Watching out the bus window on my way downtown, I saw a young man sitting on the roof of a porch, facing the sun, wearing a pair of shorts. Nothing else. It was 12°. I thought maybe it was some strange life-size blow up doll but then he moved.
The bus kept going but I haven’t been able to get him out of my head and I haven’t been able to come up with even one far-fetched reason he would have been sitting up there, basically naked, on such a cold day.
Any thoughts? Ever done a Polar Plunge?
At the sibling gathering (while I was visiting Nonny in St. Louis earlier this month), someone must have mentioned something about heated floors. I made a note on my post-it note app, assuming (ha ha ha ha) that the words “heated floor” would trigger my memory for what I thought might be a blog piece. Again, ha ha ha ha.
About 25 years ago, I had a site inspection scheduled to San Francisco and Napa. The morning of the trip, the client called to cancel due to his wife’s illness but he told me to go ahead, see what I needed to see and take good notes and pictures. No problem on my part.
The plan for the group was to do a day of wineries and a lovely lunch. However the group was too big to be at any one winery at once (most of the Napa wineries are actually pretty small) so we needed to split up the group. Group A and Group B went to different wineries in the morning, had lunch together at a place that could hold them all and then the groups would flip and do the wineries for the afternoon. Easy peasy, right?
In one long day, I visited 11 wineries to find the four that would work well for the group. Each owner met me, toured me around and… offered me samples. There didn’t feel like a gracious way to turn down the wine. Even though I never finished an entire glass, by the end of the day, I was a bit tipsy. Add to that the weather was chillier than had been forecasted and my coat was not up to the job. By the time we got to the hotel, Meadowood Resort, all I wanted was to have a bit of room service and collapse in a warm bed.
With all that liquid refreshment, I ended up having to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was chilly as I walked across the bedroom and then…. oh my stars… the bathroom floor was warm. The first and last time I’ve personally ever come across heated floor tiles. And of all the times I could truly appreciate them, there they were! When I finally left and headed back to bed, I slept like a baby.
If this wasn’t what I was thinking about when somebody at the sibling gathering mentioned heated floors, then I’m completely in the dark.
If money weren’t an issue, what home improvement would you like to make?
Right before Christmas I discovered that there were two Princess Bride cookbooks. Who knew? You all know me well enough to know that I couldn’t stay away from this. The first one came to the library yesterday… I was outside the library door when they opened.
It’s a fabulous book… lots and lots of glossy stills from the movie and a lot of chat about the filming, in front of and behind the camera. Even without the recipes it’s a fun read.
The recipes themselves are nothing out of the ordinary but the NAMES of the recipes are a hoot. Here are a few:
Normally I like to make one or two recipes from a cookbook like this… just for fun. I’m thinking the Bread Pirate Roberts and the Chips of Insanity are on my list.
Maybe we should have a Princess Bride theme party. The Lightning Sand pudding cookie cups look fun too!
Have you ever been to a fun theme party?
When I was in St. Louis, looking for place close to Nonny’s where I might find an old-fashioned roller shade, I discovered that Fleet Farm was doing a free craft day. Luckily it was after I got home since driving around in St. Louis after their big snowstorm was not my idea of fun. Also luckily the craft event was at all the Fleet Farms, not just the St. Louis locations.
I didn’t have anything scheduled for that morning so headed south to the Lakeville Fleet Farm – about 20 minutes in the Saturday morning traffic. Got there about 10 minutes early so wandered around a bit. Although I was technically first in line, a family with two young boys was right behind me; I left them go first.
It was a pretty easy project. Paint the little jar with modge podge (a kind of craft glue), roll it in fake snowflakes, glue on the two little eyes and carrot nose. Then twist together two pipe cleaners and pick out two cotton “earmuffs”. The staff hot glued the pipe cleaners and earmuffs on the cap of the jar. Then they gave us each a battery operated votive candle for inside the snowglobe.
As a planner at heart, I couldn’t help noticing how I would have done the craft day differently. I would have put modge podge and snowflakes at each of the tables to prevent the big glut at the beginning. I would have checked all the glue bottles to make sure the top notch was clipped off so the glue would come out. And I would have had at least three employees at the hot glue station.
Of course, these are big complaints… the craft was going as well as could be expected when most of the crafters were five and under. I was the first one done and I was walking back to my car, two different families stopped me to look at it, as they were on there way in for the event.
I didn’t really need to drive to Lakeville to do this. By looking at the photo I was pretty sure I actually had all the stuff to make this at home, except for the little votive candle. But it was a pretty morning, I had a good CD for the drive and got a nice coffee before I headed home. I used red and green pipe cleaners so it will be part of my Solstice décor in December. For the time being it’s still sitting on the kitchen counter where I can still admire it every day.
Do you have a relaxing Saturday morning routine?
One of the hallmarks of my annual holiday party is the amount of food – it seems like enough to feed an army. I can’t help myself; there are so many things I like and so many things that others like.
Of course, that much food means lots of leftovers. For the most part this isn’t a problem; YA and I happily nosh on party goodies for days afterwards. Most everything lasts a few days and some things (like the sliced cheese) can go longer if they’re wrapped well.
What doesn’t last too long is the leftover crudite. I wanted carrots, peppers and cauliflower this year. YA wanted broccoli and celery. I also had grape tomatoes left over after making the mozzarella skewers, so I added them to the serving plate with the other veggies. I have to say that most years I end up tossing more veggies than I like so this year I really committed to myself that I would figure out a way to not waste so much.
The first up was ramen with veggies in a peanut sauce. This is something we have a lot at our house but usually I make it with frozen vegetables. I chopped up a couple of cups of veggies, sauteed them then added the ramen and the peanut sauce. Quite tasty.
The next day I made a veggie and cheese frittata (extra points for using some of the leftover cheese). Sauteed chopped veggie, added eggs and cheese and a bunch of spices and baked it up. So easy and yummy.
The last of the veggies went into a soup. I was going to add some pasta but YA wanted potato. I ended up putting some of both in. It made a huge pot, which disappeared pretty quickly.
So for the first time ever we managed to get through all the leftovers on our own, including all the crudite, without having to toss anything!
Did you have any leftovers this holiday season that you had to deal with?
We typically spends New Year’s Eve staying home, drinking in moderation, and going to bed before 9:00. Tonight will be no different. The New Year has never meant much of a change for us, but this January forward will be much different than in the past.
I retire from full-time work January 31. I will be out of the office for the month of February, and then start part time in March. I hope to put in no more than 20 hours a week, doing two evaluations a week and writing the reports. I am a little concerned my agency wants me to do more than I have imagined, as I have been asked to supervise two counseling interns and to continue behavioral consulting at Head Start. They also want me to continue as a consultant to the Youth and Family team and to train staff in diagnosis and treatment planning.
All the while this will be going on, Husband and I will be downsizing and preparing ourselves to move to Minnesota. I think the move will be no later than the spring of 2026. It is very strange to have so much uncertainty in our future after 36 years of much the same activity, people, and tasks.
What does the New Year hold for you? What have been your most uncertain times? How do you celebrate New Year’s Eve?
We went to a very early Christmas Eve Service at 1:30 PM on Tuesday. It was nice to be in the congregation instead of being a church musician. Nice, that is, aside from the three very naughty children in the pew in front of us.
The children in question were apparently cousins sitting between their mothers. One was an 8 year old girl in a green, spangly dress. The other two were brothers, ages about 8 and 4. The girl’s mother was somewhat attentive. The boys’ mother was somewhat inert. Their father was seated on the other side of her from the boys, and he didn’t seem to notice what they were doing.
No one sat still. There was constant movement and activity. The four year old was the major instigator of trouble. The adults had wisely provided crayons and papers to color on, but the four year old decided crayons were weapons to draw on his brother and stick in his brother’s ears. He blew raspberries at his brother and cousin and they pushed and shoved him. Sometimes they tried to ignore him. There were snacks and crackers all over the pew. The boys’ mom sometimes whispered to them to settle down, but did nothing to stop any of the activity. This went on the entire service.
It wasn’t until the four year old decided to start smashing Goldfish Crackers in his brother’s hair that I intervened. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder with my bulletin. He spun around, saw my glare, sat down, and didn’t move for the rest of the service. I am happy to say that our grandson colored quietly for the majority of the service.
What were the most difficult venues for you to behave in? How would your parents have handled the naughty ones I encountered?
My parents and I always opened our presents on Christmas Eve after church. That was a German tradition from my mother, and also cleared the way for Christmas with family on Christmas Day.
We usually headed for Magnolia, MN late morning on Christmas Day to either my paternal grandparent’s farm or the farm of my dad’s younger brother a couple of miles east. My dad’s sister and family would come from Sioux Falls, and we would have a huge meal (usually turkey and all the fixings), and then we children would have to wait until after the dishes were done to open presents. That was a long wait! Late in the afternoon we would head to Pipestone, 25 miles north, to whichever of my mother’s family would host Christmas. There usually were no presents, just a big meal and lots of desserts.
Yesterday we spent time in Brookings opening presents, taking turns cooking, napping, reading, doing art projects with our grandson, and listening to grandson read aloud the various books he received (Cat Kid, Wild Robots, or Dog Man). He also received some pretty wonderful art kits which he started to use right away. It was very foggy outside, and we didn’t go anywhere. We watched The Muppets Christmas Carol after eating the French Canadian tortiere that grandson and I assembled and baked. He was a good dough pincher. It was a restful day. The Westie and cat napped on various soft blankets. No one had to wait for the dishes to get done before opening presents. We cleaned as we cooked. We listened to Christmas music on MPR all day. It was a great time.
What were your family gatherings like when you were a child? What were some of your favorite presents? Who did the dishes?
While my parents have predominantly British and German ancestry, you wouldn’t know it from my upbringing. No culturally relevant foods, no traditions, no nothing. It wasn’t a void that I ever looked to fill, but it does mean I’m a bit of a tabula rasa where culture and tradition are concerned.
There are just a few things that I’ve carried from my childhood to my adulthood; most of the traditions that YA and I observe are things we made the decision to do, not things that I did growing up. I was going to list a bunch, but the list is too long!
I’ve lived in the heart of Scandinavian culture here in the Twin Cities for 44 years. I’ve taught myself how to make aebleskivers and Swedish pancakes, visited the Swedish American institute. One year we did a Saint Lucia observation at our church (UU); I made YA a white dress and we fashioned the candle wreath for her head, although none of the kids actually had their candles lit (phew!). We have a nisse watching out over our garden and I have a few heavy Scandinavian sweaters.
But for some reason, I have never gotten around to making a kransekake, the stunning tower of cake/cookie rings that you see on the covers of many Scandinavian cookbooks. It’s called a crown cake and sometimes a wreath cake as well. Well, this turned out to be the year. I knew our Anna had the rings/pans that you need to make the individual rings/wreaths and she graciously offered to let me borrow them. I found several recipes and decided on one that I could pipe out of a bag rather than roll out the dough in log forms. It turned out to be ridiculously easy… truly the hardest part was figuring out which of the two largest pans was actually the biggest one. My recipe made way more dough than I needed… next time I attempt this, I’ll have a plan for this. Maybe save it until after the first batch is baked and make a smaller tower. I know purists would not have added sprinkles but I just had to.
It made a lovely party centerpiece and if I do say so myself, tasted really good. The only problem is that people were afraid to mess with it. I’ve had this problem before with pretty cakes or rice krispy trees; I usually end up cutting them up so they don’t look too daunting. I did this with the kransekake as well. About ½ of it got eaten at the party and I’ve been nibbling away at it since then. This turned out to be a fun attempt for me; it may get added to my stable of traditions.
When was the last time you pushed yourself to try something new? How did it turn out?
Today is our agency Holiday party. I wrote last year about the festivities and “planned” fun. This year the powers that be had the sense to scrap the door decorating contest, opting for a noon potluck, trivia game, and white elephant gift exchange. I am bringing cookies, and cranberry-orange glazed chicken thighs.
I am too burned out to come up with a white elephant gift. We found out yesterday that a beloved extended family member is probably going to be placed in Hospice care, which makes holiday festivities seem somewhat more frivolous than usual. I see, though, that the weather may be good when we travel Monday to Brookings, SD. It will be healing to be with family members.
My mother always had a hard time at Christmas, having lost a 7 month pregnancy in 1949 when her appendix ruptured. She did her best to keep Christmas cheerful, but it was hard. Tragedies are bad enough, but seem worse during the holidays.
What would you try to get rid of at a white elephant gift exchange? What holiday tragedies, frivolous or serious, have you had to contend with?
Trail Baboon 