We have been at our son’s home since Friday, and the cold weather has made for a great deal of family time. Son, Daughter in Law, Daughter, Husband, me, and Grandson are all here together. There has been lots of time playing Uno, putting together jigsaw puzzles, doing art projects with grandson, cooking big meals, watching the first two How To Train Your Dragon movies, playing with the Westie and the cat and sleeping late.
I have been a nervous wreck since before we drove here on Friday. The cold frightens me more than it used to. I have developed great anxiety anticipating driving in this cold weather, mainly surrounding the van breaking down in the middle of nowhere and then freezing to death. We were supposed to go to see my 93 year old aunt yesterday in Watertown, SD, about 40 miles north of Brookings, and I was so relieved when she phoned in the morning to say she had a cough and a fever and we shouldn’t come. Husband has been going out to start the van at intervals and even drove it into town yesterday, so he is keeping the engine warm.
This cold weather is unprecedented in my experience, and I am really worried about the trip home on Tuesday. The subzero windchills aren’t supposed to let up until Wednesday, and I might try to convince Husband to stay another day and leave on Wednesday. We have lots of blankets in the event of a breakdown. The van is working well, but you never know!
What do you have in your winter survival kit in your vehicle? How are you coping with the cold? What are your favorite indoor family activities?
I’ve traveled internationally more in the past year than ever before in my life. I’m not used to it. I get anxious over airports and flying, but I’m getting better at it.
My friends, Jim and Nancy, invited me to join them for a week in Mazatlan. They extended the invitation last fall. I’ve been trying to get some of my older friends to go places with me since I retired, but it’s been like herding cats, so when Jim and Nancy invited me I accepted immediately.
I arrived at Mazatlan on Saturday afternoon. Jim provided detailed instructions, and I had them in hand, for getting through the airport, getting a taxi, and getting to their place. I was able to give the driver the address in Centro Historico in Spanish. After an exciting cab ride through the city, Jim and Nancy met me at the gate of Villa Serena. It’s a block of apartments with a maze of tiled outdoor hallways, pools, birds and trees. Their apartment was on the third floor and had more windows, fresh air, and natural light than most. They told me it was the biggest apartment in the place. I had my own room and a shared bathroom.
There were hummingbirds and orioles at a feeder hanging outside the windows. The red tiled areas in front of their white washed apartment were open to blue sky, and the tops of palm trees. It was colorful and lovely. There was a view of a central courtyard in front of a large, golden cathedral. There were bells chiming frequently throughout the day, often on the quarter hour, especially on Sunday. No one can figure out the pattern for the chiming, or the reason.
One evening, just after sunset, there was a tiny gecko on the window screen. It was only about an inch and a half long. It charmed me to my toes.
Jim and Nancy are friendly, outgoing people. They have lots of friends there. Most of the people I met were from Mexico, followed by British Columbia. There was one couple from Prince Edward Island. I didn’t meet any other Minnesotans. Some of the people who stay at Villa Serena gather for a daily happy hour. Jim and Nancy attend it sometimes, but not while I was there. I met lots of people and learned lots of card or dice games, including a fun game called Mexican Train.
We walked a lot. We walked to the Mercado several times. Nancy bought lots of fresh food there: fruits, veggies, spices, and some large pieces of red snapper. I was fascinated by all the things there were to see, including a pig head with eyes.
We walked a few miles to a beach called Stone Island one day and spent the day there. It was lovely. There were stray dogs who were friendly but so thin. It wasn’t hard to give some of my quesadilla con pollo to a sweet dog with warm brown eyes who put her chin on my lap. I wanted to bring her home with me. I looked for sand dollars but didn’t find any. Some people swam in the ocean. I didn’t swim, but I did wade a little. I identified some birds, including an American oystercatcher, an orchard oriole, and a cinnamon hummingbird.
Nancy and I walked to the “Malecon” one day and just walked along the beach. I was struck by the persistence and determination of the many people who approached us asking if we wanted refrigerator magnets or sunglasses or blankets or ball caps with visors. A young girl selling pistachios said “Pleeease?” We gave a little boy some pesos but didn’t take the candy he offered. He ran away calling, “Mama! Mama!” I learned to say, “No, gracias,” and keep walking, even though the disparity was hurting my heart.
They’re getting ready for Carnaval there. There were huge, colorful, papier-mâché statues on the Malecon. Nancy took my picture with my arm around a bronze statue of John Lennon, the other three lined up behind me. I don’t think the likenesses were very good, but it was a fun memento of the trip.
We went for gelato in the evenings. It was really beautiful walking through the squares at night. There was music and light everywhere. The gelato was delicious!
There was a lot of noise, all night, every night. There was music, people laughing and singing, dogs barking, horns honking, and roosters crowing. It took three nights before I could sleep through it.
I brought my mandolin along, packed tightly in my big checked bag, so Jim and Nancy and I played music a few times. One day we took our instruments and walked a mile or so to a friend’s apartment. He played fiddle and we had a great time playing music together.
On Friday late afternoon, we began hearing the explosions of fireworks. It was very close and loud. Jim said it was probably coming from the central square area in front of the cathedral (an area that we passed through often). There was still daylight so we couldn’t really see the fireworks, but we could certainly hear them. That was followed by some up-tempo music, then a very loud, very long and colorful parade. Nancy thought maybe they had chosen the princess for Carnaval, but we really didn’t know for sure. The festivities lasted two or three hours.
We played Yahtzee every afternoon, then played music, then went out for gelato. They told me they weren’t very exciting and had a routine they followed. It was fine for me. I’m just glad to go somewhere like that. I liked that we were in the central historic district. I got a big dose of culture, language, music, and art, and I enjoyed it very much.
What activities do you enjoy with your friends? Ever played Mexican Train?Where in Mexico would you want to visit?
Our community of 28,000 people has four Catholic churches and a very large parochial school system. The churches were originally started for and attended by the various immigrant groups who settled here. The Germans from Russia and the German Hungarians attended St. Joseph’s Church on the south side (less affluent section) of town by the railroad tracks and stockyards. The more affluent Czech immigrants attended St. Wenceslaus, north of the tracks, and the most affluent attended St. Patrick’s Church in the downtown area. The 1970’s oil boom led to a need for another church, Queen of Peace, built in the area of new houses near the interstate.
The Catholic School system has a big Mardi Gras celebration/fundraiser every your during the first weekend of February, ostensibly close to when Mardi Gras happens, although this year it was way earlier than Mardi Gras since Easter is so late this year. The festivities take place at the Catholic High School, just a block from our house. We have never attended, but I understand that every year it is the same with games of chance, big dinners, cakewalks, and fun activities for children. This year, however, they added something quite surprising-dance lessons.
Local dance teachers came to teach Line dancing and Swing dancing, and most surprising, Salsa dancing. We have a fair number of immigrants from Central and South America, and a group of them started a Salsa dance company that is apparently very popular and booked way out for for engagements. They also perform every December 12 at Queen of Peace in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I found a video of Salsa dancing, and it just doesn’t fit the conservative stereotype of our Catholic community.
Can you imagine this happening at a Mass? It sounds like everyone at Mardi Gras had fun learning the moves. What next?
What are your memories of school dances?What is your favorite way to dance?
YA and I celebrate the lunar new year, although not as robustly as we used to. When she was younger, we did a big house cleaning running up to the new year, put up a lot of decorations and had folks over for a nice dinner of Chinese. I used to cook all that food on my own but over the years, we moved to getting takeaway from our favorite Chinese restaurant. Since the pandemic, we’ve scaled way back on some of this.
It turns out that this coming year is not just Year of the Snake but Year of the Wood Snake. Apparently every 60 years or so, the Year of the Snake aligns with a Yisi year – which corresponds to heavenly stems and branches. Hence Wood Snake.
Folks born during a snake year (1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001,2013 and 2025) are associated with intelligence and resilience. Additional characteristics for a Wood Snake (1905, 1965 and 2025) are wisdom, intuition and renewal. I’ve seen a couple of headlines this week saying that a snake year for shedding negative energy. A good image for a snake, especially as the wood snake is linked with renewal.
According to a feng shui master who has been giving interviews, “The Snake — with a strong fire element, along with some metal and earth elements — is a zodiac sign that can cause significant clashes and conflicts. We need to be mindful of accidents as we approach the Snake Year. The overall atmosphere in the world will become slightly more chaotic.” Personally I don’t think you need a lunar new year prediction to come up with that….
Do you know your Chinese zodiac sign? Any favorite Chinese food this week?
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.
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:
Hash You Wish
Buttercup Buttermilk Scones
Chips of Insanity
Mostly Dead
Bonetti’s Defense
Anybody Want a Peanut
Bread Pirate Roberts
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!
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.
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?
Trail Baboon 