Sadie Sadie Married Lady

How Christmas Got Its Shine Back

2011-12-09T10:14:00.000-08:00

Doris Waud is one of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Born in 1920, she grew up in Aldershot, England. She was a young woman when World War II began and she lived through the war years in the military town where the troops were amassed for the D-Day invasion. She used to go up on the hill above the town and watch the Nazi bombs fall on London.

She met and married a Canadian soldier during the war much to her mother’s chagrin. Her mother said, “You could’ve married an English soldier or a Welsh soldier or a Scottish soldier or EVEN an Irish soldier. Why do you have to marry a Canadian soldier?” It wasn’t because the man was objectionable in and of himself. It was the thought of her dear daughter living so far away that bothered her. Godfrey Waud was a good man and he made sure that somehow, they scraped together the money for her to go back and visit at least once every five years while her parents were still living. That was quite a feat on their income.

Fifty years later, she was quite prosaic about the war and I always got the impression that it hadn’t fazed her that much. I was wrong, of course, but my grandmother always seemed to take life in her stride. Doris was my grandmother. I use the past tense because she is past now. I could fill pages with my memories of her and of her memories of her life. She would freely tell my sister and me about it, sometimes because we asked her to and sometimes just spontaneously. I am so glad now that she was so forthcoming with her memories because they are so precious to me now. My little English Gran (the diminutive favored by English children) left a huge hole in my life when she died.

My Gran loved Christmastime. After spending Christmas in England once, I truly understood why she loved the season so much. England does Christmas tremendously. The food, the music, the decorations and everything about Christmas in England is terrific. They celebrate good and proper and most of the country seems to shut down from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. We spent just about every Christmas I can remember with my grandparents and very often both sets of grandparents. They were friends before my parents ever got married and my American grandmother would often include them in all the holidays because they didn’t have much family in the United States.

I don’t really remember actual Christmas gifts from my grandmother. What I remember is going to the beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle and having Christmas tea on her best dishes. I remember the little artificial tree decorated with bird ornaments and eggs that had been blown out and decorated. I remember her Nativity set which I have always loved. It decorates my home now. I remember how much my grandmother reveled in the season. She loved the carols, she loved the decorations and she wouldn’t for worlds have missed seeing my sister and me in the Christmas play at church every year. Christmas had a shine on it for me because of her.

After her death, Christmas lost some of its bloom for me. I was in my twenties and single. I would still decorate the beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill where I now lived. I would still make cookies and candy and go see A Christmas Carol or The Messiah or The Nutcracker. I would still sing the carols and enjoy going to church and hearing the Christmas story. Each year that passed though, I seemed to be less and less enthusiastic about Christmas. Even now, this time of year brings a little heartache because I miss my Gran with every carol that’s played and every decoration I see.

How did Christmas get its shine back?

His name is John. We have known each other since we were children but five years ago he came back into my life. Four years ago, we were married. Christmastime has always been hard for him. His father died when John and his twin brother were about 8 and their brother Jeff was only 3. It was close to Christmas when they lost him because one of the memories John has of the funeral was that the Christmas decorations were up in town as they drove to the cemetery. Once I was in love with him, it became very important to me for John to have a Merry Christmas from now on if it was in my power to give it to him.

So now Christmas belongs to us. We got our first Christmas tree together the year we were engaged. When he cut the bottom off the Christmas tree's trunk to get it in the stand, he saved the disk of wood and made me a Christmas ornament the next year out of it. He has made one for me every year since. He takes the fresh cut and lets the disk dry out all year. The next year he sands it down, carves our names and the date in it. John drills a hole in it and I put a ribbon from one of our wedding or my shower gifts through it and hang it on the tree. We got a lot of presents for our wedding. Four years later, I still have ribbons from our wedding gifts.

I love to shop for his Christmas and birthday gifts. His birthday is right after Christmas. Like many born so close to the holiday, he has always felt a little cheated when it came to his birthday. I make sure I never buy “this is your birthday/Christmas” gifts. My very favorite thing at Christmas now is to surprise him with something he really wants but had no expectation of getting. He will grin from ear to ear, look at me with eyes that have tears in them and whisper “Thank You”. It makes my year and puts the shine back on Christmas for me.

Bitterness

2011-08-18T20:34:00.001-07:00

Bitterness has been on my mind for a few weeks. The dictionary defines bitter a number of ways. It can refer to taste, a painful sensation, something difficult to accept, exhibiting strong animosity, expressive of severe disappointment or marked by resentment. The reason it has been on my mind stems from a chance remark someone with a very sweet nature made to me that was so rancorous and bitter that it took my breath away. The remark was not directed at me or about me but it was still so full of intense bitterness that I could think of little else for the rest of the day. It ruined my day and had me close to tears every time I thought back on it.

I thought about the circumstances that were the root of the bitterness, I thought about how many years the bitterness had be held onto and nursed and I felt as badly as if I had been the one to have caused them to be bitter. In truth, I was in no way involved and likely, the person never realized how much their bitterness had surprised and hurt me. I think they would be amazed that I had even noticed what they had said.

When I was younger, I would tend to hold a grudge. I still struggle with that from time to time even as I get older but usually I only manage to heave it along for a few days and then I feel silly and let whatever it is that upset me to begin with go and move on with my life. I cannot really point to the time in my life when I decided that carrying a grudge and being bitter were harmful to me and a complete waste of energy and emotion. I can tell you that there came a day when I found myself rehearsing an incident from years earlier and getting angry about it all over again when it hit me that it was ridiculous to hold onto the hurt and the bitterness and the sense of injustice and that I needed to put those things outside my soul. It is not an easy thing to do especially when you feel aggrieved. However, it is so much better for you to get on with your life and it removes the power from the person or situation that caused your bitterness.

You might be wondering why I chose to use a picture of my cousin's two beautiful little girls to talk about bitterness. It is because, unfortunately, some of the worst bitterness begins at home and in families. I have heard grown children speak of their parents in ways that makes me heartsick especially when I happen to know that their parents, while imperfect, did the best they could and were quite good parents under the circumstances. I have heard brothers and sisters talk about the time that their sister or brother got something or other that they had wanted and their sibling had not deserved with as much vitriol as if the disappointment had happened the day before not forty years ago. I have heard parents speak of ungrateful and unfeeling children that I knew were nothing of the sort simply because of a single incident that had been held onto instead of the dozens of happy and loving memories that were predominant. Bitterness is a cancer. If left unchecked, it will spread throughout you and color your past, darken your present and make hopeless your future.

Sometimes people direct their bitterness at God, at the government, at their boss, at life. I have an overdeveloped sense of justice and so I understand when people feel bitterness over injustice. The problem is bitterness solves nothing, achieves nothing, helps nothing. If you continue to hug it close, it will eventually suffocate you under its weight. Cast it away. Get rid of it. Instead pray the Serenity Prayer: Change what you can, accept what you can't and have the wisdom to know the difference.

Beautiful You

2011-07-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to decide for a few weeks what I should write about. There are a few topics that I would like to talk about but I am still ruminating on them at this point. Beauty is one I have been thinking about for some time. The picture I used is one of my cousin, Kristin, who is undoubtedly a beautiful girl. So are all her sisters. I never look at any of them without being struck by how beautiful they all are. Part of her and her sisters' beauty lies within them. They are fun, sweet, funny and lovely girls. This, as much or more, contributes to their beauty to me as their physical appearance.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I suppose that must be true but I tend to behold a lot of beauty in a lot of people that, if you asked them, would say they are not beautiful and might even call themselves ugly. I have found that if you really look at people carefully, there is often something beautiful about each person. It took me some time but the day I woke up and really looked at my friend, John, I saw the diamond that was there. Now I am married to the handsomest man in the world. When he looks at me with his deep blue eyes all crinkled at the corners because he is smiling down at me, I know I am looking at the most beautiful man in the whole world.

A lot of Hollywood consists of people that are thought of as "beautiful" and if you were going on appearance alone, I suppose you would have to admit that many movie stars are very attractive. I don't know any of them personally and so, I have to say, that their beauty eludes me somewhat. I think you find beauty where you look for it and not just based on a person's appearance.

I have a lot of friends and every single one of them is so very beautiful to me. Some of them if you were to pass them on the street, you would not perhaps see how beautiful they are if you were just looking at their appearance but, if you took the time to get to know them, they would leave you with the impression of great loveliness.

Many of my friends have something beautiful about them that you might miss if you were just looking for "perfect" beauty. Vicki and Jane have gorgeous eyes and expressive mouths. Lisa has the prettiest hands and feet. Jan, when she laughs, is so exquisite. Laura, Angela and Kristin have great figures and can wear anything and look fantastic. Liz has a Texan drawl and throaty voice that melts you. Muriel has the most beautiful hair. If Elfie smiles at you, you feel the urge to give her the world. When Lissa is enthusiastic about something, she could be Miss America.

I realize that partly I find these girls attractive because I love them but I have found that if I really look at people I don't even know I can often still find something beautiful about them. This morning a lady smiled at me as we passed each other. She had a great smile. When the guy in front of me in line at Starbucks extolled the virtues of his smart phone to me I noticed he had really earnest and intense blue eyes. The girl across from me on the train last night had a mane of curly black brown hair and such an amazing complexion. If I hadn't been looking for it, I might have missed their beauty. I hope the people that love them see what I saw.

Next time you look at a person (yourself included), have a good look for the beautiful. If you are having trouble seeing it, ask someone that loves you what about you they find beautiful. If you know me, ask me and I will tell you because I promise you, I've noticed something about you that is beautiful and just haven't had the chance to tell you yet. The ugly in life sticks out so much that sometimes, it is all we see. Look for the beautiful, it is there too.

The Cat & The Christmas Carol

2011-04-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

This is Shadow. I took her in reluctantly when a former boyfriend of mine moved back in with his parents. His dad was both allergic to and had a dislike of cats. She lived with me for awhile until the boyfriend moved back into his house and could take her back again. Then, like the cat that came back the very next day, she was once again foisted on me when he moved back in with his parents again. The second time, after I paid to have her "fixed" (not to mention what I had spent of food, cat litter and damages), I told him that she was now my cat and would be staying with me permanently. After a rocky start, she has grown on me.

When you pet Shadow, she feels like a kitten. She is so incredibly soft for an adult cat. She is not a very vocal animal and, other than a rather strange obsession with Healthy Choice Fudge Bars and blue raspberry popsicles, she is just your average cat. She got her name because as a kitten she followed my old boyfriend around all the time. She responds to her name so there is no changing it now. She likes to sleep on me at night but on top of the covers and she is not particularly a lap kitty.

A few years ago, I found out that if I sing, she will come from wherever she is to stand at my feet and meow at me, rub my legs and sometimes even try and give me a little nibble. So, I started singing "Goodnight Shadow" at bed time to get her to come in the bedroom for the night. I sing "Buffalo Cats" (to the tune of Buffalo Gals) when I can't find her in the house during the day. Then I discovered "Once in Royal David's City".

"Once in Royal David's City" was my grandmother's favorite Christmas carol. She was from England and really missed some of the English hymns and carols. As a result, our entire family knows "We Plow the Fields and Gather the Good Seed on the Land", "Eternal Father, Strong to Save", "Once in Royal David's City" and several others. When I start singing Christmas carols around the house during the holidays, it is one of the first that comes to mind. The first time I was yodeling it around the house, Shadow came from another room and tried to climb up my legs and join in with several loud and insistent MEOWS. It is evidently her most or least favorite of the songs I sing.

Shadow is an indoor only kitty with a lot of curiosity about the great outdoors. One day recently, she got outside when my husband's back was turned. He and my mother searched frantically all over outside for her to no avail. Then my mother remembered, she stopped and belted out the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City". My mom has a killer soprano voice that does much more justice to it than my croaky alto. Sure enough, Shadow hopped up into a window outside the kitchen and started to sing along allowing my husband to sneak up from behind and capture her.

Unfortunately, I forget sometimes when guests are around how odd this all is. We had a couple of friends over for dinner last week and my parents joined us for appetizers beforehand in order to visit with them. When they went back home, Shadow followed them out the door and refused to be shooed back inside. So I stood with a dish in my hand in the middle of the kitchen and proceeded to call forth the opening strains "Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed" and before I had reached "where a mother laid her baby in a manger for His bed" Shadow had trotted back in and joined in for the last line: "Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her little child." I then serenely turned and sat the dish on the table. In looking up, both my guests were looking at me like I was the Christmas fruitcake and perhaps it was time to be going. I mumbled something about it being the cat's favorite song which clearly was not the explanation calculated to restore their confidence in my sanity. I wonder if I will ever see them again?

Smile! People will wonder what you’re up to!

2011-03-08T16:06:00.000-08:00

Do you know the pony joke?

The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

What does it mean to be happy? Why are some people happier than others? How do you get happy? I was pondering these questions on my walk to work this morning. So many people I passed were walking with their head and eyes downcast looking sleepy or resigned or defeated.

I am an incurable optimist and aggressively cheerful. I get asked sometimes, “Why are you always so happy?” It always stumps me a little. I have had a variety of explanations put forward as to why this is so. People who share my faith say it is because I am a Christian. People that aren’t so fond of me say it is because I am not very smart. Others have told me it is because I haven’t faced true hardship in life. While these all may be true, I think there is another explanation that must be taken into account: heredity.

My sister is about as different from me as you can get but she is also a little sunbeam of happiness most of the time. Our paternal grandmother and our maternal grandfather were some of the most cheerful people I have ever met in my life. My mother once said that I was like my father’s mother because I could walk into a roomful of pessimists and they would become optimists in self defense! Our father looks on the sunny side of life in spite of being a pastor for over thirty years. (I say in spite of because unless you have been a pastor or lived in the parsonage you cannot appreciate how much of the time you see people at their very worst.)

I have thought long and hard about why I tend to be such a happy person and about the people I know that are genuinely cheerful most of the time. I don’t know that it is something that can ever be learned. I think to some extent it is just “how you are”. I find even times when I have been in the depths of despair (and believe me, I have had my moments) I have never felt like good times would not come around again.

I have a friend that has been through the most difficult time this last year. She has been through the wringer and yet, she still looks for the pony. I have another friend that has a lovely life -- a house, a great family, a job and friends. He has a good thing going but he is never satisfied. He is always trying to “find happiness” but it constantly eludes him.

If you want the secret to happiness, I will be happy to share my faith with you. It is definitely a contributing factor. If being smarter means I will be unhappy, I will stay ignorant and I hope if I face true hardship in life, I will manage to do it with a smile. I count my blessings often especially if I get to feeling like the toys will just break. The very nicest thing my husband has ever said was this: “The day I married you, I married my sunshine.”

Death by Cooking

2011-01-18T10:46:00.001-08:00

I think I may need an intervention. Yesterday I had the day off work for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. John and I had talked about going to Auburn to visit the jeweler we like to use to have our rings cleaned and mine checked to make sure all the prongs are tight. We called ahead and found out he wasn't going to be open so after tossing around some other ideas, we decided to just stay at home.

I got up Monday morning, collected my mother from upstairs and ran into the city to go to the Franz Bakery Outlet for English muffins and some other breads, then on to Costco's flagship store to pickup butter, water and some other essentials before stopping at Saars in town to get a turkey breast, onions and a few necessaries. We went back home and I proceeded to spend the rest of the day cooking.

Cooking has become my hobby and my passion. I lost the ability to crochet with the development of carpal tunnel syndrome so I needed to find a new hobby. I like to scrapbook now and then and I really enjoying reading books but cooking is my favorite thing to do.

While the turkey breast defrosted in my folks' microwave, I got busy making Shepherd's Pie for our Tuesday night supper. I use a combination of ground beef and pork along with onions, mushrooms and carrots all simmered in the Colman's Shepherd's Pie mix packet along with a little water before turning it into a baking dish, topping it with some shredded cheese and then mashed potatoes which were left over from Sunday dinner.

Next, I moved on to lasagna. I had picked up whole wheat lasagna noodles during the week but first I cooked some more ground pork and beef along with some bulk sweet Italian sausage with some onions in my big 12 inch cast iron skillet. Next I made a red sauce and a white sauce from scratch. My white sauce was completed with a package of Boursin Garlic and Herb goat cheese that had been languishing in my fridge since Christmas. The turkey breast was thawed out so that was dealt with and popped in the oven to bake while I finished making the lasagna. Finally, I cooked the noodles, thawed out some spinach I had frozen, chopped up and sauteed mushrooms and got the mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano and ricotta cheeses out and ready to to go. I assembled a white lasagna for our dinner that night and two smaller red lasagnas to go in the freezer for future use.

About the time I had finished and cleaned up, the turkey breast was coming out of the oven. I carved it up almost immediately so I could cool the meat enough to handle it and so I could deposit the carcass in my big stew pot with onions, celery, garlic, salt and pepper and water to begin simmering into stock. Now it was time to chop up the turkey into bite sized pieces. Two-thirds of the turkey was put in a bowl, mixed with diced green chili, shredded cheese, chopped olives and two cans of green enchilada sauce before being wrapped in tortillas, covered in more enchilada sauce and cheese and wrapped up for the freezer. I had some of the turkey enchilada filling left over so I put that in a baking dish, topped it with cheese and breadcrumbs and froze it as well. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, John and I will have that over rice for dinner.

As the white lasagna baked for dinner, I took the remaining one-third of the turkey, added onions and fresh mushrooms to it and sat it in the fridge. I chopped up red potatoes and carrots and boiled them for ten minutes before adding them to turkey mixture. I thawed out two pie crusts I had leftover from Thanksgiving and Christmas baking, made a white sauce, mixed in the turkey stuff and put a homemade turkey pot pie together before wrapping it and putting it in the freezer.

The white lasagna was wonderful for supper and I am looking forward to the piece I have in my lunch as well. I went to bed at 8:30 last night and slept until morning. I had a ball and while it was tiring, it also left me with a wonderful sense of accomplishment and will make life easier in the coming weeks as well.

13 Coins

2010-11-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

Last night, my husband and I went and had dinner at 13 Coins across from the airport. My husband has grown up in Seattle and yet had never eaten there. I decided it was time to remedy that and we wanted to celebrate a little victory. So early evening found us being ushered to the counter and tucked into the big comfy chairs you see in the picture to have some dinner.

13 Coins has been around longer than I have, since 1967 according to their website. They are open 24 hours a day, famous for their Eggs Benedict and their "open" kitchen. Living in the city, you find quite a few restaurants that are open very late and a few that are continually open. For twelve years in my twenties and early thirties, I lived up on Capitol Hill in Seattle. I had moved back to the city from a small town on the Olympic Peninsula where I had never felt at home. Now, living in the neighborhood where my grandparents lived for almost as long as I could remember, I had come back to my native heath.

For the eight years I had been away, I would hear radio ads for the opera, the symphony, Broadway shows, festivals and sporting events that were going on in Seattle. I promised myself that one day, I would move back to the city and I would enjoy all the things I was missing out on by living away from it. My chance finally came and at 21, after finding a suitable job with opportunities for promotion, I came home. Little by little I kept my promise. At first, I could only afford the occasional show or hockey game but, as I rose in my company, I began to truly live the life I had envisioned for myself. Soon, I had season tickets to the Seattle Thunderbirds and the Seattle Opera. If something or someone came to town that I wanted to see, I went. I got to see Mikhail Baryshnikov dance, see Dr. John perform live, go to Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera, see The Nutcracker, go to Bumbershoot and so much more. It was during this time that I made some of the best friends I've ever had.

Eating out after a show or a game became standard practice because often I would not have time between work and an event to do more than shower, get dressed and go. I've stood at Dick's Drive-In in a full length gown on my way home from the opera devouring a Dick's Deluxe, fries and a shake with transvestites and homeless guys. I've eaten with friends at 3 in the morning at the IHOP off Broadway. Finally, one night after the ballet, my friend, Angela, took me to have dinner at 13 Coins in downtown Seattle. We sat in captain's chairs at the counter, flirted with the staff and had dinner. I love Eggs Benedict so that was the natural choice for me. I think Ange had pasta or a steak and we ordered dessert. It was one of the most memorable dining experiences I have ever had.

Since that time I have eaten at 13 Coins many times but the memory that comes back to me is always that meal with Angela. I think we got to the restaurant about 10:30 or 11 and we didn't leave until after 1 a.m. I remember thinking as we walked out to the car that it was for evenings and experiences like this one that I moved back to the city.

John had their prime rib special last night and I had a shrimp louis. Afterwards, we split one of their massive creme brulees. It was relaxing to sit and watch the salad/dessert prep cook do his work. I watched him make my salad and my husband's eyes just about came out of his head when the guy lit up the blow torch to caramelize the sugar on our creme brulee. We got a kick out of banter that went on among the staff and were waited on most attentively. It was another great experience.

"The "13 Coins" name is of Peruvian origin. The story goes that a poor young man loved and wished to marry a wealthy girl. Her father asked what he had to offer for his daughter's hand in marriage. The young man reached into his pocket. He had only 13 coins, but assured the father he could pledge undying love, care and concern. The father was so touched, he gave his daughter's hand and "13 Coins" has come to symbolize unyielding love, care and concern."

My Sister, My Friend

2010-07-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

I have written here before about my sister. She is five years younger than I am. I don't really remember clearly when she was born. I remember a time before she was there. I remember when she started being old enough to play with but not so much about her being a baby.

From the beginning, I was very protective of my sister. She shows up in my dreams more often than anyone else. Some of the earliest dreams I remember are of trying to help her find and go to the bathroom only to wake up and have to run for the bathroom myself. As I got a little older, if I had nightmare it usually involved someone chasing me and my sister and trying to help her run faster and to protect her.

I suppose partly because she is my only sibling, we have always been close but I think it is also because we are enough different and enough alike to be friends. I think too because I am the oldest and she is the youngest, our relationship has worked well. People were always surprised to hear that she was both the messy one and the stubborn one. I was obsessively neat and her room always looked like a bomb had hit it. Also, I am very stubborn myself and my sister tends to be more compliant but I learned very soon that if she decided to "lay her ears back and dig in her heels" about something, I may as well give in because there was no changing her mind.

She is also the smart and gifted one which has been a source of joy to me and never anything to be envious about at all. Her sixth grade teacher came to my parents after testing one year and told them what her IQ was. It was high evidently because my mother still shakes her head in amazement when she talks about it. Except for the trumpet, my sister has never picked up an instrument that she couldn't play after some practice. It has been a delight over the years to hear her play the piano, the violin, the flute, the guitar, the clarinet and she has a lovely singing voice too.

I don't want to give the impression that we never had our moments. From ages 10 to 13, I didn't want a little sister always hanging around me and my friends. We didn't really fight though. As our mother would say, "You were not ALLOWED to fight." We did have our little spats and we still occasionally drive each other a little nuts but mostly, we have had a very harmonious relationship.

We had seven wonderful years of living together when we were in our twenties. Now we are both wives and she is a mother. Thanks to instant messaging and the telephone, we talk often and still love each other very much. This weekend she and her family will be here for a visit. On July 20, she will celebrate her birthday and I will celebrate having her as my sister.

Memorial Day

2010-06-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Oh, to be in England!

2010-04-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

This is the first stanza of my grandmother's favorite Robert Browning poem. I never tired of hearing her quote it. Later on, she never tired of hearing me read it to her. For the last few months of her life, she was in a nursing home. Every day on my way home from work, I would stop and see her for a few minutes and help feed her dinner when she got weaker. As her health worsened and conversation became more difficult, I began reading to her each evening.

We would both relax more and I would tend to stay longer after I started reading to her. I would always start with poetry because she loved it. Before I would read anything else, I would read Oh To Be in England by Browning and then the daffodil poem by Wordsworth. They became so familiar to me I could quote them almost as well as she could. After those were finished I would wander through the book reading whatever took her fancy. Even when I began to read her The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, I would still preface it with those two poems. The night she died, I read them to her and again at her memorial service I managed to struggle through both poems because I was reading them for her not for the people that were there.

Now, of course, both poems bring tears to my eyes when I hear them or read them as they will be forever connected with some very sweet memories of my gran. Recently, the daffodil poem was read aloud on NPR as I listened to my radio on my way home from work. I cried the whole way home. This year Oh To Be in England has plagued me for months. For in a few days, I will be in England in April.

My husband and I are going over for a family wedding. My grandmother was an Englishwoman by birth. She loved her adopted country and considered it her home but England held part of her heart always as it does my father's and mine as well. This will be my sixth trip but only mark the second time I have been in England in April just like the poem.

The Christmas Letter

2009-12-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Family & Friends:

“How are you enjoying married life?” This seems to be the standard question people feel compelled to ask a newly married couple. Do you walk up to people that have been married 20 or 30 years and ask them “So, are you enjoying married life?” But, in case you were wondering, we are enjoying it very much!

We have had a good year. John’s birthday is in January and this year we celebrated with a trip to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), dinner at Ivar’s Salmon House on Lake Union and a visit to the Sci-Fi Museum. In February, we took John’s brother, Jared and our friend, Zachary, on a trip to the Museum of Flight. We also added Rex to our family. He is a dappled miniature daschund and he seems to think the sun rises and sets on John.

John braved last season at the Seattle Opera with dad and I. We saw The Pearl Fishers, Bluebeard’s Castle and The Marriage of Figaro. John said that M of F was more what he expected opera to be like. Dad and I are going the new season alone. We started off in October with La Traviata which was excellent!

John and I took on the roll of youth group leaders at our church. In January, we did a progressive dinner to various church members’ houses and in March, the girls had a slumber party at our house. September, we had the kids over for homemade pizza and a movie and in November we took them to MOHAI for a photo scavenger hunt and dinner at Dick’s Drive-In on 45th. We are having a lot of fun and the kids seem to be too.

We did have some health related adventures this year. John’s stepfather, Gary, had hip replacement surgery in April and will have a second hip replacement surgery on the other side in December. John had shoulder surgery to remove bone spurs on his right AC joint in August. He is still recovering from it but continues to improve.

In April, we took a trip up to San Juan Island to celebrate our 1st anniversary. We had a very relaxing time at the Lonesome Cove Resort. In May, John took Jared to Walking with Dinosaurs for his birthday. We also went up to Snohomish for the annual variety show and a poke around the antique stores. Over Memorial Day weekend, we helped my folks host a 40th birthday party for my mother’s sister, Beth. June took us to Leavenworth for a little getaway. John took his first whack at fly fishing in the Icicle River.

We went down to Portland in July to visit our friends Bruce & Dawna. Dawna and her sister, Nancy, drove us out to the McMinnville Air Museum and we got to see the Spruce Goose. I also took John for his first visit to Powell’s Bookstore. July was also our church’s annual camp out and my mother and I hosted a baby shower for my cousin, Bethany. In addition to John’s surgery in August, my friend, Monica, visited from Minnesota on her way to her sister’s wedding in Oregon. It was so much fun to get to spend a few days with her. She was here for our annual church picnic as well.

We made it to three Mariners games this year. We took John’s mom and step-dad to a game in June for their anniversary and did the same for my folks in August for theirs. In September, our friends, Bruce & Dawna, came up and went to the Mariners/Yankees game with us. Also, we had a visit from my friend, Ana, from San Francisco who was in town to go to a wedding that same weekend. John had his first experience with the St. Demetrious Greek Festival in September. In October, we went to M____ R____ High School’s homecoming football game with John’s family.

In November, I was privileged to sing a solo for Pat N___'s memorial service. Her husband, Jim, is one of our church members. We also went to see Jeff Dunham at the Tacoma Dome. Thanksgiving was spent with my sister and her family in Chewelah. Dad, Mom, John and I made the long drive there and back without incident for which we are thankful. December promises to be busy with parties and other events.

I continue to enjoy going to book group, playing the piano for church and working for the Court of Appeals. John has taken up collecting fossils (besides his wife) and fly fishing. He is back doing light duty for Total Reclaim as he continues to heal from surgery. We trust you are happy and well. Feel free to call me some or John sometime or drop us an email if you get the chance!

With Much Love & Wishes for a Happy New Year,
John & Laurie

A Keeper

2009-10-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

My husband is a keeper. I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday. It started Sunday night with a migraine headache and a poor night’s sleep and just went downhill from there. I struggled through the day and was thoroughly despondent by the time I headed for home.

When I got home, there were a dozen peach colored roses in a vase on the table. He said he knew I had a bad day and he wanted to cheer me up. He had also put up the new racks we had bought to hang our coffee mugs on and greeted me with a kiss and a smile. By the time I had fixed and eaten dinner and sat in the hot tub with him for awhile, my whole frame of mind was back where it should be.

Today, I woke up feeling refreshed and in a much better state of mind. I am so thankful for John. What did I ever do without him?

The American Socialist Party

2009-09-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

My dad told this story Sunday night as an illustration in his sermon. I’ve heard it before but it had been quite awhile since the last time he told it. When we lived on Beacon Hill in Seattle, we always shopped at the Safeway down on Rainier Avenue. The American Socialist Party had a semi-permanent booth outside the store and invariably there was some earnest young man or woman appealing to people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and go join a union.

This particular day, the young man was particularly pressing and called to dad as he passed, “Sir, we workers need to unite against “the man” and form unions to establish a more equal society.” My father stopped and riposted, “Young man, I work for the best employer in the world and He has never wronged me.” It sucked the wind right out of the kid’s sails and the best he could come up with was “WHO do you work for?” Dad smiled at him and said “I am a minister of the gospel and I work for the Living God. He has never wronged me and it is my privilege to work for Him.” The boy was left speechless.

The Cornerstone of Marriage

2009-09-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

When I first started out working in the legal field, I worked for a small two man law firm in a small town. They did a little bit of everything – lots of wills, estate planning stuff, some real estate contracts and “family” law. Family law was mainly divorce and custody battles. It gave me a distinct distaste for divorce which I have to this day.

As a little girl, divorce was still not that common. I had only one or two kids in my class whose parents were divorced. By the time I got to high school, divorce was becoming more of an everyday, ordinary experience. Several classmates had divorced parents or parents that were headed that direction. This was about as close as I ever got to the divorce experience.

After I started at the law firm, I had a lot to learn about everything to do with the law so the first few months were occupied with that. Once that was finished, I was able to devote more of my mental energies to our clients as they came and went. I like people and I am always interested in their stories and backgrounds. One man in particular I remember, he was older to me but I realize now he was probably only 35 or so and was going through a divorce. His wife had left him with some small children and more than once these were deposited with me to keep an eye on while he met with the attorney. He would spend his entire time with the attorney weeping over the end of his marriage. He always came in looking spent and left with red-rimmed eyes. It was very depressing for my attorney and I felt so heartily sorry for the man and his family.

I had not thought about him for many years but I recently saw him again. Well, it wasn’t the same man actually but it was the same look. I was lending a hand up at the front desk here at the court last week when a man came up to the window. At first I was a little suspicious that he was a felon because most people that come to the court are either a) attorneys, b) legal messengers, c) felons, d) other pro se individuals, e) private investigators or f) the press and each group have pretty distinct appearances.

This man clearly worked some kind of manual labor job because he was dusty and grubby. He also looked a little shifty at first which is what set off my felon alert. He had come to withdraw his appeal because he could not afford to pursue it. He was very worried because we had a set a court’s motions for dismissal or sanctions for failure to file something or other and he didn’t want to end up in trouble with the court so he had brought in the documentation to withdraw his appeal.

I found his case and realized that he was appealing some aspect of his divorce from the lower court. Then I looked more carefully at the man. His eyes were a little red-rimmed, he was fighting for his self control and he looked exhausted and beaten. I was very gentle with him as I finished taking his documents and reassured him that he would not be in any trouble with the court at all. As I watched him go, his shoulders sagging, I had an almost overwhelming urge to go after him and offer to buy him a cup of coffee. He looked like he needed a friend. I didn’t because it would not have been ethical or appropriate to do so but I did breathe a prayer for him and his family.

I know that there are times and situations when divorce is not just inevitable but imperative to protect one’s person or life or those of one’s children. I also know that divorce is part of our world today but I don’t have to like it. When John and I were moving toward getting married, we had some long hard talks about marriage and our expectations. One of the things important to him and to me was that we would not consider divorce an option that was open to us. If we married, it was to be the until-death-us-do-part kind of partnership. We had to think long and hard about that before we even got engaged. It was scary. It was difficult. In the end, it meant that we felt a mutual commitment to the life-long success of our marriage. Love is important in a marriage but commitment is its cornerstone.

Hogs and quiches

2009-08-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

My dad just called me to talk to me for a minute. Before he said goodbye to me, he said, “Hogs and quiches.” This is our strange little family saying for hugs and kisses. It made me think about all those odd little family sayings, nicknames and jokes that most every family has. My mother’s extended family abounds with nicknames. She has an uncle “Swede” and her grandfather was always known as Beano.

My father’s extended family, being English, abounds in strange little phrases and family stories. When my dad pours a cup of tea from the teapot and it is too weak, he says we need to “show it to the pictures”. This comes from my great-grandmother who had a friend that would never put enough tea into the teapot because she was a cheapskate. Instead, she would pick up the teapot and use it as a pointer. She would wave it about and tell my great-grandmother to “look at that lovely photo of Susan” or “isn’t that a good likeness of Ethel” in order to get the tea to steep well enough to be drinkable.

We have lots of tea related sayings. “Water bewitched and tea begrudged” is what you say if the tea is weak. “Kisses and lies go to the side but a gift stays in the middle” refers to the bubbles that form on the tea’s surface after a good stirring. “Better to burst bellies than to waste good tea” means you’d better finish the pot rather than throw tea away.

I’m not sure when or where hogs and quiches originated but it is always makes me smile to hear my father say it to me.

The Hardbound Book

2009-07-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

I like to read. Unfortunately, I also lead a very busy life that doesn't leave me with much time to sit down and get lost in a good book. A few years ago, I joined a book group in order to get myself disciplined to not only read regularly but to comprehend and be prepared to discuss a book. It did help and we have read some great books together. It also has reawakened my desire to make time to read no matter what.

One of my favorite indulgences is to go out and purchase a brand new hardbound book. Usually it is by an author that I am already familiar with and whose newest book I am anxiously anticipating. Very occasionally, I buy a hardcover edition of a new book by an author with whom I am unfamiliar because the book has caught my imagination and I don't want to wait six months to find it on a used bookstore shelf. Sometimes, I have been disappointed that I purchased a hardback book at full price but mostly, I'm not sorry when I do.

Earlier this month, I was at Powell's in Portland, Oregon (a must-visit bookstore) and while my husband browsed through geology and history, I made my way to the literature section and hunted down a copy of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. I have not read anything by this author before and I don't know that I will read her other books but this novel has caught my fancy and so I plunked down full price for a gorgeous, hardbound copy. Just the feel of it, the weight of it, makes me anxious to read it straight through. I will try and write a review after I have finished and let you know if it was worth it.

Novels I have purchased at full price in hardcover without regret in no particular order:

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

A Common Life: The Wedding Story by Jan Karon

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper (a memoir not a novel but worth every penny)

The Birthday Beach Ball

2009-07-02T09:27:00.001-07:00

I love my niece. She is six years old now. I called her Tuesday morning to talk to her a little bit on my birthday. We usually have the "shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings" type of conversation. We talked a bit about the hair pretties that I had sent to her the week before. I sent them because she had cut her own hair. As usual, the result was not perhaps what was hoped for and my sister had been hopping mad at her for it. Granted it was the THIRD time she had cut her own hair with disasterous results so her mother had a right to be upset. I sent the hair bands and bows because I felt sorry for her. EVERY girl cuts her own hair and ends up with a questionable outcome at least once in her life.

After hair, our conversation turned to my neighbor's swimming pool. I told her that Uncle John and I had been for a swim the day before and that when she comes to visit in August, she could go swimming with us. Then I said we would blow up the air mattresses and float around in the pool. She thought this sounded like a good idea. I mentioned that Uncle John and I did not have a beach ball and that we were going to get one to play with in the pool. My niece then said "Well, maybe you should just wait for your birthday." This remark went straight over my head. I thought how like a child to tell you to wait for your birthday to get something you want and then gave no further mental acuity to it.

That night when I opened my birthday presents after dinner, there was a small flat package marked "From Marta" that my sister had sent in the box with my other gifts. I opened it and burst out laughing because there was the beach ball. I was so tickled that she had managed not to tell me while still giving me the large, economy-sized hint that a beach ball I would have but not until my birthday!

Miss Potter

2009-06-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

I adore Netflix. I've been a member for quite a few years now. I joined up when they first got going. I really enjoy a good movie. My husband really enjoys any movie that has explosions, aliens, gun fights and car chases so it is sometimes difficult to find a movie that we both like. However, I will say my husband is a good sport and will often sit down and watch a movie of my choosing.

My last selection was Miss Potter about the life of Beatrix Potter who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit and many other well-loved children's stories. She also illustrated them with some of the most charming sketches and watercolors that I have ever seen. The story takes place in and around London and also in the Lake District in England where she spent her later middle years. It was acted and filmed with a restraint that was delightful. I would highly recommend it next time you want a movie that is charming, a true story and full of beautiful views of the English country side.

Red High Heels

2009-06-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I went out shopping with my soon to be sister-in-law. She needed a dress for my wedding and I was shopping for clothes for my honeymoon. If Jennifer had not been with me, I probably would never have tried on or even bought a pair of bright red patent peep toe pumps to go with a gorgeous filmy black and white dress I had just purchased.

But she was and I did.

I adored those shoes! I wore them every chance I got but especially with the black and white dress. I wore them to church, to work, out for dinner and sometimes just around the house because I could. I wore them one day to work when I was having some furniture picked up after hours and had to work late.

Since the red shoes were built for beauty and not for comfort, I had also wisely taken along a pair of black flats so that I could supervise the moving men without having to strut around in 4 inch heels at the end of very long day. I put the red shoes away carefully, took care of the furniture move and went home.

It was the last I saw of my red shoes for nearly one full year.

I was so unhappy with myself for losing my red shoes. I looked high and low. I asked the building lost and found in case I had left them laying somewhere by accident during the furniture move. I tore apart my car, my closet and looked in several unlikely locations for my shoes. Finally, I had to resign myself to their loss. Jennifer and my mother urged me to go out and get another pair of red shoes but I never got around to it.

Last night while searching for my husband's little binoculars, I found my red shoes. We had taken the binoculars to the opera and he claimed I had put them in my purse at the end of the opera. Now the purse I had taken to the opera had been emptied into a different purse quite some time ago but to be a good sport, I looked in the purse again along with my two tiny opera purses without finding them. So, in case I had remembered wrong about which purse I had carried, I dug out my other purses and in doing so found my red shoes in my black purse with the red cherries on it. I don't know why or how my red shoes were in that bag but there they were, smiling up at me. Needless to say, I was completely distracted and overjoyed at the discovery of my red shoes, my husband had to continue his search alone. I had found my red shoes!

He eventually found the binoculars in his camera bag.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

2009-06-08T14:58:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan. The subtitle for the book is How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. It was made into a movie not long ago but I haven't seen it yet.

I was attracted to this book for a number of reasons. One was the picture of the Ryan family (left) that appears on the book's cover. Another was the subtitle and description of the book on its back cover. My mother is the oldest of 10 children so that was yet another reason. Also, I am sometimes sorry that I missed the 1950's and early 1960's in America. It seems like a simpler time but I think it is because it has become idealized that way.

In fewer than 350 pages, Terry Ryan tells her family's story in a completely down-to-earth manner but without becoming sordid. The truth was that their father was an alcoholic -- sometimes violent and always difficult when he was drinking. He spent roughly $30 of his $90 a week salary on drink initially and eventually even more. But his alcoholism is merely a backdrop for the real story.

Their mother, Evelyn Ryan, was a contester. She entered every jingle, slogan and other contest she could to help make ends meet. With 10 kids, she could not work outside the home and so she spent every spare minute she had entering the Burma Shave, Dial, Dr. Pepper, Beech Nut Gum and other contest that she possibly could often entering multiple times under various versions of her name and her children's names. On average, she won at least some prize in 1 out of every 4 contests that she entered. Sometimes these wins were significant and, in one case, kept the family from foreclosure.

In the face of extreme difficultly, Evelyn triumphed over and over again. She had a buoyancy of spirit, a sense of humor and a love of her children that drove her against fantastically long odds to persevere in spite of it all. I find it hard to explain fully why I liked this book so well. I always enjoy a good true story but this one could so easily have drifted into maudlin territory and it never did. It has a "just the facts, ma'am" style but still maintains a warm family feeling to it at the same time.

Evelyn Ryan passed away in 1998 and her daughter, the author of the book, Terry Ryan, lost her life to Stage IV brain cancer in 2007. Go get the book and read it.

The New Foal

2009-05-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day, my husband and I took his younger half siblings to see his co-worker's new foal. The little guy was born May 20th so he is brand new. We had beautiful weather and gorgeous views of Mount Rainier as we drove down.

Wendy and my husband have worked together for many years and she was the one friend he invited to our very small, private wedding. She is a lovely lady and was very generous with her time yesterday showing us around her place and introducing us to all the horses.

I enjoyed getting to celebrate this new little life on Memorial Day and I am so thankful for all those men and women who serve in our armed forces to make my life possible.

In Memoriam

2009-05-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

On Thursday of last week, my friend lost his battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS). My dad called to tell me. I spent most of the day weeping which both touched me and surprised me. His wife and I went to first grade together and were very close as children. We have stayed in touch over the years and while we are not very close as adults, we are still friends.

Two years ago, they came home from the mission field because Jesse was having some troubling symptoms. He was officially diagnosed with ALS. In April of 2007, they travelled to Costa Rica to undergo some experimental treatment involving stem cells. While it did bring a temporary slowing of the disease, it was no cure. They settled here in Washington and very soon he was wheelchair bound. When I last saw him in February, he could not even speak anymore but when I came through the door and when I left, he gave me a smile that filled the room.

In the last sermon I heard him preach from his wheelchair at our church, he talked about WHY? Whenever something like this happens, it is a very human tendency to ask why is this happening to me? He then went on to talk about how we need God's Wisdom, to have Humility and to Yield to God's will: W.H.Y. It was one of the sweetest and most touching sermons I have ever heard in my life. I am still amazed at Jesse's courage and his willingness to accept what had happened to him. Disease was never part of God's original plan for humanity but Jesse knew that God had a plan for him in spite of disease.

He leaves behind his wife and my childhood friend, Lisa. He also leaves behind four sons -- the youngest is 8 and the oldest is 16. My husband and I will be going to the graveside and memorial services on Saturday to remember this very remarkable man who is in heaven now.

I have not talked about my faith on this site before because I tend to be a bit private about matters of faith and belief. This doesn't mean it is trivial or unimportant to me. I know what I believe (Jesus loves me this I know) and why (for the Bible tells me so) and I also know that I will see Jesse again in heaven one day. In a time of loss, that knowledge is an amazing consolation.

Special K Chocolatey Delight

2009-05-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Soooooooooooo, I was suckered into buying a box of this cereal recently. The advertising for it especially on T.V. was ingenious. Plus, I love chocolate. However, I have some hard, fast rules about breakfast cereal with "chocolate" anywhere in the name in some form or another. There are certain things I have come to expect when a cereal advertises as being chocolate or cocoa. The big rule is this: when I am done eating the cereal any milk left in the bowl will be chocolate milk.

You may imagine my colossal disappointment when I finished my very first bowl of Special K Chocolatey Delight to discover the milk in the bottom of the bowl was still just plain old milk with a few hunks of less than excellent chocolate chunks submerged in what was left. I was underwhelmed to say the least and the 8 year old girl that still resides in me was almost in tears. No chocolate milk. I looked sadly into the bowl and very nearly vowed a vow to eat no more of the cereal. It could rot in the cupboard for all I cared.

The next morning as I sleepily packed my husband's lunch for work, I had an inspiration with regard to the cereal! I was so excited. I whipped out the box of Special K Chocolately Delight and poured myself another bowl. I positively danced over to the fridge and got out the milk. I poured it over the cereal and then I reached for my inspiration: Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa Mix to the rescue! I sprinkled a very generous teaspoon or so over the cereal. I sat down and ate the cereal and with a triumphant TA-DA to my 8 year old self I beheld a beautiful sight! CHOCOLATE MILK! I was happy the entire rest of the day and the little girl inside was too and let me tell you she is far more difficult to please than I am.

Emerald City Comicon

2009-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, my husband and I went to the Emerald City Comicon. It is Seattle's comic book convention. We went last year and we got there about an hour after it opened and wandered around for awhile. There were a lot of people last year but we didn't have to wait in line to get in or anything.

This year was a whole new ball of wax. We got to the convention center shortly before the ECCC was due to open and headed for the area of the convention center where it had been held the previous year. At the top of the escalator, we were directed to get in a line for the Comicon. We had already purchased tickets like last year so we figured we would get in pretty quickly. WRONG! The line snaked all over the convention center it turned out! It took us nearly an hour to reach the front of the line.

Evidently the convention center had and hadn't prepared for the crowds that showed up. There were people in line by 6 A.M. and when we got in line there were 1,000 people in front of us at least and about that many were behind us in a matter of minutes. We shuffled up, down and around and back and forth before we could even SEE the entrance. Fortunately, the convention center put the Comicon in their largest venue this year. Good thing too because it was PACKED.

The ONLY reason I agree to go to the Comicon at all is because Dave Kellett and the guys from Halfpixel are there every year. Dave draws Sheldon (see: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/) and he is always at the convention. Part of the fun of going to see him is that when you buy his newest book he puts an original sketch in it for you. So, this year, I added Nerds on Parade to my collection and he very kindly drew General Zod for me inside the cover. Since I was asking for an unusal character sketch I brought him a pug magnet and a roll of HobNobs as a bribe and because I think he is a super person. He is always so delighted to see his fans and always cheerful and chatty.

My husband went into full on DORK MODE and thoroughly enjoyed himself. He bought some little Star Trek ships. He contemplated a large Hell Boy statue which I am VERY thankful he decided against. He pointed out various people in costume and told me who they were supposed to represent and which comic book or T.V. show the character was from which was wasted on me but very nice of him nonetheless. We looked at all kinds of merchandise but probably our very favorite thing was a t-shirt that said: UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE GIVEN AN ESPRESSO AND A FREE KITTEN. It was a tan t-shirt with brown lettering otherwise I think we both would've bought one.

After a bit, the crowds started to get to John and we headed for the door. We are debating about whether we will bother going next year. I imagine, like the pain of childbirth, we will forget about the horrible crowds by the time next year rolls around and go again.

The Illustrated Man

2009-04-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

So, I got into a little argy bargy with my cousin last week. She had posted some pictures of her tummy on FaceBook because she is tracking her 3 month old pregnancy in pictures month by month. She is 18 and has only been married a few months but they are already expecting their first child. I was appalled to discover that she has gotten two tattoos just below her stomach of two birds. I was a little shocked and I said so which she did not appreciate. I was told that I was being "judgmental" and it was a trivial matter, etc. I shot back that I was just being honest with her when I told her I didn't really approve and that I was shocked that she would get a tattoo.

Now, this may sound old fashioned and I imagine I will take flak from others because of how I feel about tattooing but I am okay with that. I am still entitled to my opinion as she is to hers. I have had a long fascination with tattoos and tattooing. I personally know a man that has gecko tattoo that he is ashamed to have now. I also knew an older man that had been tattooed when he was younger and when he got to be older, the tattoo was just a blurred outline on his skin and you could barely tell what it was supposed to be. Add to it that he had grown a thick coat of white hair on his arms and it was downright hideous to see that old tattoo standing out blue and livid but covered with white hair.

Now I come to my point about tattooing. On men, I don't mind tattoos so much but I am still not a big fan of them. No matter what it is and no matter where it is, tatoos look trashy on women. I have several friends that have them: a rose, a tiger, a Tweedy bird. None of their tatoos are that attractive to me but they at least had the sense to have them on their shoulder or their bicep where they won't migrate that much with age. My cousin with bird tattoos on her cute little flat tummy now, will soon have them stretched out of shape by pregnancy and then sag as she ages. I imagine they will be down to her knees by the time she is 80. The girls with the pin striping tattoos on their lower back? Well, in 30 years those tattoos are going to be on the backs of their upper thighs! Every young person that gets a tattoo today should ask themselves seriously: Am I really going to still want this when I am 80?

The picture I used today is the 1952 cover from The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury which is a collection of short stories that all thread together around two men, one of whom is tattooed all over. As they sleep next to each other, the tattoos on the illustrated man move and tell stories to the other man. The final story the man sees is of the illustrated man strangling him to death. It is a fascinating set of stories and another argument for not getting tattooed.

Wonderful and Amazing

2009-03-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's post was snarky. I thought I would make up for it by showing you all that is wonderful and amazing in my life:

The Horrors of Facebook

2009-03-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

I went to high school in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula. (Not Forks for all you Twilight fans) It was a very small private school. I got a really excellent education but I never did like small town life very well. All the people that became lasting friends from those years, moved out of that town almost as fast as I did.

Recently, on Facebook, several acquaintances from those years have sent me Friend Requests. And because I don't dislike them, I've added most of them as friends for the purposes of FB. Some of them have been posting pictures from my high school days. There are class pictures and other candid shots where I am tagged. It doesn't really bother me because I was pretty photogenic and slender in those days and I went in for more the Pat Benatar look as opposed to the gigantic hair look which was fortunate.

In a sick kind of way, it has been fun to reconnect with my old schoolmates and see what they are all up to now. Especially, since I have some pretty vivid memories of kids that grew up in that town saying how they were going to move away as soon as they could. Guess what? They didn't. I did. I am amazed at who is married with a bajillion (its a word, look it up) kids and who is STILL single. Some of their stories are hum drum, some are sad (like a classmate of my sister's with 8 children and her husband of 10 plus years walked out on her last year), some are mysterious and some are just plain strange.

Some of them have not been amused to be tagged in old photos for whatever reason. My problem has been that I simply don't remember some of the kids in my class photos. We are talking 30 people in the entire high school and I just don't remember them! It has only been 20 years since I graduated and yet I seem to have blocked out whole people from my memories. I hope that I was more memorable than they were.

The posted picture is from my senior year. We did a production of Little Women. I REALLY wanted to play Jo but I was working part time and couldn't spare enough time for rehearsals so the director said. She had me be Aunt March instead because she only had 2 scenes and they could "work" around me. So I am second from the end on the right in black. Some other time I will tell you the story of how I made that part so memorable that people still (!) remember me playing Aunt March and mention it whenever I see them. It just happened last year in fact.

The Unbearable Randomness of iPod

2009-03-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, my husband suprised me with an iPod Nano. I had hankered after an iPod in kind of a vauge non-comittal way since they first came out. After I got my iPod, I wondered how I ever LIVED without it.

That being said, I do love my iPod but I loathe iTunes with a hate that I normally reserve for people who talk on their cell phones in restaurants. I can upload junk to my iPod no problem but I do not understand iTunes. I find it hard to use and frustrating and a little bit psycho too. I think I may eventually have to take a class in order to get it figured out. (By the way, I am pretty tech saavy to start with so don't go gettin' all up in my grill about how I need to learn to use a computer.)

Today, while doing a somewhat mindless job here at work, I popped my iPod in my pocket and put on my headphones. Since I wasn't sure what I wanted to listen to, I went to Music on the menu. Then I went to Songs on the sub menu and started at the beginning of the list. I have over 500 songs and the iPod puts them in hand-dandy alphabetical order. Here is what I got to hear this morning:

The ABC Song from Sesame Street as played by the Boston Pops
Ain't That Just Like A Dream by Tim McGraw
Alberta (the MTV unplugged version) by Eric Clapton
All Star by Smash Mouth (GUARANTEED to put a spring in your step)
Always You by Sophie Zelmani
America by Simon & Garfunkel
Angel Band by The Stanley Brothers
Angelia/Zooma Zooma by Louis Prima
Animal House theme song from the movie soundtrack
Annie's Song by John Denver
Annie Laurie by The King's Singers
Anon from CHANT as sung by Benedictine monks
Anything Goes by Frank Sinatra

And the list goes on and on. I made it as far as Bein' Green (it isn't easy bein' green) also performed by the Boston Pops. The sheer goofiness of playing music this way kept me listening and laughing. I was never sure what song and artist I was going to hear next. My friend, JacQualine, was listening to her iPod too as we worked and at one point I turned to her and said, "Do you sometimes wonder why in the world you put a song on your iPod?" I had just listened to April in Paris as performed first by Ella & Louis and then by Frank and realized that I didn't really like the song no matter who sang it. She just nodded her head and laughed.

Wayside Chapel

2009-02-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

When my husband and I were dating, we spent a lot of time sharing memories with each other. It was amazing what we had in common. One such memory was stopping with our family on our way to or from eastern Washington at the Wayside Chapel. We had even joked about having our wedding at the Wayside Chapel because we figured it would only seat a few people and we could have a small "church" wedding that way. His mom and stepfather used to stop there with him and his brothers when they went to their property in Tonasket. My folks would usually give in to my sister's and my begging to stop there on our way to a friend's cabin outside of Gold Bar.

We went to Leavenworth, Washington this summer for a camping trip with my family. On the way home, we took Stevens Pass which wends its way through several little hamlets. All of a sudden on the right was the Wayside Chapel! I turned on the signal and pulled off next to it. We got out and went inside.

It smelled musty (a general state for any empty building in damp Washington) and it was dusty and cobwebby but otherwise, much as we had remembered it. The little pulpit was still there and the tiny pews that would seat two people on each side of the aisle were still there too. We had a look around grinning like idiots. If we had been children instead of staid adults, we would've played church. Instead, we closed the door behind us, took a few pictures and climbed into the car and went on our way.

Sisters

2009-02-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

My sister is five years younger than me. In spite of this age difference, we really got along very well as children and played together a lot. Occasionally, when I was between 10 and 13, I didn't like her tagging along with me and my friends but mostly, we got along just fine. As my mother would say, we were EXPECTED to do so.

I went off to college when she was 12. After that, our relationship changed. She became much more independent and sure of herself. For the first time, she had our parents to herself. At the same time, I found out how much I missed her while I was so far away from home. We went from getting along well as sisters to becoming best friends.

When she went off to college, she came to live with me as my place was closer to the university than our parents' house. For seven truly wonderful years, we lived together in a nice apartment in the city. At first, we didn't have much -- she was on scholarship at school and I was at the beginning of my career -- but we had a lot of fun. Later as we became more financially secure, we did so many delightful things together from going out to dinner, to movies, to see a Broadway musical, to opera at the university and many other activities. Those were our halcyon days as sisters.

Then came a time in my career when I was traveling almost constantly and she was teaching school. It was during this time when she met the man who would become her husband. I was maid of honor at her wedding and while I was very happy for her, I was sad for me. I felt at the time that was losing a sister not gaining a brother. I felt the distance between us keenly. It was the emotional distance not a physical one and while it was necessary, it wasn't pleasant.

They moved to Colorado for a few years. I went to visit when I could and we kept in touch via the telephone and email. My beautiful niece was added to the equation six years ago. I loved seeing my sister become a mother. When my niece was three, they moved back to our state. It is a six hour drive from our house to their house but closer than Colorado.

Then two wonderful things happened: instant messaging and my own marriage. My sister works on a computer doing medical transcription and I work on a computer doing case management. We both have instant messaging so while we work, we can also talk to each other. This has allowed us to have a relationship more like it was when we lived with each other. We can "talk" to each other every day. Also, I got married in April and my situation and hers have become more similar. We can talk to each other not only as sisters but as wives.

A few days ago, while she was out running, my sister was knocked down and mauled by a dog (Rottweiler/Boxer mix, thanks for asking). She was bitten rather badly, bruised up and shaken up. Fortunately, all's well that ends well but it gave us all a big scare. We have all gone down the "what if" road of this situation and haven't liked what we have seen at the end of it. My dad said it was a sobering reminder of why it is so important to pray for each other. None of us had any idea that this was going to happen but Providence knew and protected her.

I am so thankful for my sister. Now if I could just have a few minutes alone with the owner of that dog, I would feel better.

Workin' for a Livin'

2009-02-05T10:39:00.001-08:00

My past professions have included:

A proof operator at a savings and loan
Doing salad prep for a caterer
Waiting tables at a Bonaza in Des Moines, Iowa
Working in the check department at a savings and loan
Waiting tables at a Golden Corral
Working at a Dairy Queen where I was eventually the assistant manager
Girl Friday at a two man law firm on the peninsula
Receptionist, process specialist, customer specialist and finally, account executive at a large corporation
Case manager and facilities manager for an appellate court

I have also been paid to:

do my uncle's laundry
babysit
housesit
dogsit
do housework for a lady
be on a jury
sing at a funeral

I had my first "real" job at 15 years of age and I have been gainfully employed almost constantly since that time. To date, I have never been "laid off" or fired from any job I've had.

I can't wait to retire in 25 years or so!

25 Random Things About Me

2009-01-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

1. I love fresh flowers.
2. I am afraid of the dark and always have been.
3. My grandmothers have been some of the most influential people in my life.
4. My husband and I have a daschund named Rex, a cat named Shadow and a 55 gallon fish tank.
5. If I say I am going to do something, it gets done if I die, you die and the whole world dies.
6. I learn life lessons the hard way usually.
7. I HATE CARROTS both raw and cooked.
8. I am a much more private person than most people realize.
9. I got to have the exact wedding I wanted to my best friend last year even though not everyone understood.
10. If we had unlimited finances, I would want to travel a lot and do lots of volunteer work for church and the opera and the arts generally.
11. My friends are very important to me and I work hard at friendships. They are worth it.
12. I am a bloodthirsty ice hockey fan.
13. I do not suffer fools gladly or patiently.
14. I have extraordinary and wonderful parents.
15. My sister and I have always been very close despite a 5 year age difference.
16. I hope to eventually read everything Terry Pratchett has written.
17. I am always looking for the fastest and easiest way to do a task because I am lazy. I am always looking for the best way because I am a perfectionist as well.
18. I am closer to my extended family in England than to my extended family in America.
19. The beach (especially on San Juan Island) is our favorite place to be.
20. Cooking isn't a chore for me. I enjoy it and it is more like a hobby.
21. I am not happy about my weight but I am okay with it.
22. My niece can melt my heart with just a look.
23. My husband has made me a better me.
24. I can be hideously sarcastic and cynical and caustic but I try to resist the urge most of the time.
25. Sunshine on my shoulders DOES make me happy.

The Evolution of Cooking

2009-01-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

I have been pondering lately how much cooking has changed through the years. I made shrimp curry today. It is not something my grandmothers or great-grandmothers would have made. Could they have even found the ingredients? Not likely. But now, I can go to my local grocery store and buy a pretty good Thai red curry paste. Add a can of coconut milk (99 cents at Trader Joe's), some fish sauce ($1.49 a bottle at the local Chinese grocery) and some brown sugar and you have a curry sauce for the ages. Throw in some onions, peppers and shrimp and you have a really excellent meal.

My mother talks about going to help her grandmother with the cooking during the threshing season in Iowa in the 50's. They would start the day early by setting the bread before fixing a huge breakfast including biscuits and sausage gravy. Then there would be sweet rolls and coffee mid-morning and at lunch would be a big hot meal like fried chicken, creamed peas & new potatoes and more biscuits and gravy (evidently my great-grandfather had to have that at every meal). Then someone would be sent out with cold drinks and sandwiches in the afternoon and then a big meal at supper too like ham hock and beans and biscuits with tomato gravy. It was long days of cooking and washing dishes.

My grandmother had ten children so every meal included enough food to feed an army. My father recalls when he was dating my mother that whenever he stayed for supper at her house, it felt like a party because there was so much food and so many people. My grandma was well known for her home cooking and she was a master hand at many of the dishes I mentioned in the above paragraph. She didn't do a lot of experimenting because she had a big family to feed and couldn't afford to waste food. She did make some Italian food and when my grandfather became a diabetic she worked on keeping sugars and starches out of their diet. She is also a great source for recipes and I regularly ask her for a recipe of something she has made that I remember fondly such as her oatmeal cookies.

My mother, being the wife of a pastor for forty years, has had to do a lot of entertaining. She has always done a lot of cooking, canning, pickling, baking and experimenting in the kitchen generally. Every year she throws a big Christmas party for the church people and she does all the food. It always includes some particularly impressive finger foods. This year there was a cheese ball that had been shaped and decorated to look like a snow man. She had a cream puff Christmas tree sprinkled with powdered sugar. People come every year just to enjoy looking at and eating her food.

Now we come to me. About a year ago, I came to realize how much I really love to cook and that it was more than a chore for me -- it was a hobby. I love to talk to other people about their cooking and eating experiences. One of the judges at the court where I work loves to bake and we hold quite serious conversations on the merits of various baking methods. At a family reunion, I discovered that one of my cousins shares my passion for cooking (see the Julie Jams blog) and we have become much closer in talking about food in general and organic foods and community supported agriculture in particular. I pour over cookbooks and websites and the Food Network. I subscribe to Bon Apetit and actually make some of their recipes from time to time. I have even made some of Martha Stewart's hideously complicated recipes a few times. (My dad refers to any recipe that dirties half the dishes in the kitchen as a Martha Stewart recipe.) As my husband says, I love to cook and he loves to eat so its the perfect match.

And it was all this that got me thinking about what a tremendous time it is for cooks particularly in America. We can get all kinds of unusual and exotic ingredients and spices. We can make Indian curry, Filipino lumpia, Greek baklava, Spanish paella and a host of other ethnic foods. I can get fresh fruit, fish, meat and veggies year round. I have access to Hungarian paprika and Creole seasoning and fresh ground pepper. In other words, the world is my oyster!

Mr. Sudsy Car Washes

2009-01-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

The NO CHANGE light had been blinking on the lobby copier for two days. After finally eking out some time to investigate, she opened up the change dispenser and jiggled it about for a bit. What appeared to be a Canadian Toonie dropped onto the floor, she picked it up to examine the coin more closely. She looked down at the Mr. Sudsy Car Washes token in her hand. The logo on the center of it showed a man made of bubbles carrying a bucket in his right hand. He wore a drum major’s hat and in his left hand, raised like a baton, was a tiny mop.

It was always nice to have one’s faith in human nature confirmed.

Seriously, some person plugged a car wash token in the Washington State Court of Appeals lobby machine copier. The same copier that is there for the use and convenience of the public and charges an exorbitant fifteen cents per page. Due to the Mr. Sudsy token, Xerox had to be called to come and restore function to the copier because the change ended up all over the place and in the wrong slots.

The Birthday Boy

2009-01-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

I come from a family that CELEBRATES birthdays. Your birthday is your day and you should have things just as you want them for your birthday. My husband's birthday is the second of January but because of various circumstances beyond our control, we have been celebrating for almost 2 weeks now.

December 31st -- let him open present, only the one but it was an XBOX 360 Elite which he has been melding with ever since.

January 1st -- made him breakfast in bed, went to see his aunt & uncle and exchange Christmas and receive birthday gifts, pick up his very special order birthday cake (marzipan), went to the Museum of History and Industry, to Ivar's Salmon House for lunch and to the Sci Fi Museum (whoopee).

January 2nd -- went shopping for XBOX 360 games, an extra controller and to the hobby store so he could spend a gift card on 2 box cars for his train set and a collector's edition model of the Starship Enterprise.

January 3rd -- he played XBOX for several hours.

January 4th -- had his mom, step-dad and half-siblings over for the remaining cake and ice cream and to open the gifts from them.

January 5th -- more XBOX.

January 6th -- dinner at The Keg so he could have his free birthday prime rib.

And the celebration continues this Friday night when we go to the Red Robin for his free birthday burger. Now some may find this all to be excessive but remember, my husband is a twin and his birthday falls right on the heels of Christmas. I figure he deserves to have his birthday celebrated with style for a change.

Plus for the next six months he is only four years younger than me instead of five.

Princess Hair and a Party Dress

2008-12-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

I think inside every woman is the little girl that was. There are times when I am 7 years old, times when I am 11 and times when I am 15. This morning I was up and showered early because today is the court's Christmas Party. (I know from a technical standpoint party should not be capitalized in my previous sentence but trust me on this one, it has to be.) Actually, it isn't really a Christmas Party because we cannot have a Christmas Party. For budgetary and political correctness reasons, it is an Employee Recognition Event but really it is a Christmas Party.

Well, since it is PARTY DAY, I took extra time with my hair to do it in what I secretly refer to myself as my Princess Hair. This involves plenty of smoothing hair product, a hairdryer, hot rollers, hairspray and my secret weapon for the Princess Hair, two tiny hair clips with silver stars affixed to them. After a certain amount of spitting and swearing (not really, Mom), I managed to subdue my superfine, unruly, burnet hair into two neat rolls pinned in place with the stars and a cascade of curls below. (At least that is how I tell myself it looks when I get done.)

Also since it is PARTY DAY there must be a Party Dress. When I was 7 my ideal Party Dress was anything with a full circle skirt, a ribbon tie at the waist and puffed or sheer sleeves. In my heart of hearts, that is still what a Party Dress should look like. However, at 37, I seriously doubt I could successfully carry something like that off so instead, I have a black dress with a blue design that my husband thinks looks like eyes and I think look like peacock feathers. It is a good cut for my figure (which at best could be described as Rubenesque). So now, with my Princess Hair and my Party Dress, I am ready to face the day.

My boss just warned me that if it starts to snow, the party will be cancelled.

A Sourdough Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T07:20:00.000-08:00

I just finished putting a double batch of sourdough in the oven to raise. In two hours, I will make it into rolls and let it raise for two more hours and then I will bake them into the MOST delicious sourdough rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

I have been fascinated with sourdough starter since I was a child. My mother had both Herman cake and Amish Friendship bread starter fermenting on the counter and in the fridge as I was growing up. I was always very interested in the end result of those starters but since I've grown up, my obsession has been with sourdough.

I think it began with one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (By the Shores of Silver Lake, I believe) when Laura describes to a guest how to make sourdough starter and bread. From that time to this, I have hankered after having my own starter.

Recently, King Arthur Flour had a deal where if you bought their stoneware crock you would get the starter to put in it for free. I had almost bought the crock and starter several times before but it was a bit dear so I had resisted. Well, if they were going to offer me such a deal, I was bound and determined to take advantage of it. I tried to order it a few days later and the website said it was not available. Undeterred (a deal is a deal after all), I called the company directly and they said that they had pulled it from the website because the overwhelming response they had to the offer had caused them to run out. They kindly took a back order for me and in late summer my crock and starter arrived.

I carefully followed the directions and then left everything sitting on the counter to "proof". My husband wandered out into the kitchen a little later and picked up the directions and perused them. Then he called out to me and said "Honey, it says you have to feed the sourdough." and I replied "Yes." and then there was a long pause and a slightly worried voice call out "WHAT do you FEED it? Small villages? The cat?" Needless to say, I cracked up and then went to explain the wonders of sourdough to my husband.

Since that time I have used the starter to make quick breads (zucchini and banana), waffles, a tomato based sourdough bread, a sourdough bread with instant yeast and traditional sourdough bread. They have all been really delicious with an extra gold star for the waffles and the traditional sourdough bread. So go out and get yourself some starter or make some from scratch. I recommend the sourdough starter from King Arthur. They can trace its provenance from the 1700's. As far as I know you only feed it flour and water but you may want to watch out for the cat when the starter is out fermenting on the counter.

The Minds of the Jurors

2008-11-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

Today, I had to bailiff. When I first started working for the court, I loved getting to bailiff. Now, not so much. Banging the gavel is not the thrill it once was. Also, listening to arguments has lost its charm. Today, I listened to arguments on the finer points of contract, dependency and criminal law. After the criminal cases, I usually want to take my brain out and wash it. Today was no exception. In listening to the two attorneys try and make their case for what was in the minds of the jurors was enough to make you want to smack your head against a wall repeatedly. Unfortunately, they frown on you doing that while court is in session around here for some reason.

John Denver & Friends

2008-11-20T10:20:00.001-08:00

"Friends, I will remember you, think of you, pray for you and when another day is through, I'll still remember you."

I've been thinking about my friends a lot lately. My father once told me that I had the gift of friendship. He told me that he admired how well I kept track of my friends and it inspired him to be better about doing the same. It is one of the nicest things my dad has ever said to me which is really saying something because he says a lot of nice things. I hope that I live up to those kind words.

I will say, I have a lot of close friends and a lot of other friends too. At my wedding shower, someone commented when I introduced everyone that I also said something about each of them and they all fell into some group or other. I had friends from my current job, friends from my former job (like the group pictured), friends from church, friends from book group, friends from Curves, friends that are family and so on and so forth.

Now what, may you ask, does John Denver have to do with all this? I am a huge fan of John Denver's music. I know this will leave me open to ridicule but so be it. A lot of his songs have to do with friendship including the lyrics that begin this post. In Poems, Prayers and Promises and This Old Guitar and several other of his songs he sings about the importance of his friends in his life. I really relate to that.

One of the most difficult things that has ever happened to me is damage to a long standing friendship. I don't lose friends. I have drifted apart from friends due to distance or changing interests but I don't lose them. In fact, I have often gone to great lengths to maintain friendships and to keep communication flowing with a friend even when we disagree. I am loud and opinionated and so I do disagree with my friends on occasion but I don't end friendships over foolish things like that. For the first time since I was a child, I had what I believe to be a nearly irreparable break with a friend this past year. A few people really close to me know about it but I haven't generally talked about it. It has been painful.

I won't describe or go into detail here about what happened. The bottom line is I wouldn't give in to something a friend wanted me to do for her and, instead of respecting my decision, she whined, complained and let loose a steady stream emotional blackmail and abuse that has continued for months. It has grieved me as much as if this person had died. It is now to the point that even if she does eventually apologize and we move back into friendship, I will not trust her again and our friendship has been forever changed. (She is not in the picture above by the way. )

Yet with all that, I still think of her as "friend" and so:

"Friends, I will remember you, think of you, pray for you and when another day is through, I'll still remember you."

So Much Water

2008-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Is there anything worse in the entire world then stepping unexpectedly onto sopping wet carpet in stocking feet? If there is, I don't want to know. This morning after feeding the fish, I decided to run into the spare room and check email before getting ready for work. I stepped into the doorway of the room and the carpet went "squish". I took another step "squish" and two more "squish, squish" and the water soaked through my socks. I turned and RAN for the telephone and used the intercom to call the landlords (aka my parents) to come down to the apartment immediately and help me trace the source of so much water.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a leaky hose leading the to hot water heater and not the heater itself or a burst pipe or some other awful and expensive problem. The hose was spraying water and appeared to have done so for several hours but nothing was terribly damaged. It did make me a tad late for work. I ran the steam cleaner to pick up the excess water. By the time I stopped, I had filled and emptied the tank five times. It was extremely fortuitous that I had stepped into the spare room at all this morning as we would have had a disastrous mess by this evening if I hadn't! As it is, the spare room carpet will likely smell like a wet yak has moved in there for a week or two. Thank heaven for small mercies.

Breakfast and Books

2008-11-10T14:13:00.001-08:00

My favorite breakfast these days is peanut butter and honey oatmeal. Get yourself some Quaker quick oats. Bring about 3 cups of water to a boil and add just under a cup of oatmeal and a pinch of salt. Don't let it boil over! Boil gently for about 2 minutes. Pour into strainer and strain off excess water and nudge the oatmeal into a bowl. Stir in a generous tablespoon of smooth peanut butter and top with a generous serving of honey. Then EAT IT!

My book group is reading Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith for our December meeting. I listened to it and then went back and listened to the first book in the series 44 Scotland Street and the second book in the series Espresso Tales. I have read several of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series also by Smith but I really prefer the Scotland Street series. It was originally written as a serial for The Scotsman in Edinburgh and owes a big debt to Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. It follows the various residents that live at 44 Scotland Street and their friends and neighbors. It has wonderful characters including, Matthew (the art gallery owner), Pat (his employee and now girlfriend formerly of Scotland Street), Angus (the portrait painter), Cyril (his dog), Big Lou (owner of the coffee bar), Domenica (anthropologist and Scotland Street resident), Bertie (a precocious 6 year old) and Irene & Stewart (his parents, also all of Scotland Street) and a cast of many others. The stories tend to be slow moving but not slow. I am especially taken with Pat and Bertie for their sweetness and innocence. Anyway, I recommend the series if you are wanting a light and easy read.

Pumpkin Butter Cake

2008-10-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

So I made Paula Deen's Pumpkin Butter Cake last night. I have to say, this is a serious crowd pleaser anytime of year (if you like pumpkin). We are having a little Halloween celebration today at work. They are so popular that I get requests!

See link for recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-gooey-butter-cakes-recipe/index.html

Sick

2008-10-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

John is at home sick with a cold. I have it too but I seem to be on the mend while he is just coming down with it. I fixed him hot cocoa and oatmeal, fed him Tylenol and Alka-Seltzer Cold Medicine before going off to work myself. I imagine we are in for a few days of moaning and groaning until he is well again.

This is my second cold this fall. ENOUGH ALREADY! We got our flu shot so hopefully, we will be healthier the rest of the season.

Song Lyrics

2008-10-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

I’m Sadie, Sadie, married lady,
Bow when I go by.
I’m a corporation now,
Not me, myself and I.
Oh how that marriage license works
On chambermaids and hotel clerks.
Oh, sit me in the softest seat,
Quick, a cushion for my feet.
Do for me, buy for me, lift me, carry me,
Finally got a guy to marry me!
I do my nails,
Read up on sales,
All day the records play.
Then he comes home, I tell him
Oy--what a day I had today!
I swear I’ll do my wifely job,
Just sit at home--become a slob!

Funny Girl

2008-10-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have been considering starting a blog for a little while. However, having read the blogs of others, I hesitated to get caught up in the great blogging whatsit. Some are very, very good and therefore, intimidating; some of them are incredibly boring and therefore, cautionary. I think I can strike a happy medium and so have decided to give it a try.

On April 26, 2008, I married my best friend much to my surprise. I had always enjoyed being single. I knew John when we were children. I was his Sunday School teacher when he was a teenager and I was in my twenties. We lost touch for a few years and then we got back in touch in August, 2006. It was at a time when he needed a friend. So we started doing friend things together. After six months or so, he wanted more but I didn't so he waited patiently for two months until I did. By October, 2007 we were engaged. We've been married six months now.

Part of my hesitancy to get married was the prospect of having someone else around all the time for the rest of my life. But, since it is John, I am okay with it. As schmaltzy as it may sound, I am a better me with him. We love each other very much.

The title of my blog comes from the movie Funny Girl. The day after John and I were engaged, I went to my friend, Muriel, and said "I am going to be a Sadie." She immediately sang out "SADIE, SADIE MARRIED LADY!" bless her. I have moved from being a happy singleton to being a happy Sadie.