Next weekend our hand bell choir is performing at a ND State PEO convention in town. One of our ringers is a PEO member, and felt that they would appreciate our music. Instead of our usual sacred selections we are playing My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music, Ashokan Farewell, the Hawaiian version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and Puff The Magic Dragon, just the sort of selections retired teachers would appreciate.
A couple of years ago our bell choir director volunteered us for a State Eastern Star convention in Jamestown. She is a leading light in the Eastern Star. That was a pretty weird experience. It was also a 400 mile round trip hauling all our bells and equipment. At least the PEO convention is in town.
My father belonged to the Masonic Lodge. My paternal grandfather was an Oddfellow as well as a Shriner. I have little patience with these groups and their rules and secret handshakes. I know the PEO and service organizations have good intentions. The PEO supports women’s education. I was the recipient of a PEO scholarship as an undergraduate. It just amazes me that these groups can continue.
What fraternal or service organizations have you or your relatives belonged to? Propose some new groups that you might find interesting.
Husband and I don’t travel very much. Twice a year I have to go to a conference in various destinations in the US or Canada as part of my work on a regulatory board, and Husband sometimes goes along. If I didn’t have to attend the conferences we wouldn’t travel as much. We are just too busy with work, gardens, and family pets to leave home very often.
This week we are visiting our daughter in Tacoma, WA. It is so nice to travel without an agenda or meetings to attend.. Wednesday we drove to Gig Harbor to a wonderful bagel shop and cooking store that Daughter loves, and walked around in the marina. We also saw a very strange tree.
We then had a lovely evening with Daughter and two of her dear friends, a married couple, at a wonderful Italian restaurant. Of course, we had to have a sampling of Washington wines masterfully curated by the friend’s husband.
My Husband asked this morning “How do you know you are on vacation?” To him, it means that someone else is letting the dog out, or else he is by a large body of water. To me, it means that I have no access to work emails, and someone else does the driving. Daughter has curated our trip nicely, planning visits to lovely restaurants and time with her friends, along with some great sightseeing. Yesterday we drove north of Seattle, stopping off at the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon, then driving farther north and west to Anacortes, where where we got the ferry to Orcas Island and a B and B way in the middle of nowhere.
We were advised to travel there in the daylight, as the road there had so many switchbacks. It is a beautiful place. This is the view from the front room.
Today we go whale watching. By Saturday we will be back in Tacoma for more luncheons with Daughter’s friends, and an appointment at a candle making studio. Monday we go home.
How do you know that you are on vacation? What are the best and worst vacations you ever had?
I saw on the news that the last Hooters in West Virginia closed last month with a large candlelight vigil prior to its demolition. The local news mentioned it ahead of time and several hundred people showed up.
The vigil part of the story didn’t surprise me but the fact that there are still Hooters was the shock to me. I haven’t heard anything about Hooters and I never see them anywhere but a quick search reveals that there are over 400 worldwide, including one right in my backyard – at the Mall of America. Guess that’s what happens when you only go to the Mall of America once a year (to redeem birthday coupons at Auntie Annies and Cinnabon). Since I’ve never eaten at a Hooters (just seems a little too tasteless of a gimmick to me), I can’t say whether all of West Virginia franchises closing is a loss or not. But I know the chances are slim that I would ever go to a candlelight vigil for one.
Is there a restaurant that you’d consider attending a vigil for if it were closing?
We have a new assistant pastor at our Lutheran Church who is working out rather nicely. She is good with youth, preaches good sermons, and is fitting in well with the congregation. There is only one problem, and that is her lack of musicality.
Our pastors sing much of the of the liturgy, and to do that the they have to know to listen to the note the organist gives them to start on the chant. Our new pastor can’t carry a tune in a bucket. No matter how emphatic the organist is in giving the note, the new pastor invariably starts on a pitch three notes below where she should start, and can’t seem to read the intervals between the notes to sing the chant correctly. The liturgy is such that the pastor sings, then the congregation comes in on a pitch based on where the pastor leaves off. We now have to listen for a prompt from the organist to know what our pitch is.
It would be fine with me if our new pastor read the liturgy instead of singing it, but I guess in Lent things need to be sung. We are all suffering through these forty days together!
How are you at singing a capella? What are your favorite metaphors and idioms?
“In my element.” That’s the thought that was going through my mind as I headed out of the house yesterday morning to do some grocery shopping. With Pi Day coming up, I’ve been busy with the prep work. Organizing things is just about my favorite activity and Pi Day needs all the organization it can get.
Before hitting the grocery stores, I have to pick the pies. I go through all my appropriate cookbooks and pick out recipes that sound good to me, mark them w/ post-it notes and write them down. When I’m done with that, I cull the recipes down to 12 (always making sure I have our four regulars listed. Then I make a list of ingredients, cross check it against what I already have on hand and then head out. Had to hit three stores to get everything (including finding golden syrup without having to make a separate trip to World Market!) and it took four trips from the car to the house because I packed all the bags at Aldis pretty heavily.
I have two to-do lists for Pi Day… the lead up to Pi Day list and the Pi Day list. The lead up is all the stuff I can do a day ahead (crumble topping, pre-baking shells, putting out plates/napkins). Then the Pi Day list is sorted in the order that the pies need to be done The secondary sort is by oven temperature. The baking times are also on this list so the minute a pie goes in the oven, I can put the cookbook away.
Add making placecards, nametags with this year’s pie clipart and setting up a station for some temporary tattoos that I found and, voila… party time!
I’m not sure what it is in my personality that all this makes me quite happy, but it does!
This week has been about theater. It’s one of those periods where I have to get a show ready, plus class, plus the real job, plus the everyday household stuff and chickens and kids and dogs and, you know… “Any Idiot can handle a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out”.
I’m lighting Hamlet this week. “A Reimagined Classic” is the marketing tagline. I don’t know my Shakespeare, so I don’t know which parts have been “reimagined”. I know the script jumps over scenes, and it ends with Act 7 and it’s still 2.5 hours long. I recognize many well-known lines. And there’s some funny stuff in the first half. It’s probably not a spoiler to say everyone dies at the end. Being reimagined, I can use some non-traditional lighting and some color washes on the backwall, as well as color on the actors. Here’s a picture from my tech table, just to give you an idea, with work lights still on.
Scenic design by Erica Zaffarano, directed by Merritt Olson.
Paper tech will be on Saturday evening, meaning the director and tech people go through the script and coordinate sound and lighting cues so the Stage Manager, who runs it all, has everything they need. Sunday evening will be a full run through with costumes, sound, and lights. Generally, Monday will be make up, wigs, plus all the other stuff. It’s really interesting, the show can be really humming along, and then you throw all the tech stuff in, and the show takes about 4 steps back. As an actor, it’s just a lot of stuff your brain is dealing with besides lines and blocking (movement).
We had our first meeting at our new Haverhill Township townhall on Wednesday. Bathrooms! Running water! HEAT! And AC!
Our old townhall was basically a one room school. A wonderful place with a lot of character, but it was 100 years old. With no running water, and an outhouse… The only State Insured Outhouse in Minnesota!
I went to 4H there, I did one act plays on that stage, and my mom and dad met as infants when their bassinettes were put behind the furnace by their respective moms during Mothers and Daughters Club. A lot of history in this building.
At the college, I’m working on the set model for The Curious Savage, by John Patrick, our spring play. I also got the genie lift out and tie a rope up at the ceiling for the physics demonstration show Saturday and, since I had the genie out, I changed some burned out fluorescent lamps. I keep a log of when I change lamps so I can change several at the same time if they’re all on the same timeline. Some of these 8’ fluorescents have been going since March 2, 2015! It isn’t unusual to get 6 or 7 years out of them. I’ve got one set in the shop that’s been going since January 25th of 2012!!
When I walk back from class on the other end of the campus on the first floor, I walk up 5 floors, to a roof access door, just to get steps in, then back to my office on the 2nd floor. Written on the wall by the roof access is some pretty wise graffiti: “you bleed just to know you’re alive” and next to it, “Don’t forget you can live without bleeding “ And these: “The quality of life is determined by the questions you ask” – WB 2017 “If you don’t ask the questions, you’re never going to know the answers” – SF 2018
WHERE OR HOW DID YOUR PARENTS MEET? OR YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE? ❤️
I’m sure you’ve all heard me say “why spoil a perfectly good holiday by spending it with my family”. Sounds harsh but when my whole family is together, it gets weird fast. The last time we were all together before my father’s death we were asked not to return to an Embers. An Embers!
I wasn’t looking forward to the macaroni gathering but it’s one thing to `dis your family for decades behind their backs and another thing entirely to `dis them to their faces. So Nonny and I got the condo ready; Nonny made her salad and I heated up the macaroni.
The group included both my middle sister and her husband, my little sister, my niece, my niece’s partner, two nephews, one nephew’s partner and two boys. Oh, and Nonny and me. It started out a little strained. Even the St. Louis group doesn’t gather all that often and I know that my two sisters don’t approve all that much of the other one’s choices.
At one point my middle sister starting telling a story about baby possums that had gotten into their house and how they had to catch to them release them outside. My youngest nephew is all about animal rescue, trap/neuter/release and knows quite a bit about wild animal relocation. He was horrified by my sister’s story, jumping in to express indignation and to educate us all about how most people handle relocation incorrectly. My brother-in-law (let’s call him David) is a very nice man but in the dictionary, out in the margin next to the phrase “pours gas on the fire” is David’s picture. As soon as he realized he had a captive audience, he was off and running. There was an outrageous story about trapping possums under a trash can followed by his exhortation that you can’t keep possums in the house because when they grow up, then there is “possum mating”. This was accompanied by him stamping his feet and slapping his hands together to illustrate how this mating would keep you up at night. It was the funniest thing ever; it was a good thing I was sitting on the floor at the time because I would have fallen off my chair laughing.
Unfortunately the one person in the room who did not get the joke and wasn’t laughing was my nephew. He looked horrified. I had to ask him if he understood the phrase “yanking your chain”. Even once I explained it, you could tell he wasn’t too thrilled to join in the hilarity. But the gas on the fire did the trick and loosened some of the tension. Not perfect, but we did manage to spend another hour together without any incidents!
My middle sister is already asking when I think I’ll be visiting next year so we can do it again! Oops.
Do you have any “gas on the fire” friends or relatives? Or “gas on the fire” stories?
Last week I went out with six coworkers for a farewell luncheon for one of them. These are all young women under the age of 35, all mental health professionals. The lunch was delightful, but the conversation sure made me feel old.
Much of their discussion was about their newest discoveries for facial moisturizers and makeup, their latest experiences getting their nails done, their favorite coffee shops they visit daily, their favorite restaurants, their recent appointments at the chiropractor, and the new tattoos they were planning. Since I don’t wear makeup, have rather nice skin for someone who is almost 66, and would never, ever, get a tattoo, I hadn’t much to say. I have never had a manicure. I have never been to a chiropractor or had a massage. I refuse to spend money at coffee shops when I have perfectly good French press coffee brewed for me every morning by my husband. They were all astounded, however, when I mentioned that I have never had a pedicure. They all agreed that they are going to take me out for a pedicure before I retire. We shall see. I don’t know if I want someone messing around with my feet.
My coworkers view these activities as self care. I could never justify spending all the money that they do on these things. My self care is listening to music, gardening, and cooking. I suppose I spend more money on cooking ingredients than they do, but I am healthier than most of my coworkers and eat way better then they do.
What do you do for self care?What activities did you engage in that your elders shook their headsover when you were young?
The last time I was with my whole family for the holidays was 1978. Some years they gather without me, some years they don’t gather at all. So when I announced that I was visiting Nonny two weeks ago, they decided that January Christmas festivities would be a grand gesture. By the time I got the first text the week before my trip – the plans were so far down the road there was no turning back.
It was a potluck at Nonny’s little condo (truly the best choice considering the options) and all the obligatory dishes had been claimed. My baby sister had three things on her list and since I knew she would be starting a new second job that week, I volunteered to do the macaroni and cheese. She immediately sent me a recipe that is apparently my nephew’s favorite.
Now I’ve made many a dish of mac & cheese over the years, using many different recipes, but looking at this one made me put my head in my hands. It was two fully-typed pages and included four kinds of cheese, two kinds of pasta, garlic, green onion and quite a few spices. In addition to the fact that Nonny has next to nothing in the way of kitchen utensils or baking dishes, I wasn’t even sure if she had the spices. (I mentioned this last week when I was thinking of taking the spices in a bag in my luggage.) I confirmed my suspicions – no big pot for pasta, no casserole dish to bake or serve it in, no grater for the four kinds of cheese. In a funny turn of events, she DID have all the spices. We could purchase an aluminum casserole, a grater and all the ingredients, but unless we also sprang for a big pot, I’d have to make two batches to have enough for everybody. Not to mention the cost.
That’s when I remembered that YA had purchased macaroni and cheese from Costco for our Thanksgiving gathering and it had been pretty good. I know there is a Costco about 5 minutes from Nonny’s place so the day before the party, we headed over there and picked up a pan of the stuff. I doctored it up with some garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. Via text that morning YA kept asking me if I had told my sister I was buying instead of making the mac & cheese. I know my audience. If I had fessed up that I was going to get it from Costco, my sister would have thrown up her hands in exasperation and said “Fine… I’ll just do it.” One of my mottos has always been “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission” so that’s the route I decided to take.
Turns out my sister didn’t care at all…. but my nephew did. He kind of made a big deal about the fact that I should have let them know so HE could have made it. Of course, when we were divvying up the leftovers, I noticed that he heaped quite a bit into their Tupperware! But I was happy to have not gone to too much trouble and Nonny was happy to not have more utensils in her teeny weeny kitchen. And truth be told, the macaroni and cheese was really good.
I expect it will have to be another gathering for us to buy it again – it’s way too much for two folks, even folks who like macaroni and cheese as much as YA and I do. But now I aware it’s there, you never know!
Do you have a favorite pasta dish? (Either made or bought…)
YA and were invited to a nice party over the weekend – a surprise 70th birthday party for a friend. The invite didn’t mention any particular dress code but the party was held in a big lovely home up in Kenwood and it seemed like dressing up would be the right way to go.
Dressing up is not something that I’ve ever been good at. Pandemic, furlough and retirement has not helped. I do have a pair of black palazzo pants so I started there but was struggling with a top to go with the pants. Static didn’t help. At one point YA came in and said “why don’t you just wear a dress?”
Well, because I no longer own a dress. I decided to look in the attic to make sure I wasn’t forgetting about any dresses but no, nothing. I don’t even remember the last dress I owned or when it left the house, presumably in a goodwill/value village bag.
I did find a top to go with the palazzo pants and the party was great but I kept thinking the rest of the weekend, “should I invest in a dress”? Probably not a good use of income since I also can’t remember the last time the thought of wearing a dress even crossed my mind.
Trail Baboon 