two, well before she became a student there. I remember looking at all the beautiful student art work in the silent auction. I naively bid on a sea turtle clay bowl but quickly learned that it was going to be won by a parent who had a child in that class. You can imagine that it must have been fabulous if I wanted it and my child had nothing to do with it.
At that first auction I watched the auctioneer work the room. Russ and I actually won a week at the Greenbrier and cooking school with Julia Child for a song because I don’t think that auctioneer knew what he was selling. Russ turned to me and said something like, “you could do a better job at that.”
A few years later at a Caring House Auction that went terribly bad because we had two cattle auctioneers who did not know our crowd, another friend said, “Dana, you should be the auctioneer.” So the next year I was, and for a while.
Then a few years after I had gotten plenty of practice, between Caring House and Garden club auctions I started being the auctioneer for the Durham Academy Auction. This was a risky experiment for them to try. We had been using a professional auctioneer and after one bad year a group said, “Let Dana try. It can’t be any worse that the guy from DC.”

That was seven years ago.  
I have had lots of fun helping people support the school by raising their paddle even when they swore they were not interested in buying anything. We have had some great years where the set up,the items being offered, the economy and the sound system were all working in unison to help raise records amount of money. Once or twice we have had a hiccup, but for the most part it has been very fun.
This is going to be my last year as the DA auctioneer. As we have moved to the bid pal electronic bidding it is time to try a professional who works with bid pal all the time and has a team of people he brings in to maximize the bidding. But that is next year. If you want to see me tease as much money from the crowd as possible you need to come to the auction this year. I am hosting tables and would welcome you. It is my last hurrah, but only for DA. I am still happy to auctioneer for other events.  
The good news is next year when Carter is a senior, I will finally, at last, get to just have fun at an auction and not be working. I have volunteered at every auction since Pre-k and I am ready to rest.

When Immigration Goes Wrong

I was watching the news today about Justin Trudeau, prime Minster of Canada coming to Washington that was followed by the never ending story about Donald Trump’s wall to keep people out of the US. The cross of those two news items reminds me of my favorite Canadian Immigration experience.
In the early nineties I had the pleasure of being a consultant to the ten provincial 

Canadian phone companies. Each province (think state) had it’s own telephone company and as competition was coming into to the phone business there they created an umbrella company called Stentor to help them fight the new start up phone companies. I worked for Stentor. The average Canadian had no idea that Stentor existed and only thought of their phone company as their local one like Bell Canada in Ontario or BC Tel in British Columbia.
The only way I was allowed to work in Canada was I had to be granted a work permit that basically said that no one else in Canada had the same experience I had and that I was in no way taking a job from a Canadian. It was a stretch, but I got one. When I flew into Ottawa where our main office was it was not an issue because they knew what was Stentor since it was head quartered there.
Since my consulting was in sales I had the adventure of getting to visit every province in Canada, multiple times. I have been to places Canadians don’t even visit like Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, but then I also got to go to Vancouver a bunch so it all balances out.
One day I flew into London, Ontario on a little prop plane from Detroit. There were only twelve passengers and I think that they had very few international flights each day. This meant that the most junior of Immigration officers worked there and he took his job very seriously.  
The first person in line was Canadian so he got through with only about five minutes of intense interrogation about what he might be bringing back from the states. Then it was my turn. The young officer looked at my passport and my work permit stapled inside and grilled me for fifteen minutes about my expertise and why was no one else in Canada capable of doing the job I was doing. I had to first explain what Stentor was since that was the name on my work permit and then explain telephone competition. It went on and on and he eventually tired of me and told me to go wait on a bench so he could clear the rest of the passengers and he would get back to me.
The person behind me was a Nun carrying a guitar. Since we were in a tiny room I could hear perfectly as this young man grilled this Nun. 
 “Why are you coming to Canada? ” he asked.
“To sing in a charity concert,” the Nun answered.
“Is there not a Canadian Nun who could be doing this job?” He demanded of the frail and elderly woman.
“It is not a job,” she respectfully explained. “I am not getting paid.”
“But why should I let you into Canada to do this work?”
This poor Nun obviously was not an expert in immigration rules and did not know that she should have said she was just coming for a vacation, but then again Nuns don’t usually vacation. After about fifteen minutes of hard core treatment he made the Nun come sit on the bench next to me to be dealt with after he had finished with everyone else.  
In the end over half the flight was on the bench and it was at least two hours since we had landed. By now this guy was ready for a coffee and he had proven his point that he had all the power and we had none. He had me come back to his little stand and asked me what the name of all the provincial phone companies were as if to test my qualifications. Luckily I knew them. He stamped my passport and let me into the country.  
I did not stay around long enough to see what he made the Nun do to prove her value, but a I imagine he had her open her guitar and had her sing for him.
I have a feeling that Donald Trump would like to clone this guy and have him work all the US boarders. No one would ever try to come to the US again once they met the likes of this immigration officer. So much for good relations with your neighbors.

Carter’s Limited Craving Menu Includes Camp Food

Poor Carter has been sick with this terrible head cold and headache which apparently is going around. It never fails that she gets sick right before spring break. I have been doing everything possible to try and heal her, well everything she will put up with. She has drawn the line at any nasal treatments where liquid goes in her nose and comes back out, either the same or different nostril, it is all a no from her.
I know she is really sick because she is disinterested in all foods. Finally yesterday, after missing many meals, she did request a BLT, which she only ate half of. Well she ended up eating the second half as her second meal, but that is just not much.
Tonight I asked her what she wanted for dinner, willing to make anything that might make her feel better. This is an unusual occurrence that I was giving her carte blanch and she could have taken advantage of me, but remember she is sick.  
“I don’t know what I want,” came the pitiful response to my question. “Nothing sounds good.” Then a long pause. “Let me think about what food we have at camp.”
My cooking skill have now been surpassed by the ladies who cook camp food. Carter could not think of one of the thousands of things I cook and was racking her brain going through the seven meals they repeat every week at camp to try and come up with a food that sounded comforting.
Thank goodness she did not request chicken fingers or hot dogs. When the camp food did not inspire anything she did her around the world tour of food, which usually means Mexican, or Asian with an Indian thrown in every so often.
That world tour did lead her to Mexican red rice with a fried egg over easy, on top. Hooray, a meal I have all the ingredients for that wouldn’t take long to make. I happily whipped up my much too gourmet Spanish rice and was so happy that camp food did not win.
Now if only that rice cooked in tomato sauce with onions and cumin could cure the cold that has taken over Carter’s sinuses I will be happy. Also if I can not catch this thing from her just as we are about to tour colleges I will be happy.

 I Foolishly Fell For Out of Season Fruit 

  
In an effort to eat the way a I know I should, I have been trying to stick to my protein, vegetables and fruit routine. I find it is much easier to be good if I have fruit prepped and ready to eat so that I don’t fall down and eat something naughty that is quick and ready.
Today I walked into Harris Teeter to find a giant cantaloupe display. Now it certainly is not cantaloupe season and even though I knew I might be disappointed if I bought fruit that is not local and ripe I bought one of those big giant cantaloupes anyway. My much to hopeful brain thought that in order for a mellon to get so big it had to be ripe. Wrong.
I brought my big fruit home and got my biggest big ass knife out to carve it up and put it in a container in the fridge ready to curb my sweet tooth. It took all my power to cut through the right color/wrong flesh texture. How can something grow so big and look so right, but just be tasteless?
I guess I can make it into a smoothie, or add some other fruit to make a salad. I just really was craving the soft juiciness of a summer cantaloupe and the warm weather today somehow lulled me into the idea that it existed. My bad.
This is really the worst time of year for good fruit in season. Yes, I can have an orange or grapefruit, but that citrus tang does not satisfy my sweet tooth the way a good mellon does. I guess I only have five more months to wait until I can get a good one, but then I also will have peaches and plums and strawberries and lots of other yummy choices. I need to be good now!

No Cash Wanted

Tonight I dropped by a local Chinese restaurant to get Carter’s favorite dry sautéed string beans. The girl behind the counter told me the total of the bill and I gave her cash to pay. She looked at the bills as if they were from outer space, “Don’t you have a credit card?”  
I know that using cash is becoming a rare action, but I have never had anyone try and turn in down in person.
“Yes, but I just prefer to use cash and I gave you exact change,” I explained. I was not sure if she was some kind of credit card salesman and was interested in getting me to enroll in some Chinese Restaurant credit card program or if she thought my few dollars were counterfeit. I considered telling her that no one counterfeits ones and that my wrinkled bills were real, but I decided it was not worth getting into with her since she was handing over my green beans.
I like cash. When I buy something with cash I feel it. Paying with a credit card does not have the same effect on me. Yes, I like getting points and rewards, but I really like not having bills at the end of the month better.
I do best dieting if I think of fattening food as high cost food and healthy food as free. For instance a brownie should cost like $20 and an apple would be free. When I think of food this way I do better on making the right choices because I am naturally cheap. The sad thing is that at the real store the healthiest food is often mores expensive that the highly caloric junk. So I have to trick my mind to think that paying more for fruit means I will be paying less when I am hungry. I know this is convoluted, but I have to use every trick in the book to help keep me on track.
I probably would do best if I had to pay for all my food by the bite with coins. Eventually I would tire of shelling money out and would stop eating. Considering my interaction today with just trying to use dollars I am sure that soon coins are going to disappear and I will be stuck with paying on credit cards, or a chip in my arm or some other invention that is going to be the death of cash.

Turmeric Is Your Friend

I have a big cabinet full of many kinds of spices. In an effort to use them while they are still fresh I am always looking for new recipes. Russ is also on the lookout for foods he wants me to make him. There are not enough days in the month, let alone meals that he is actually home for me to make everything that he requests. I draw the line at the outrageously fattening ones, but he usually only shows me the healthy ones.
Russ read somewhere about the benefits of turmeric. Things like anti inflammatory and mood boosting properties sounded good to me. As with all these nutritional kind of claims I am sure I would have to eat way more than one turmeric based dish every few days to really have it make a difference, but since we all love Indian food in our house and turmeric is the spice that gives curry it’s yellow color I thought it is worth trying to use it more.
I also often get requests for vegan dishes and this one happens to not include any animal products so it is serving many purposes and it tastes great.
Yellow lentils with Turmeric
1 lb bag of yellow lentils (also known as yellow split peas)

2 t. Ground turmeric

2 T. Vegetable oil

2 Cinnamon sticks

2t. Cumin seeds

5 whole cloves

1 t. Smoked paprika

4 scallions minced

3 chile peppers minced (seed them to reduce heat)

5 garlic cloves minced

2 inches of fresh ginger root -grated

1 pint of cherry tomatoes- halved

1 T. Honey

Juice of a lemon

Chopped cilantro to garnish
Put the lentils in a colander and rise in cold running water for a few minutes. Place the lentils in a pan with four cups of cold water and the turmeric. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer and cook until the lentils are soft, about 45 mins. Stir every so often and make sure they are not sticking to the bottom of the pan. If you need to add more water do so, but you don’t want it to be watery when they are soft.
In a separate small fry pan out the oil and the cinnamon sticks, cloves. Cook on medium heat for three minutes, add the cumin seeds cook another two minutes. Take the cloves out since there is nothing worse that biting a whole clove when you don’t expect it.
Add the paprika, scallions, garlic, chiles and ginger. Cook another three minutes. Add this spice oil mixture to the yellow lentils. Stir in the cherry tomatoes, honey and lemon juice. Taste and add salt and pepper. Let everyone add their own cilantro since you only want to add it as a garnish.

Lamb Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce

I woke up this morning with the desire to make some new foods for dinner. I knew we would be watching the Duke Carolina game tonight so I wanted something I could just heat and serve. This picture does not do the lamb meatballs in yogurt sauce any justice. I also make a corn pudding cup with blue cheese and grilled asparagus with romesco sauce. Good flavors from everything.
Here is the recipe for the meatballs
2 lbs ground lamb

1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs from good sour dough bread

1/4 cup milk

1/3 c. Toasted pine nuts

1 t. Cinnamon

2 t. Ground coriander

20 fresh mint leaves minced

2 t. Allspice

4 cloves of garlic minced

2 t. Salt

1 t. Black pepper
Put the bread crumbs in a big bowl and mix them with the milk. Add everything except the meat and mix well. Add the meat and gently mix everything together. Roll golf ball sized meatballs.

Heat a nonstick frypan on medium heat and out as many meatballs in the pan as you can without them touching each other. Brown on all sides and take out and set aside. Finish the rest of the meatballs.
Yogurt sauce
1 large sweet onion chopped finely

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 small green chile – seeded and minced

1 bunch of Swiss chard- destemmed and chopped

2 t. Allspice

1 cup chicken stock

Juice of one large lemon

2 cups Greek Yogurt

1 T. Cornstarch

1 beaten egg
In a large stock pot, spray with Pam and add the onions and the garlic and cook on medium heat stirring often for ten minutes. Add chile and Swiss chard and cook for 3 minutes. Add the allspice, chicken stock and lemon juice and bring to a boil and turn the heat off.
In a mixing bowl put the cornstarch with 2 t. Water and stir into a paste. Add the egg and mix together. Add the yogurt and mix well. Add a spoonful of the hot Swiss chard mixture to the yogurt and mix well, add about half the Swiss chard and mix again and add the last of the chard and mix. Return everything to the stock pot. Salt and pepper the mixture. Add the meatballs and gently stir to coat with yogurt sauce.
Heat on medium heat and cover the pan and cook for 30 minutes to cook the meatballs through. Stir gently every ten minutes.  
Serve with some cilantro if you like it.

TV Script Idea 

I can’t write the name of a certain presidential candidate for fear of being sued for what I am about to speculate, but you can guess which one as you read between the lines. I have long held the opinion, like for the last thirty years, that anyone smart enough to be President is smart enough to know they don’t want to be President. This year’s crop proves my theory in spades.
Last night’s debate reached an amazingly low point in an already embarrassing primary season. Although I can’t bring myself to watch these debates I seem to be bombarded with all the details on every news outlet. News directors everywhere are thrilled that real candidates running are providing entertainment that rivals House of Cards or any fictionalized cable show out there. Who in the world would have ever been able to sell the show the primaries are creating? It is just too outrageous.
Since our real candidates have set the stage I would like to offer the following outline for a TV show based on the facts that have been laid out already.
A presidential candidate who has wooed his way into the hearts of people who have spent their lives in dead end jobs, hating anyone who do not look or think like them and think that American only belongs to them. This candidate has spent his life naming everything after himself and many of the businesses that he started have failed, but that has hardly had an affect on this giant ego. How is that? In fact those failed businesses are just a front for a giant money laundering scheme. He needs to publicly fail at many things, like making vodka, or starting a University so he can have a vehicle to launder money through for some sort of other terrible business. 
In this fictionalized story this guy wants to build a wall with Mexico so he can cause a a shortage of workers. He will then start smuggling in his wife’s Eastern European relatives, but only the beautiful ones, to fill the void in the American work force. He will charge each of them HUGE amounts to get to come to America. In order to help hide this new income stream he will have to create some more fake business to lauder the money through.
At some point he will have to disclose his tax returns and two brilliant, nerdy accountants unravel the whole mess because they follow the money back to its grimy start. The candidate is forced to flee the country but is not able to scale the very wall he built to keep people out and is caught and sent to prison.  
Do you think anyone would buy this story and make it into a T.V show, or are we going to have to actually live it as reality?  

Old Friends Right Near By

The other day at got an email from a sorority sister of mine who was in the class ahead of me at college. I had not seen Jan since she graduated too many years ago to say, but I remembered her well. Turns out she has been living in Chapel Hill for the last two decades and I never knew it. So we made plans to have lunch today.
We met at a restaurant near her real estate office and I knew her the second I saw her. Jan Kennedy, as I knew her was, always a smiling beautiful girl and still is as a grown up. That was when I remembered that she had come to Carlisle from Chapel Hill and was considered a sweet southern girl.
As we caught up over lunch I realized that I had seen her name, now Jan Butta, on Howard Perry and Walston Caldwell Banker signs around town. If only they had said Kennedy I might have put two and two together that I knew her from life long ago.
It makes me wonder how many other people I know from other parts of my life that are living near by. The internet has changed the chance to find friends, but it only works if you are looking for someone specific. It would be fun to put schools, camps, places of employment and past places you have lived into a program and have Facebook let you know who lives near you that also went to the same places you did at the same time. Or if you are going on vacation someplace to be able to find friends who live there.
Maybe my natural inclination as a connector makes this seem wonderful to me. I have found that reconnecting with old friends is almost always fun. I can’t think of seeing one person I had lost contact with that had not been enjoyable. As I age I don’t ever remember anything bad about someone, but just the good parts. This is certainly not because I only ever thought good things about everyone.
As Jan and a I talked we discovered many local friends we have in common, but amazingly we never crossed paths. Of course we easily could have stood in line at Whole Foods together and not realized we knew each other because we weren’t looking for each other. I wonder who else is right near by that I am missing?

Do Men Not Really Understand Salads?

After months of study I am beginning to wonder if men and women have completely different taste bud when it comes to salads. Perhaps not the whole of mankind, but a few in particular.

Sexism has no place in my life so this is not intended to be a war between the sexes, just a comparison.
I eat lunch every week at the same place with a large group of middle aged women. If there is a generalization to be made it would be that we, not just me, as a rule are looking for a healthy, read not too fattening, lunch option. I am not saying that everyone every week gets a salad, but on average 80% of us order a salad of some type. Once in a while someone in the throes of menopause will get a cheese burger or a something with melted cheese, which is the universal comfort food.
For months the establishment we eat at had the same limited salad choices. We don’t meet there for the food. We requested new salads and have told for months they would be coming. My response to a poor menu is to order something completely off menu from the items I can see are in other offerings. This usually means arugula, a fruit, avocado, some kind of cheese and hot freshly grilled chicken, dressing on the side of course. Often my friends will just say, “I’ll have what she is having,” in a direct quote from When Harry Met Sally without any pounding on the table.
A couple of weeks ago the chef came out to see us personally to show us a new menu. It was big, with offering printed on both sides. We scanned it to find not more salads, but fewer, just four, and one was a house and another a Caesar, so those don’t count. Being as shy as I am I said, “Chef, no offense, but this is worse.”
“No worries, Mrs. Lange, we are going to have a special salad every week.”
Last week the special salad was a bed of greens with roast beets, pickled beets, beet purée, horseradish and blue cheese. None of us ordered it. This week the special salad was called “the end of winter salad” kale and baby kale, carrots, mandarin oranges, hard boiled eggs and warm shallot dressing. None of us ordered it. I am beginning to think that the salad special is the attempt to get rid of leftover food salad.  
I know I should not say they are not good if I have not tasted them, but I am probably a certified salad expert and nothing about these salads screams, “order me, I’m yummy.” In fact I can’t imagine horseradish and blue cheese together and I have no need for three kinds of beets. I also feel like mandarins oranges should be left in the sixties with ambrosia. The “end of winter salad” should be renamed “instead of Metamucil salad.” I appreciate fiber, but really, kale and baby kale?
They did add a fifth regular salad this week, a chopped salad, which was so hopeful. So I ordered that. It was not really a chopped salad and to me was not good. I guess I am going to have to continue to create my own special salad every week. You think the kitchen would learn that when half the table orders the same off menu item that it might be a good idea to replicate it as a regular menu item, especially when your creations are not getting any takers.
With all the burgers, sandwiches and fried items that take up the majority of the menu I just have to believe that the men’s taste buds are different than the women’s, or that they really just don’t want women to come eat there. That’s a different fight.

Breakfast Addiction

Today my friend Lynn and I went to Bull St. market for lunch. Our friend Anne, who owns the popular restaurant, told us that starting this weekend they are going to start to serve waffles. I gave her that, “You know I shouldn’t’ eat those” look. Quickly realizing who she was talking to she added, “We also are going to start offering Meg”s eggs,” named in honor of one of her four daughters.
“Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, avocado and cheese.”  
“Now you are talking,” I said practically salivating. I sat down with Lynn, outside in the beautiful sunshine to enjoy my regular salad with grilled chicken, but all I could think about were Meg’s eggs.  
As I was shifting through the various leftover options for dinner tonight I realized I had broccoli that had to be cooked or tossed tomorrow. Then I spied a carton of eggs and Meg popped in my head. Forget leftovers, I decided on breakfast for dinner. Since I rarely eat anything other than Special K in the morning, eggs for dinner are a real treat.
In perfect short order dinner time at our house I planned on giving everyone here something different for dinner to suit their tastes. I roasted broccoli florets in the oven to put in my omelet and sautéed come chopped onions. Carter came into the kitchen just as the cheese was melting on my egg dish.
“Hey, can I have an omelet for dinner too?” 
Seems the allure of breakfast for dinner got her too, no leftover chicken tikka masala for her. We may not have had anything as wonderful as Meg’s Eggs, but I am looking forward to going to Bull St. sometime soon and getting them as a treat. Thanks Anne for the dinner inspiration.

Vicious Cycle

I have fallen into a bad sleep pattern, not completely by choice, and it’s killing me. The things that are in my control that I am doing wrong are; eating too many carbs that make me feel lethargic, then drinking too much caffeine to over come the carbs ingested, staying up too late watching the worst possible TV the Academy Awards (where were the real movie stars?) and other unnecessary TV viewing, playing too many games on various Apple devices that serve no purpose, but keep my brain moving when it should be slowing down.
Things that are out of my control are; the shade in my room is out being repaired and the sun is coming up earlier, Russ not sleeping through the night thanks to jet lag, or the need to get up at four in the morning to go to the airport, Shay thinking that once Russ leaves the house at 4:20 AM she needs to wake me up to take her out and give her breakfast.
Because of the need to get up to go to the gym there is no sleeping in to make up for the bad habits of the night before and the cycle starts all over again. I have tried to go to sleep slightly earlier, but I have just not been able to fall asleep no matter how tired I am. I know that I am the cause of this issue. I hardly have any real excuse not to eat cleanly, stop caffeine at noon and go to bed at a decent hour, but I have not been able to follow through with that plan so far.  
Russ is away in freezing Chicago tonight so I should have started my catch up on sleep plan today, but I have already eaten the wrong foods and had iced tea late into the afternoon. Damn the yumminess of that tea, it is such a terrible addiction. But it is the only thing I am eating that has no calories. And the more tired I get the less will power I have. This is the most vicious cycle ever. And damn, The Batchelor is on TV tonight. At least it ends at ten. How am I ever going to make myself fall asleep by then?  If only I can keep Shay asleep long enough not to insist on my getting up in the middle of the night.  It’s like have a new born again.

Oscar Fashion

  Tonight Carter and I settled into the big sofa in front of our new TV to watch the red carpet pre-Oscar show. This year I have seen fewer of the nominated pictures than I ever have so I don’t have a lot of opinions about who I want to win. Instead Carter and I have been studying the dresses.
From the early stars who came in, like Olivia Wilde and Saoirse Ronan it looks like dresses without any visible means of support were going to make a big show tonight. Fashion without foundation is not something I can ever pull off, not unless I am purposely trying to have a big wardrobe malfunction. I am wondering if they have their boobs so taped down that they are not afraid of an escape?  
Just when I thought that the Oscars was all about “no bras” Kerry Washington came along with a Versace leather breast plate gladiator topped dress. Hooray. At last a look that was designed to hold everything in the right place and looking their best.
Not that I am ever going to be going to the Oscars, but I know that what the stars wear gets translated out to the real world. Please, knock off designers, take up the looks that women can wear bras with, most of us need them.
Enjoy the show. I hope that Chris Rock is funny and I am able to stay awake to see the big awards.

Wood Parmesan?

Today on NPR I heard a snippet of legal news about a Western Pennsylvania woman, the president of two family owned cheese companies, who was convicted of a crime of mislabeling cheese. Specifically it was Parmesan and Romano Cheeses that actually did not include any of those cheeses in them. What authorities found is that the grated cheese products included other cheeses and, wait for it, wood pulp. The woman is probably getting probation and has to pay a fine of $500,000.
Now I know some of you might be outraged that you could have paid close to $14 a pound for fake Parmesan, and for that I don’t blame you. The thing that intrigues me is that this woman completely missed the boat in making even more money from her fake cheese.
I think anyone who can make something taste like Parmesan, but has fiber in it, (cheese alone has not fiber) and has fewer calories than Parm could have made a killing. Since the human body can not really digest wood they would end up running through you and not contributing to any weight gain. If you made that wood tasty, well now you have a diet “cheese like” sprinkle.
This cheese woman is no marketing whiz because diet products sell for so much more than regular products. If she had just marketed her “cheese product” as Parmesan flavor she never would have gotten in any trouble.
Of course she would have to list her ingredients on the label, but how many people really understand that cellulose is wood? It was the nutrition label where she could have made her killing since it would be fewer calories than REAL very fattening Parmesan.
I am not condoning lying, especially about food, But if she could make this stuff taste good she was on to something. My only question is, “what kind of wood was she using?” If there is a Parmesan tasting tree out there I want to start a tree farm. Imagine what kinda of market there could be for Parmesan tasting tooth picks? One tree could make billions of tooth picks. I could be realy happy sucking on that tooth pick to help curb my cheese craving, especially since it would be calorie free!

Missed A Good Napping Opportunity

Yesterday, as I was lying face down on the treatment table in the doctor’s office, awaiting the fourth in a long line of vein treatments I am undergoing as a leg improvement project, I heard the weather warning signal blast away on my phone. The nurse said, “it”s just tornado warnings.”  
Since I had already gone to my zen place so as not to feel any pain I ignored the warning. When I was finally treated, bandaged and stuff snuggly into my compression sock the doctor said, “go now and be safe in the weather.”  
I got in the car and never looked at my phone, nor turned on the radio and blissfully drove myself home. The sky was very dark in the direction I was going and I did notice the swirling clouds, but chose to ignore them as they were moving away from my house as I pulled in the drive way.
I had things to do to get ready for the book club I was holding last night so I ignorantly went about my business with no TV, Internet or radio interruptions. I got a few emails from people saying they were not going to venture out in the weather and I wondered why.
Later last night after all the people left my house I opened Facebook to find many postings of friends close by who were sheltering in place in interior closets or basement rooms. Pictures of kids wearing head lamps, doing homework shoulder to shoulder with their siblings in a place not big enough for one, let alone three or four.
Apparently the weather was much worse in some places near me than it was at my house. I am thankful that my friends are all safe, but I am mostly sad that I missed a good excuse to take a nap while sheltering in place. I have been very tired and unable to fall asleep early for the last few nights and a nap really would have served me well.
Carter asked me where we should go if we ever realized that a warning was serious and I mentioned her bathroom as the safest spot in the house. But that would not make the best place for me to nap, so I would have settled for under the bed in Russ’s office. The bed is the first antique I bought and as an old rope bed it is extra tall so I fit fine underneath it.
I have decided that I need an app that changes weather warnings to a voice that comes out of my phone saying, “quick, take cover and grab a nap while sheltering in place.” That is a command I will follow.

Of Course We Had Bad Weather Today

One of my volunteer jobs is chairing the Durham Academy Parents of Alumni group. I am not a parent of an Alum, but I started the group as my job on parents council in anticipation of one day not having a child at the school.
It has been a little slow in getting off the ground, not from lack of interest. Our Fall party had to be canceled because weather rained out all Alumni Weekend activities. We did have a successful party before the the winter In the Pocket Concert and it did not even snow.
Tonight was the kick-off of our POA one time book club. We recruited star English teacher Jeff Beirsach to lead the discussion of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. When I first advertised it we sold out all 25 places in record time.  
This being a POA event meant that I was not surprised when schools were canceled and sports teams did not have practice because of the impending tornados coming through our area this afternoon. People started e-mailing that they were not going to be able to come to book club, but I was not going to cancel it.  
Jeff showed up early to help set the room up the way he wanted it. I let him know that it was going to be smaller than we thought, still unsure of exactly how many people would show up. I laid out the drinks and Sara Pottenger brought her yummy artichoke squares, cheese and veggies. Thank goodness people came. At first one, then another, greeting each other like long lost friends. Then people came who had never met each other, but all were excited about the book and learning from Jeff, like their children had.
After getting a drink we all gathered in our circle and Jeff began to give us the background information on Edith Wharton and the book that made it much more interesting than just a group of women sitting round talking about a book. We had a lively discussion and people stayed a long time reluctant to have to go.
The POA book club was a big success! Jeff suggested a couple of other teachers in history and film and phycology that might be good leaders for another POA event. I’m going to be calling them because I finally feel like we have a model for something smart people like to do. Of course, I wish I could bet on the weather because chances are whenever we have an event we are also going to have bad weather.

Nightly Ice Water

When I was just seven years old my family moved to the Connecticut house I spent the rest of my growing up years in. It was a crazy sprawling set of two barns that had been moved together to make “a house” if that is what you could call it. When it was first repurposed from barns that were multi hundreds of years old, it was used as the “carriage house, servants quarters and party space ” for the main house next door.  
Half the building was barn siding that you could practically see through where the boards joined together and the other half was clapboard, all without much insulation. It was freezing cold in the winter, despite the furnace that resembled Spike, the fire breathing dragon under the stairs in the Munster’s TV show and took up its own ten by ten room. The summers were no better since no Yankee thought there was a need for air conditioning back in the sixties and seventies.
My seven-year-old-self bedroom was the last room in the string of maid’s rooms. To get there from the main kitchen you had to go through the upstairs dining room, up a half set of stairs, through “the little living room” down a winding set of stairs, through an entry hall and open a secret door, slither down a very narrow hallway that also had a very low ceiling, turn right and go through the maid’s galley kitchen, go through one door in my sister Margaret’s room, navigate toys and books and such on the floor to get to her other door and then one more hallway past our shared bathroom to my room.  
Of course, being such an old house you could take the secret passage way from my room, up the back barn “stairs,” which had no light and were fourteen inch risers and only about four inch treads so I had to climb them like a ladder to pull my seven year old self up into the “big living room.” From there I could go through the “little living room” down the half set up stairs to the upstairs dining room and into the upstairs kitchen.
Needless to say getting to the kitchen from my room was quite an ordeal. Yes, I had the “maid’s kitchen” right near my room, but we never used it as a kitchen, only a passage way when we first moved in and then it became my youngest sister’s room when she was born. It was the furthest thing from a nursery. It had one small window that looked out to a creek that ran under the upstairs kitchen and dining room that were built on stilts then in a tunnel that ripen under our driveway. We affectionately called that room “the inner sanctum.” My sister has every right to need therapy for that.
All this being said is to describe why I had a recurring dream when I was a kid. I loved to have a big glass of ice water on my bed side table, often waking up in the middle of the night to take a drink. It was a huge trip for me to get to the kitchen to get that ice water, especially when we still had to pry the cubes out of one of the two metal ice trays from the freezer. More nights than most I would fall asleep without getting my water and then I would dream of having an electric cold water fountain in my room. Not a white porcelain kind, like we had at school that just spit out tap water, but the kind that refrigerated the water.  
I had the perfect spot for it in the hallway right outside my bathroom, like all water fountains were in public schools. When I would wake up parched from either sleeping in the freezing cold, or the sweltering heat and realize I had forgotten to get my water before bed I would look to the hallway and would envision the water fountain like a mirage. It was a long journey through our big drafty Connecticut barns if I were to try and make the trek to the kitchen. If I went the path through my sisters’ rooms I took the chance of waking them and that would be hell to pay, but if I went the back barn steps I had to climb down the steps/ladder while carrying a glass and that was no easy feat. No wonder I dreamt many times of that water fountain.
I have not changed much, but thank goodness my house has. I still like to have my big glass of ice water on my bedside table, but now I never make the mistake of going to bed without it, even though the journey is so much easier if I forget. The good news is that I no longer have the recurring dream of that cold water fountain. I guess I made my own dreams come true.

Why Ten Thousand Steps?

Yesterday my skinny cousin Sarah asked me who came up with ten thousand steps as a fit goal? It was a good question. So many step tacklers encourage people to do ten thousand steps a day, but what if that is not enough?
Sarah was looking for a realistic goal to set for herself so that she could eat normally and not gain weight. For the record, Sarah was born on my fifteenth birthday so I wanted to remind her that all these goals need to go up as you get older.
My advice to her was to wear her FitBit for a couple days without doing anything extra and just get an idea what her base line walking is in a normal day. Then double that number if she wants to make sure she won’t gain weight.  
If in a normal week she only walks an average of four thousand steps a day then an eight thousand step goal will be good, but if she already walks seven thousand then she needs to up her goal to fourteen thousand.  
It is amazing how few steps people who have sedentary jobs get in a day. You really have to embrace inefficiency to up your steps without having to get on a treadmill. Of course taking an intentional walk twice a day around the neighborhood will probably do the trick and give you the bonus of fresh air and some thinking time. I do not endorse walking outside while texting or reading things on your phone. Besides the obvious dangers you just walk too slowly when you text.  
My basketball friend Al asked me one day before a game how many steps I had that day. Turns out I had something like triple the number he had. We had half an hour until the game started so I suggested we get up and walk around the track that circled the basketball court. We painlessly got 3,500 steps before our daughters took the court. It was easy and was better use of our time than sitting in the bleachers.
It is not just the number of steps, but the pace at which you get them that helps you. So swing your arms and walk a little faster. Your scale will tell you if doubling your natural average is enough. Don’t worry what other people set as their goal, you don’t know what they eat. Step goals do not have to be worn on your sleeve. Just step.

Basketball Senior Goodbye 

 
About a month before basketball season was set to end Carter said to me, “We need to have an end of year dinner to honor the seniors on the team.” I don’t need much of an excuse to have a party and I loved this idea. 
Yes, the team needed to do something to say goodbye to three great seniors, Liz Roberts, Serena Walker and Kenan Little, but I want to have a party to say goodbye to their parents. The team on the court is a family, but the parent supporters who faithfully come out for every game are a family too. We cheer for each other’s children, we pray when someone gets hurt, we rejoice in small miracles, like when someone who usually can only do layup a from the right makes one from the left.
Our team has benefited from the Roberts family taking the girls away on a team bonding weekend every January which is way above and beyond what any team captain’s family usually does. As well as giving each girl a fabulous team backpack with their name and number on it.  
The extended Roberts family that includes aunts and grandparents cheer Carter’s name loudly when she makes a basket. It causes opponents parents to wonder what was so great about the one basket, but we all know. Bennet Roberts greets Carter after every game with an enthusiastic, “Way to go Carter,” that in invaluable. Their unwavering support and optimism will certainly be missed in the bleachers next year.
Al Walker is a wealth of knowledge on the sidelines to me. When a foul is called I can usually turn to Al and ask what in the world that was for. Our group of parents is going to miss his smiling face.
It has been great to have Lori Little in our midst this year. Kenan had been hurt and unable to play until this year so it was nice to have her mom with us for her senior year.
I loved having coaches Krista and Robert get to have just a relaxed dinner with the girls and the parents and thank them for all their hard work with our girls, both on and off the court. The lessons the girls learn are ones they don’t even know they are getting, but as parents we know they will stay with them for all their lives.
One small dinner hardly seems like enough to say thank you to all these wonderful people. I’m already sad that these families will not be with us next year. It just won’t be the same.

Not Thanksgiving Quick Turkey Thighs

Walking up and down the aisle in front of the seafood and meat counters at the market searching for an inspiration I was not happy. Thinking of new things to make for dinner is a life’s work. If we were people who could eat anything and not gain weight it would be a lot easier, but sadly that is not our reality.
Tired of chicken, fish and pork tenderloin I had that glazed look on my face as the butcher asked me what I wanted. Then, back in the corner I noticed a pile of turkey thighs. Turkey! So I bought three thighs at only $2.99 a pound I was happy on the price and creativity front.
Making just thighs took only about 45 minutes in the oven and we had the taste of thanksgiving without any of the time.
Turkey Thighs

1 t. Butter per thigh

2 fresh sage leaves per thigh
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Loosen the skin on the thigh to make a pocket to spread the butter under the skin and place the sage leaves under the skin. Liberally salt and pepper the things.
Spray a jelly roll pan with Pam and place the thighs on the pan. Don’t use a pan with sides any higher than one inch because you want the heat to circulate and crisp the skin. I also quarter 2 fennel bulbs and put them on the pan to roost with the turkey at the same time.
Roast the turkey until a probe thermometer registers 165 degrees, which is about 45 minutes.
Enjoy without any annoying relatives.

Movie Truth

I love movies, but it seems that in the last few years I let ones I think look good get by me and before I know it they are gone from the movie theater and then I just forget about them all together. Russ came home from his 24 hours of flights from Australia where he actually had time to watch movies and told me I had to watch The Intern. Carter and her friend Ellis had seen it when it came out and she told me the same thing. So after dinner Carter and I searched all the various TV outlets and found it for rent on Amazon. We turned off all the lights and snuggled into the big sofa with blankets and watched the movie in even better than the theater comfort.
Yes, it was a great movie. I love Anne Hathaway, and Robert Dinero was the bomb. The supporting cast was fantastic, but the style and art direction of the movie made it. There are a few movies where the look, the clothes the characters wear, the decoration of their homes, the lighting and colors all come together and make me happy. The Diane Keaton movie, As Good As It Gets, is another example of a movie where I just loved the style.
Besides the fact that Robert Dinero plays a practically perfect person in every way, the movie had one little thread that ran through it that I find universally true and hysterical at the same time. Anne Hathaway’s mother, who we never see, is a sleep researcher and in an attempt to get her daughter to take better care of herself she tells her that women who get less than seven hours sleep a night weigh 35% more.
This same bit of information is used by Robert Dinero on another character and she breaks down in a puddle of tears saying, “I’m 24 and I only get five hours sleep a now and now you tell me I am going to get fat.” For all woman kind if you want to have them change something tell them that what they are doing will make them fat. There is no greater fear.
If we want to solve a great world problem, like global warming, just get some scientists to do a study that says people who have a large carbon foot print weigh 50% more than people who have a small one. Or if we wanted to have world peace just get a study to say that people who are war mongers are more likely to gain weight far past their healthy BMI. If we wanted people to stop smoking tell them that it actually makes you gain weight, not the opposite which has been espoused.
It may only be a movie, but I wonder how many women left the seeing it and thought, “I really need to get more sleep.” Just mention that any little thing makes you fat and it is a goner.  Just as a side note, I want Robert Dinero to be my intern too.

Daddy’s Home — “What Did You Bring Me?”

  
For the last two weeks Shay has stood at the top of the stairs that lead down to the garage and looked longingly for Russ. Every little sound and she would whine in complete sadness that her Daddy was not home. Try explaining to an Australian Labradoodle that her master has gone to her homeland.
Today her wish came true and she shook and shuttered as she stood on her hind legs cheering as Russ came in through the door. Even though he hasn’t slept in over 24 hours Russ went ahead and emptied his suitcase into the laundry hamper. As he was doing it Shay got in on the action and looked through his bag for a present for her.
This brought back memories of my childhood when my sisters and I would greet my father at the door after a business trip and ask him, “What did you bring me?” He almost always came up with some small gift, even if it was just a candy bar he had bought at the airport. It was a terrible habit to train your kids that you bring them a gift every time you go away.
Since Russ has always traveled a lot for work we purposely decided not to start the “been away guilt gift” with Carter. It doesn’t even dawn on her to ask if Russ brought her something from Australia. I am not sure how our dog got this way. Perhaps it is because Shay knows the real present she wants is a dirty sock or two, something she is sure is in that suit case.
For me the best present is having Russ home. I know he is exhausted and will be passing out in a moment or two. My present for him is that I am not going to mention that I can’t seem to be able to change the channel on the TV in the sunroom. That little bit of info can wait until his jet lag is over. At least I am happy for him not to bring me a candy bar.

Happy Birthday Suzanne

About 33 years ago close to this very day I made myself this dress and the one my best college friend Suzanne is wearing.   Today is Suzanne’s birthday and she is my only friend I ever made a dress for. We were saving money to go on Spring Break to go to Puerto Rico to see her sister Gussy. We needed dresses for a big party Gussy was throwing as well as for our sorority formal where this picture was taken. This was back in the day when girls wore the same dress more than once.

You know Suzanne is a good friend because although she could buy any old sack off the rack and it would look great on her she happily bought into the idea that we save money by having me make our dresses. I am not sure what I was thinking with that grey and white stripe, but Suzanne wisely chose a hot and baby pink silk that I fashioned into that little number. Remember this was not long after Lady Diana married Prince Charles and big puffy sleeves were the rage.

That friendship has flourished through the years and she is still such a good friend that she supports me in whatever hair brained scheme I come up with. Suzanne was the good girl and I was the bad influence. Thank goodness her parents liked me enough to overlook the shenanigans I got us into. It helped that my birthday was the same day, just nine years apart, from her sister Gussy, so I was just a younger version of her.

When we got out of college I moved to DC and Suzanne moved to NYC to make her mark. I remember her calling me from a pay phone that she referred to as her “mid-town office” as she was on her way to a job interview. She told me that she had just stopped and had a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, as her meal for the day because it was a special at the diner and back then money was tight. We never let the lack of money keep us from fun.

It is wonderful to have a friend that I have celebrated 37 birthdays with. We have been each other’s maid or matron of honor at our weddings, seen our children grow up, traveled together, and supported each other through hard times and good. I know that if there is ever anything big that is happening to me she will be there.

I know she knows the same about me.

But today, on her big day, I want to say one thing to Suzanne besides, “Happy Birthday,” I want to say, “You were a really good sport to wear that dress so cheerfully. I promise if I ever make you another one it will be better.”

No Dishonor

Carter’s basketball team ended their regular season with a strong 19-8 record. It had been a successful year with Team senior Captains Liz Roberts and Serena Walker leading the girls. Liz is graduating as the all time highest scoring player in school history, and that’s for both men’s and women’s teams.
Today was the first post season state game for the lady Cavaliers hosted at the Forsyth Country Day School. It was a long drive to get past Winston-Salem for the game. The game started slowly for the DA girls, but unfortunately their opponents got off to a quick lead. We were behind for most of the game and our girls were not quite in sync in the first half, down by something like fifteen points as they headed into the locker room.
These girls have been down before, but they have never given up. Their opponents were superior shooters, hardly missing a shot. One thing our girls were better at was cleaner play with fewer fouls. This paid off.
In the fourth quarter after trailing the whole game, usually by fifty percent, the DA girls pulled out the stops and made more baskets, had superior defense and held back their competition who had gotten into foul trouble. The rag-tag group of DA parent supporters never gave up the cheering whether the girls were trailing by twenty or two. But as the team closed the lead and eventually pulled ahead by a bucket the hearts in the fans in the stands were beating out of our chests.
With less than a minute to play the FCDS team tied again, then pulled ahead by two. With seconds to play we were fouled and made one of the two free throws leaving us down by one. Remarkably with four seconds left Liz Roberts got the ball and was heading towards the basket when she fell losing the ball, it rolled and sophomore Erin Dilweg grappled on the floor with another player to get the ball and from a sitting position took one last impossible shot. It did not go in.
The girls lost 77-76 but could not have played any harder in that second half. It was heart breaking for our seniors, Liz, Serena and Kenan Little to end their DA careers so far from home in such a tragic way, but all the girls should hold their heads up high. They may not have started the game playing their best, but they ended as warriors. A lesser team would have never been able to battle back from such a huge deficit. 
Tears told the story of their broken hearts, but they need to remember it was a winning season and they are a team of girls who support each other and always have each other’s back.  

The Yin and Yang of Snow Day Binge Watching

  
True to form we have a “snow day” while Russ is out of the country. Unfortunately our snow day was really an ice day so there was absolutely no going anywhere. The good part is that it gave Carter a recovery day after her terrible food poisoning yesterday.
As Carter was in her room working on school work in advance of her week of state basketball playoffs I was making the most of the imposed homeboundness by staying on my treadmill. Since Russ has been away I am completely caught up on most of my shows so when I looked at the listings on the DVR I had nothing to watch except Russ’ woodwright shows or Ask this Old House. I flipped on live TV to discover a Keeping Up With The Kardashians marathon. 
I am not a Kardashian follower, but I have to admit that watching these over indulged, over exposed, over butt implanted women was completely captivating. I was able to get back to doing 20,000 steps thanks to the ice canceling all commitments and the bevy of girls all with the initials KK entertaining me.
After four loads of laundry, folded while walking and binge watching KUWTK, I felt like my day had been productive and it was still early afternoon. I had one show on the DVR that I had been saving for Carter so once she was done with her work we snuggled into the big sofa to watch three episodes of Mercy Street, the PBS show about a Union civil war hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. It felt less guilty since it is kind of educational, especially for Carter in AP Us History.
I have absolutely no guilt about watching TV all day since I was trapped inside and was relatively productive, but now I have to confess the I am still not done watching. Tonight is Monday and that means The Batchelor. It better be good weather tomorrow, I desperately need redemption.  

I Messed Up Valentine’s Day

It is Valentine’s Day today. We are on week two of Russ being in Australia and then I wake up this morning and realize that it was Valentine’s Day yesterday in OZ. I am such a bad Valentine. Russ left two cards for me with Carter so she could give them today. He left a card for Carter with me to do the same. You think I could have snuck a card in his luggage. On top of all that I got a cute Jib Jab from him with not such bad pictures of our heads atop beautiful people dancing around in love.
To add to my bad wife feeling Carter came up extra early on a Sunday morning to tell me she had been up a while with what she self diagnosed, with the help of the mayo clinic, as food poisoning. We had gone out to dinner last night before going to see the fabulous DA winter musical’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. Poor Carter, she was still not completely well from what she had last week so food poisoning on top is the pits. I know she is really sick because she has not eaten one thing all day, except the tea I gave her, and that couldn’t stay with her.
It is not the best Valentine’s Day at our house. Shay is afraid of the talking monkey card Russ left. My compression stockings are driving me crazy, I have a sick daughter and a husband half a world away who I did not celebrate with. Sounds like first world problems.
So now I am going to try and be thankful for all the good things. Especially that I have such a hard working and loving husband who does what he does so I can stay home and do what I want. That is real love. Carter will get better. Shay will get over her fear of the monkey Valentine. I will make up for my lax Valentine for Russ by making him a good home cooked meal when he gets home, which is all he ever wants for any occasion.  

Bullock’s Warehouse Sale

I woke up this morning at seven when Carter shut the back door on her way to work at the barn. With Russ in Australia and Carter out all morning I had a big free block of time. I turned on the TV and while I was drinking my tea in Bed I saw a commercial for Bullock’s Warehouse sale of lamps and furniture in Rocky Mount. I am not one who normally shops at places that advertise on TV, and I don’t know if I have any friends who have ever been to this sale, but I thought, what the heck, let’s go.

I Googled the address and found it was an hour and a half away. Since I had driven back and forth to Raleigh in rush hour for the last two days it seemed like nothing on the empty Saturday morning roads. I have not been to Rocky Mount probably since I was a kid and we stopped at a Holiday Inn there on our way from Connecticut to Pawleys Island. It did not matter that I did not think much of it then since I was not planning on visiting the chamber of commerce and making a trip of this visit. Just one quick stop at the warehouse and back home again.

I am not much of a shopper. I really never just look. But when I need something I am like a navy seal with a mission. I have needed new lamps for our family room and have not liked anything I have seen in person. Buying lamps online makes me nervous because you just can’t tell until you pick it up.

When I pulled into the overflow parking lot and saw license plates from Maryland, and Arkansas I thought perhaps this was a more famous sale than I had given it credit for. I was early enough that there was still a shopping cart available, which turned out to be fortuitous. In the first row of many thousands of lamps I liked one, so I out it in my cart, then another in the cart, then a third. Now I had trouble pushing the cart because I had no sight beyond the end of my nose as lampshades blocked my vision.

I really wanted a pair and found one lamp with its twin on two different tables. Now I had way more lamps than one cart could hold. I reexamined two already in the cart and decided they were wrong. I still could not hold all three of these big lamps in in cart so I finagled another. Pushing two carts at once with no way to see in front of me I inched along so as not to run over any of the other shoppers.

I found two more lampshades for a pair of bedside table lamps and decided this was all my car could hold. I went to the lamp assembly table where a nice lady tightened up the lose sockets on the pair of lamps I had chosen. I tipped her a few dollars since they had tip jars.

Off to the check out where I had the nicest ladies pack my lamps in boxes as they charged me less than 25% of the retail price of my merchandise. Not only was I thrilled with my lamps, but they felt practically free. The drive was totally worth it. I tipped the man who put the boxes in my car double what I normally would of because I was sure with what they were making on the lamps they could not be paying him much.

The drive was easy and I was back in time to eat a salad for lunch at home so the trip did not even through me off my diet. Double bonus. No more shopping neede

When Cereal For Dinner Is Not Enough

  
I had a crazy busy day. Spending most of it in Raleigh doing Food Bank work. I ran out at five to try and beat the rush hour traffic to get to school for Carter’s basketball team’s last regular season game. I made it with time to spare.  
It was senior day, a sad time for me since I have come to love the parents of these great seniors. I am not sure what it will be like sitting in the stands without them next year, but of course I am happy that their wonderful daughters are going to be moving on to great colleges.
After a wild game with the DA girls winning, I finally had to leave to get home to take care of Shay. I had not thought about dinner and it was 8:30 by the time I walked in the door. Since Carter was staying for the boys game I opted to eat cereal for dinner. It wasn’t quite enough so when hunger was hitting me at ten I went back to the kitchen.  
This could have been dangerous. I have been doing well staying away from sugar and white flour and I did not want to blow it now. I looked in the fridge and noticed that I have a handful of pineapple, red grapes and blueberries. I threw them all in the blender with a little crushed ice and I grated a little frozen ginger root in. Whiz, whiz, whiz and Poured the purple drink in a glass.
I was thrilled with the spicy and sweet smoothie. The perfect answer to my unsatisfied tummy. Now I feel like I had a full meal and a treat.
Purple Smoothie
1/2 cup fresh pineapple

1/4 cup red grapes

1/4 cup blueberries

1/4 cup crushed ice

Few grates of fresh ginger root
Pulverize in the blender.  

Stress Eater or Non-Eater

The other day I heard from an old friend who told me sad news of her divorce. As I was saying how sorry I was that she was having to go through that she responded that it was the best diet she had ever been on and that I should not feel badly for her, she finally got back to her junior high school weight. I told her as long as she did not get back to her junior high school hair style that was great. She said, “My stress was so bad I just couldn’t eat.”
On the opposite end I had a friend today, who had a very stressful fall and winter due to some business problems, tell me she could not stop eating all through the tumultuous period. I knew things had been hard, but I am happy that she is on the other side of it now.
I honestly believe there are two kinds of people. Those who eat their feelings and those who when the feelings are bad can’t eat. I can’t think of any situation that ever made me not be able to eat. Times are bad, I eat, time to celebrate let’s eat. Stress usually drove me right to sugar street.
I am sorry my friend got a divorce, but honestly while she was married she was always trying to lose twenty pounds. Her consolation is she lost the twenty, when the 200 pound husband also went. I am not advocating divorce as a diet, even if you are a stress non-eater. I just know that under the same circumstance I would gain fifty or maybe a hundred pounds. Lord, don’t let anything happen to Russ, I can’t afford a new fat wardrobe.
I wonder what makes people so different about food in stressful situations? Are there people who don’t change their eating habits at all when bad times hit? I guess there are people who drink more or do other destructive things when things get hard, but it seems to me that food, either eating too much or too little is common.
For now I am hoping for calm waters for all I know. Eating right in of itself is tough enough, we don’t need trouble to throw us off the path.

Compression Suppression

Well I have to say I am officially old. I’ve had to break down and get my veins fixed. I was able to ignore the tiny spider veins long enough thanks to self tanner, but then one day last year I noticed something more like a snake than a spider and I decided it was time to have them looked at. My friend Lindy is a vein doctor and owns Carolina Vein Clinic so I did not have to go through lots of research to figure out what to do, I just asked her.

Getting insurance to approve fixing my veins was a long process for my policy. I had to try compression socks for three months first to see if that “cured “ me. It did not. Then I had to find a period of time I was not flying any where for a long time because you are grounded right after each treatment for two weeks, and I need five treatments.

Then there is the compression apparel, not just socks, but thigh high stockings and shorts. When I am talking compression I mean like SPANX on steroids. I certainly did not want to get this treatment during the hot months when the last thing I want to do is wear an extra hot layer. That makes February about the only time to do this.

Last week was the first treatment and since it was on the back of my calf I only had to wear the knee high socks 24 hours a day for three days then only during the day after that. Sleeping in one tight sock is not easy, but other than that nothing hurt.

Today I had a more intense treatment in my thigh up to my groin. Nice. Lindy told me this would hurt more and that I needed to wear the thigh highs and the shorts together and if I had too much pain add the ace bandage I was given. Oh boy. Talk about sausage casings. I am hopeful I won’t have too much pain because the compression is tight enough that I have no feeling at all. At least one leg is nice a toasty warm.

I really wonder what sleeping is going to be like in all these things. This is when I really wish I still drank alcohol because I think that being totally blotto drunk is the only way I will not notice all this compression. Thank goodness Russ is in Australia for a lot of this. Having varicose veins is one thing, but wearing a nude colored compression stocking is the epitome of an OLD woman.

The Underwire Failure

  
If you are a man, you might want to just stop reading now. If you are a woman who wears an A or B cup bra, you too, may want to just stop reading now, that is unless you are an engineer looking to make a lot of money.
Here is my complaint. While wearing an underwire bra, and not that old a bra to boot, the underwire, suddenly pokes through the fabric encasing it and holding it the “under” the boob position thus riding up and poking you in the under arm. This wire coming out of its rightful position means the end of this bra’s life. 
There is virtually no way to make an underwire, that has created an escape route out of the channel of fabric holding it in place, to ever be kept in place again. There is no way to sew the hole it has created up in a strong enough way to make the bra reliable. And by reliable I mean not having the wire wiggle its way out and poke you at the worst possible moment, like while receiving communion, or shooting a free throw.
I noticed the tale tale sign of a delinquent wire in a bra on a person I know who was playing basketball. You can try and shove the wire back down, but any breasts that require a wire in the first place are going to be able to push an untethered wire out with no trouble.
Here is the engineering opportunity that the Sharks on Shark tank would be happy to fund; a sturdy underwire bra, that no matter how much running or bouncing the D cups or greater were doing the underwire would stay in place. It really shouldn’t be that hard to super reenforce the end point areas, but do bra manufacturers think to do this now? No! I think there are two dead underwire bras sitting in my laundry room right now. If it weren’t for the errant wire the bras would still be good.  
Now if you are a man or an A or B cup woman, and you are still reading, let me tell you that just removing both wires from the bra is not an option. That contraption was designed to only work with the scaffolding support of the wire. Take the metal out and you might as well be wearing a bib.
Now I’ve heard of planed obsolescence, you know where a manufacturer only makes a product last a limited amount of time so you are forced to replace it with a new one, thus ensuring the manufacturer future business, but underwire bras should last more that four months of partial use.  
Really it is a safety issue that OSHA should cover. A get away underwire, in the right situations under the right pressure, could easy fly out and blind someone. Perhaps Ralph Nader should get on this issue, you know we have safety belts thanks to him. If only he knew the potential dangers in the poor quality of underwire bras, never mind the potential emergency room visits by women with a wire sticking out of their under arm. Maybe Obama care would take this issue up. We could cut down on health care costs if the underwire would just stay in place.

Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette

Ok, this is thinner and less oily than a vinaigrette, but it is not as thick as a dressing. I’m not sure there is a thickness requirement for a dressing, but this is a hybrid that is good on salads or cooked meat. If it did not have oil in it at all I would just drink it.
I make this in a blender, but a food processor would work. You kind of need a machine to chop the cilantro up enough.
Put the following in a blender:
4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

1 shallot peeled and roughly chopped

1 big bunch of cilantro washed -stems and all

4 packets of Splenda or 1 T. of honey

1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar

1/3 cup of fresh lime juice

1 T. Water.

Big pinch each of salt and black pepper
Blend for ten seconds or until the cilantro is all pulverized.
Drizzle in the top hole of the blender with it running 1/4 cup of olive oil. You are not using enough oil to make the dressing get thick so don’t keep running the machine expecting it to thicken up.
Keeps in the fridge about two weeks, but you probably will eat it before it gets close to turning bad.

Super Sunday

A few weeks ago Taylor, the youth pastor at our church asked if I would be the auctioneer for a cake auction fundraiser the church was having to raise money for youth mission trips. Anybody who knows me, knows that being a charity auctioneer is my favorite job, so I quickly said yes. What most people don’t know is that as Finance Chair at church I had been strongly encouraging Taylor to raise more money, something she did not love to do.
Taylor and I had to lunch to prep for the auction. The youth council had planned a soup and grilled cheese sandwich lunch for the bargain price of $5 per person to get people to come to the auction. They had recruited the finest of church bakers to make some fabulous cakes, pies, cookies, cupcakes and even banana pudding. The youth had set up the lunch, manned the bake sale table where small items were sold, and acted as spotters for me at the auction.
Taylor had set a goal of $3,000 to raise for summer mission trips. I secretly was worried about reaching that goal with 14 sweet items, but I did not tell Taylor that. The auction had a football theme given that it is Super Bowl Sunday. Taylor make a football field on the front wall of the fellowship hall. High school senior, Jack High was my Vanna White to model the cakes as they were auctioned and to fill in the football field in as we reached each $300 down on the field to get to $3,000.
I was a little bit on my back foot before the auction started since I have a bad cold and the sound system broke thanks to many crock pots of soup blowing out fuses in the old fellowship hall electrical panel. Thank goodness for my naturally loud voice and a very attentive full room of people.
Before the first sweet item was even offered for auction Taylor told me we had $1,200 in donations. A nice any to start any charity event. I was still unsure of how this church crowd would bid. “This is not a sale at Walmart,” I told them. “This is a charity for our youth group, so plan on paying big bucks for these sweet treats.”
And pay they did. Once people got over the shock that a cake should bring in a few hundred dollars each, people really got into the spirit of things. Children bid — of course with permission from their parents, older people bid — even though they had no need for a giant carrot cake, friends bid against each other, all in good fun.
We reached $3,000 with many cakes still to go, so I told the room let’s go for $5,000. At the end, when all the money was counted the youth group had raised $5,500. It was exhilarating for them to see their hard work pay off. My favorite part was that Taylor had so much fun raising the money. Thanks to all the bakers, the table setter uppers, the grilled cheese makers, the soup cookers, the bidders and the winners who over paid for a yummy dessert that will help kids do mission work where they learn more about themselves when they help other people. I would say it certainly is Super Sunday.

Never Fails

One of the best things about being married to a man with a masters in electrical engineering is that all my tech needs are met by him. The worst thing about being married to an electrical engineer is that I rarely pay attention to learning how to take care of my own tech needs.  

The worst thing about being married to an electrical engineer with an MBA is that he travels a lot and I am without my in house tech.
True to form one day after Russ left for two weeks in Australia our new Smart TV is having trouble connecting to our wireless internet. Now I can certainly live without a TV connected to the Internet, but it does make me crazy that I can’t seem to fix this myself. I have unplugged everything I think sends out a signal and replugged it but that has not worked. Since I also woke up this morning with a head cold I am in no mood to work on this any further.
Nothing like a tech problem to make me miss and appreciate my wonderful husband. Since he is off working so hard I am determined to take care of this before he gets home. That means I have two weeks to learn everything I can and do it myself. But as long as I have this cold I can’t learn anything.
I welcome suggestions, just not today.