Biscuits and Gravy Post

Memory Mondays

St. Pat's Day got me thinking as I said in an earlier post) about my family. While searching for a quote to send a friend, I ran across one in Robert Fulghum's book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It immediately made me think of my father. It's at the end of this post.

In the last years of his life, my dad re-discovered Biscuits and Gravy for breakfast. This was a horrifying discovery for me since my parents' home had become a combo of "Heart Attack Hotel" and "Stroke City". What was scarier, was that my mother was enabling him!

She had figured out how to whip up a batch of Sausage Gravy, putting it into recycled margarine containers from her friend Irene (my mom never used margarine after her experience with oleo). Then she'd mix up dough for biscuits, bake them, cool completely and bag them. Everything was then frozen.

This way she could thaw a tub of gravy overnight, the next morning, heat it and pop a few biscuits into the toaster oven. Within minutes she had dad's breakfast. He always looked so delighted when he dove in. His eyes twinkled and when finished, he'd smack his lips and smile. The perfect picture of pure happiness.

As time went on, this became his (gasp!) daily breakfast after he went to George Webb's to see his "friends" for a cup of coffee. On weekends, of course, it was real eggs, bacon and butter. Eggbeaters never entered the picture, much less the house.

Recent posts on food networks seem to be featuring more and more comfort foods, among them recipes for Biscuits and Gravy. In looking up the nutritional (ha!) information for these heavenly little pillows of poison, I came across www.livestrong.com, a partner of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the following statistics.
"One 2 1/2 inch diameter biscuit has 212 calories, according to the FatSecret website. An oz., or 2 tbsp. of sausage gravy has 44 calories, you'll take in 256 in calories."

Frankly this sounded a bit low to me, so over at the www.fatsecret.com site I found that one biscuit with gravy equalled 508 calories. I won't even tell you the breakdown of saturated fat and so on. At www.allrecipes.com, I found one serving dished up 710 calories, so there's a lot of variation.

Now, if you'd seen my father's version, it would have scared you silly. At least two if not three biscuits topped with about 3/4 cup of sausage gravy. Yes, you may faint right now. My arteries are snapping shut right now just recalling this!

Since I've never had a taste of this dish or would ever make a batch, I'm using a photo from www.tasteofhome.com so you can see what I'm referring to.

Photo Source

I'll end with the Robert Fulghum quote because it's exactly what my father said to me when I questioned his sanity for eating this way.

And sure,

I know if you eat this way you'll die. So?

If you don't eat this way

you're still going to die.

Why not die happy?

Under the Weather and Gloom Post

The weather here has been heavenly the last five or so days. Just heavenly but I'm under it as the saying goes. Not so much physically sick but bitten by a mental bug. Funny how much words can hurt. Especially when they come from someone you're related to and love. Someone you've known your whole life.

"Machines and relatives get most of the yelling.

But never trees. As for people, well, the Solomon islanders have a point. Yelling at a living thing does tend to kill the spirit in them.

Sticks and stones may break our bones,

but words will break our hearts."

Robert Fulghum

It always amazes me when we treat relatives with so much less care than friends and acquaintances. Several years back, I read something about this phenomena. Shortly after reading that article, I stopped watching a number of television programs where family members belittled each other or treated each other poorly. One in particular was "Everyone Loves Raymond".

This also was a prime example of how poorly spouses treat each other. Now, I don't mind an occasional dose of sarcasm and so on, life is like that, but not all the time. The Middle is another show I have a problem watching. It just seems so negative, so damaging mentally to watch. And of course, how could I forget Two and a Half Men? So very many bad examples there.

Life is too short to waste time viewing such cynical drivel. Seems it also makes it "okay" for people to turn around and treat others in real life virtually the same way as they've seen characters on TV shows behaving.

"Think of what a better world it would be

if we all - the whole world

had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon

and then lay down with our blankets for a nap."

Robert Fulghum

Maybe I'm just feeling gloomy as another birthday is slowly approaching. It's funny, speaking to a friend several months ago, she mentioned how turning 26 was devastating for her. Quite a few of her girlfriends had voice the same opinion. I almost fell over because 26 for me had been a truly depressing birthday...not 25 or 30, but 26!

This feels a lot like the same oppressive weight I felt at the approach of that birthday. Mind you, I have...holy c#@p! I was just counting and it's about two months away! Yikes! We won't be talking numbers here, but it's not one of the milestones you'd think would have such an effect, just like 26 wasn't.

Maybe it's a lot of things combined. The economy, the divorce, the loss of family members, the loss of my life as I knew it, the upcoming, inevitable surgery and so on. Who knows?

I want to thank you for stopping in and visiting, it's such an honor. And for getting all the way down to the end of this gloomy little post I'm going to leave you with another quote, also by Robert Fulghum from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:

"Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave

something and take something away.

Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard

or numbered or scientifically detected or counted.

It's what we leave in the minds of other people

and what they leave in ours.

Memory.

The census doesn't count it.

Nothing counts without it."

Life in a Coffee Cup Post

When I began this post it seemed to grow until it was actually two stories in one. Had I kept going, I would have wound up with a book, not a post.

For some time now I've been wanting to record stories of the lives of my parents and growing up with them. So periodically I'll post a tale of a time gone by, hoping to save it from the dust bunnies of lost dreams and memories.

Most people seem to have special stories of their family, both happy and sad, but few ever get recorded and as time passes, poignant memories fade. Details vanish. Names of images in old photos are lost and as a result, a lot of our own history is lost.

My mom always thought she'd have time to write the names on the back of those pictured in old photos. It never happened. Like every other wish and good intention, it was lost in the milieux of living. So without further ado, I give you a little story of my father.

Mornings with George and the Gang

My dad had owned his own company for many years. The kind of work his company performed was major rebuilding of printing presses. As a result he spent many days traveling across the states, usually by car to look at possible jobs so he could estimate crew size and costs. He loved to drive and I inherited this love.

When feeling stressed or crazy, one of the best remedies is getting in the car and just driving. In the past, nowhere in particular, just getting out of one's head and looking at new scenery was the goal.

In recent years, the cost of gas has made it more imperative to at least have a destination or purpose for the journey. The only requirement still was that it had to be at least an good 50 miles one way and not all be freeway or highway driving. But I digress, as always.

Retiring, was the worst thing my father could have done, like many men his age, it was all he'd ever known and as a group they went into the labor force early due to the Great Depression (the first one). As a result, he was often bored with facing long days of doing nothing and as a result had to find several new "habits" to replace the ones he had when he was working.

He had informed my mother that he would not be doing housework upon retirement. He did enjoy washing up the dinner dishes though for some reason. After about a year of this and with her health declining, mom hired someone to come in to clean every month.

The other problem with retirement for self-made men of his era is that they'd never had time when working to develop friendships with men the way women usually do, so in retirement he had no one to hang out with. Well, other than my mother, and despite his undying love for her, he could only take the 24/7 with her for so long.

One new habit was to get up early as he always had and go over to the local George Webb's for coffee and sometimes breakfast. Now mind you, mom would have happily gotten up and cooked a lovely breakfast and dad had proven a very capable cook himself over the years.

If my little brother or I were home, he'd trade off with mom and cook us breakfast. One had a choice of sunny-side-up, over-easy or scrambled. His sunny-side-up eggs were to die for so we always chose those! Nice runny yolk, not wiggly whites. Perfectly done. Yum! But back to my story.

The customers at Webb's in the early morning hours were men much like my father, with no place to go socially. They had been foisted into the labor pool very young because of the depression. There was no time to think of anything but putting food on the table and keeping a roof over your head and your family.

So gradually a group of disparate buddies developed. They were alike but each had such a different story. The common bond was that of an unidentified (to them) feeling of suddenly being left without a purpose. Their whole life had been work and family. That bond was sharing a cup of coffee in the morning with other men and debating the state of the world.

It's important to mention here that, these quasi-friendships went no further. Men of my dad's era weren't taught such social skills. Friendships that developed through sports like golf didn't take root until the next generation came along.

When dad came home afterwards and you could see he felt worthwhile, like he had solved the problems of the world. He'd retire to the den, his recliner, open whatever current book on history or politics he was reading and most likely drift off into a peaceful slumber. So went his retirement.

The Significantly Insignificant Things Post

Years ago, while sorting through my parents' belongings with my brother, small discoveries were made. My dad's shoes had holes in the soles with cardboard covering them. This, from a man who always prided himself on his dapper style of dress.

Dad circa 1953-4

It's from him (along with my mom) that we inherited our love of well-made leather shoes. If you want good foot health, leather soles are a must IMHO. They breathe and cushion your tootsies in a way no synthetic sole can.

Guess I'll never be a vegan. A good pair of classically styled, well-made leather  shoes...worth every penny. What I find interesting is that they were ahead of their time in that it's certainly more earth-friendly to buy quality and then preserve it with minimal waste (re-heeling and resoling), rather than just tossing used shoes out and buying more.

We were taught a few cardinal rules of proper shoe care:
     -one never wore the rubber part of the heels down to the actual shoe heel, you had them reheeled
     -if the soles wore through, you resoled them (not with a synthetic product)
     -you polished and buffed your shoes with shoe polish and a proper brush regularly

My parents were not rich but weren't lacking in money for the basics, so this little discovery shocked the heck out of us.

Why had this happened? How? When? Maybe as you hit a certain age, you just stop worrying about the details.

All I can say is that I'll never forget the look on my brother's face as he carried the shoes over to the bed where I was sorting other things. The look of shock and dismay was so intense. It was as if he were a child again and a parent had disappointed him. But now, he couldn't ask "why?"....

While on the subject of holes in shoes, I ran across this which I thought was interesting. It's what I call the "Depression" mentality on holes and resoling.

The problem is that this mentality doesn't explain my dad allowing the holes to go all the way through to his feet. One doesn't wait that long, because then the bed of the sole is ruined. On top of that, there's the covering of the holes with cardboard...makes no sense.

In mom's closet I'd discovered boxes of S and H Green Stamp books with the stamps all glued in place. What was she saving them for? I also found a gift type box filled with old red cancelled postage stamps from the early 1950's.

Again...why? It wasn't like these were in the spare room that she used for storage. These were in her day-to-day bedroom closet with things currently in use. Yet another question never to be answered.

S & H Green Stamp Books

Some things you simply can't prepare for. For example, let's just imagine what my mom's reaction would have been if I'd said (excuse me while I peel myself off the floor where I was rolling in fits of laughter at this thought) I wanted to go through her closet...the answer would have been a firm "no". The "don't ever go there again" would have been implicit.

But there's so much else that you could think of in the way of completing their histories and thus yours. It's information that will be forever lost to you. Never forget Mark Twain's words,  "...years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did...."

So if you're reading this, take a little time to record what you remember. Often, simple retelling of stories is the easiest way to do this. By doing this while you still have your family, they can help fill in the blanks!

A few months before my parents died, I was "home" and the three of us were sitting in their den. I asked them how they met. Mom became all shy and school girl-like. Dad looked off into a distance only he could see and after a pause, began telling the story. He'd glance every now and then at mom, in a way one looks at a another when seeing them as they had appeared so very long ago, in the very memory they were reliving.

It was truly magical and something one doesn't witness often. They seemed to see each other as they had in that moment so long ago. I'll never forget it. It was like being a witness to time suspended.

It's a romantic story that will be with me forever but would have vanished into the winds of eternity had I not taken time to ask. I'll share it with you, but in a future post. I'm going to go and be alone with the warmth of this memory for now.

I think I've written this before, but it deserves repeating,

Memories don't belong in drawers.

George Burns (1896 - 1996)

Re-thinking My Re-Thinking Post

This morning I got to thinking (or rather re-thinking) my "to-do" list for the next two weeks. Christmas Eve and Day don't have to turn into the be-all of the holiday anymore. Heck, I can drag it out all the way to New Year's! My own re-invented version of the season. ;)

So I down-sized my shopping list since I was a bit apprehensive about how long my knee would last and decided to make my ham shank affair sometime between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. I'll probably make a no-brainer comfort food like Chicken and Dumplings, for Christmas to eliminate my stress. It's such an easy recipe.

Funny, this blog has helped me see how carried away I can get with ideas to comfort myself through the holiday...mainly food oriented. What happens is that I go overboard and wind up overwhelming myself to the point of doing nothing. Just a lot of energy and stress to no end. This is then followed by guilt. I'm only entertaining me :)  for heaven's sake. And while I deserve it, it shouldn't exhaust and depress me. Kind of defeats the purpose.

So, as I said in an earlier post, simplifying. Maybe one special nosh every other day. Frankly, I get so much happiness from writing these posts knowing I have a family of sorts around the globe that reads them, that I'd rather hit the keyboard than try to re-create the holidays of past. Holidays that now only live in my memories.

If I feel energetic enough, maybe I'll clear a portion of my desk and drag out my 4-in-1-printer. It's an HP. Why I bought that brand I'll never know, but it was a good price at the time. Sadly HP inks are not as stable as Epson Dura-bright ink (my printer of choice for the last umpteen years) and will smear at the slightest touch of moisture, like your finger. But maybe it'll scan nicely. Then I'll print out whatever on my Epson.

Once I figure the scanner out, I'll start uploading some of my old family photos. Also need to sign up with a service that backs up my computer once a day. After losing so much this summer, I really should. But we'll see how it goes.

I wrote yesterday that I'd try to take some pictures while I'm out, but don't know what I'll find. It's not the eerie "Twilight" type of gloom, with fog, woods and trees covered in moss and bracken. Just boring grey.

Mr. Blue and I had a most excellent game of tug-of-war with Rocky Raccoon, his unstuffed "roadkill" toy. So now the little dear, after spending some time under my chair here, has retired to his little red bed. He's such a sweetie.

Last night before I went to bed I noticed Laurie Eno over at the Daily Corgi blog had a post on "herding Corgis" which was very interesting. Showed a whole 'nother side of this tenacious little breed. You should give it a look, there are two short videos. It always amazes me that such a short little dog was the result of breeding for the purpose of herding cattle in Wales. Cattle are huge by comparison!

P.S. After taking the trash out, I was so pooped that I decided to forage in the garage pantry and freezer for dinner rather than go out. I am soooo out of shape! Once back in the house, I pulled out the South Beach Diet book which I will be reviving after the holidays.

I figure that if I drop about 15 pounds, it'll be less stress on my knee making it easier to exercise. At a certain point in life, you just learn that diet alone won't be enough, working out is needed. I'm just too young to feel this ancient.

P.P.S. No new photos unless I take some of my backyard and there's nothing new there. It just looks more pathetic in the gloomy light. Oh, for a little fog.

The Saga: Final Post

Back in the Midwest again, this time for my mom's funeral; as I said in an earlier post...deja vu. Rerun of a bad movie. I was again amazed at the number of people that appeared, people I went to grade school and high school with, some of whom I hadn't heard from in decades. As I said, I was a wreck. My brother wrote and read a poem about my parents' weekly, 10 a.m. Sunday phone calls which was thoughtful.

I read Auden again and some Emily Dickinson, sobbing as before. Really, really bad movie rerun. My bro' arranged for the same type of wooden coffin as dad's. He brought her favorite heels for her. They didn't fit her feet now. Diabetes type two had taken a toll on her feet and legs but damn, they were on her feet again (whether they fit or not) and she was going to be dancing her way into eternity in them if he had anything to say about it.

This time he had all white flowers, a voluminous cloud of them, draped above her head and across the foot of the casket. White pillar candles and votives nestled in the flowers. Her signature red lipstick highlighted her face just as in life. The fragrance of the flowers brought back memories of Locker's Florist in the village during Spring. Breathtaking.

Again, no religious entity. Just loved ones and friends sending her off through all the tears, even though it broke our hearts.

After a while we all said goodbye and retired to their house. My brother's in-laws had arranged for nibbles. It was far more somber than my dad's funeral. I think because everyone was still stunned...29 days! How unfair!

I'm glad I read the W. H. Auden poem again. The last few lines will be inscribed upon my mind till I leave this world.

My brother and I stayed on for a week, clearing out the food (dry goods were donated to a food bank) and clothing etc. sorted and donated. Basically getting the house ready for sale. We laughed and were quiet when we'd trip over a memory. Of course, going through the day to day "stuff" was like trying to cross a mine field without incurring casualties. The most insignificant thing could trigger a cascade of emotions. The permanency of death was slowly descending upon us.

We left all the furniture in place so the house would "show" better. We interviewed a real estate agent and put it on the market.

The funeral home hadn't even gotten my dad's ashes to us when mom arrived on their doorstep. So we told them to hold onto them and when mom was done in the oven, put her ashes in with dad's.

Sorry about the oven comment but to this day "gallows humor" can creep out when I least expect it. It must be a sanity mechanism of one's brain...you can laugh or you can cry and I keep choosing to laugh when possible.

Gallows humor first appeared when my bro' and I were both home in late February of the same year because mom and dad had heart attacks together. Matching heart attacks as it were, how "cute".  (Taking a deep breath.) We were driving to the hospital in their car and my brother started making jokes about the whole situation which in turn, got me started and like so many rides home from my Aunt's after Thanksgiving, we were laughing hysterically at anything.

As we approached the hospital, my brother said we should probably appear more serious. I said, I agreed, we didn't want to appear to be horrid "children" to the nurses, laughing at the miserable state of affairs. (We, the "children", were in our late forties at that point.) On the way home, he said it was gallows humor.

What is gallows humor you ask? Per Wikipedia:  "Gallows humor is the type of humor that still manages to be funny in the face of, and in response to, a perfectly hopeless situation.^[1] It arises from stressful, traumatic, or life-threatening situations, often in circumstances such that death is perceived as impending and unavoidable." A perfect description!

That's pretty much it. Stopping for now. I may have a post or two down the road about further thoughts. Thank you for your patience, now go hug someone you love.

Saga Continues Post

My, I was quite the serious little blogger yesterday wasn't I? Sheesh! Somehow I can't be quite as serious today...I have to take it in small doses with a bit of time between sharing stories. So the tale of that period when my parents died will be resumed at a later date. It's just a little too intense to re-live so close to the holidays.

However, having just re-read my post, I'll go on a little further with my tale. Maybe it's because I'm listening to Pandora's R and B and Pop holiday music. Makes it hard to feel sad to that kind of music. Plus there's something about this saga that's begging to be told. Can't explain it...kind of a gut feeling, nagging at me. No guarantee how far I'll get.

Thus back to this little memoir.

Just so you know, we didn't stand my dad's casket up in the corner or slug back a shot in his honor. Lol! But the grieving began. There's no escaping it. Here I am, more than ten years later, with tears welling up and the memories are as clear as if it all happened yesterday.

My mom was in a wheelchair at the funeral and had the most vacant look on her face. Almost like she was watching a play. When we got back to the house she said she kept thinking it was all a bad joke. That any second my dad would pop his head in and with a twinkle in his mischievous Irish eyes say "Surprise". But he never did.

Per his wishes, my father was cremated. My brother and I hired the caretakers full time for my mom. He lived on the East coast and I on the West. My parents home was in the middle. As I said, I should have just stayed there, time is such a gift and gone so fast.

My brother tried to convince mom to live with his family so she wouldn't be alone. But try as he might, she wouldn't budge. With dad gone, I think the house and her memories were all she felt was left.

My husband was still the man I married (not the doltoid I divorced years later) and upon arriving home he had a trip to a bed and breakfast in Wales followed by a visit to my penpal in the Netherlands lined up. We were gone ten days. Wales is stunningly beautiful in Spring, the countryside soothed my aching heart. I would love to live there. The time with my friend in the Netherlands was just the icing on the cake of life. But the experience was short lived.

Upon returning to L.A., I called my mom to let her know we had returned from the trip.

A day and a half later she died in her sleep. Just 29 days after my dad. I was devastated. It was like she held on until she knew I was home safe and sound.

The funeral had to be delayed a week due to the Memorial Day holiday weekend. On the flight to mom's I was awfully disoriented. Discombobulated would be the perfect word to describe it. I even left my calendar with it's history of six months of pain, on the plane when I got off. I had documented all the trips to and from the Midwest. All gone...as quickly as my parents.

Siskel (R) and Ebert (L)

Deja vu. It was like a bad re-run of a crumby movie. "I'll give it two thumbs down Rodger". My brother once again swung into action. Okay, need to stop here, this little walk down memory lane will be continued.

On a lighter note, Laurie at Crazy Aunt Purl asked about chili recipes (12/7/11) so I sent her this one. My mom used to make something almost identical when I was growing up:

Shirley's Fantastic Ohio Chile (where my friend came up with the name, I'll never know)

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 - 1 green bell pepper, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1 can dark red kidney beans

1 can regular stewed tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

dash chili powder/cayenne red pepper to taste

Brown meat. Drain fat (if any). Add onion and bell pepper and sauté lightly. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for 30 minutes, uncovered. Serve with chopped onions or sour cream or grated cheddar or all of the above, on top.

This recipe is easily doubled.         

Changing the subject yet again, this little blog had 162 visits on Monday, 119 of them from Slovenia. I almost fell over when I saw those numbers! Hello, and thank you for visiting!

While listening to Pandora radio, the male a cappella group Straight No Chaser came on singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Totally divine! I LOVE that group, they have such wonderful voices and their music arrangements are amazing! Have a look for yourself, I think you'll enjoy it.

Sorry this was so long. Thanks for reading!

Stop All the Clocks Post

The power outage still has over 9,000 people in the dark and cold. I know we're weather wimps here in California, but it's supposed to hit 38F (3.33C) tonight. That's cold!

Was thinking about the quote at the bottom of yesterday's post, then re-read the last paragraph about the permanency of loss and found myself floating back in time to the period when my parents died just 29 days apart. If only I knew then what I know now, I would have just moved in with them in the final months rather than agree to hire caretakers.

I had no real idea or understanding of the seriousness of their condition. The doctors glossed over it. My parents would just say "comes with the territory". I believed them and was lulled into a false safety zone. They were my parents...they "couldn't" leave. Life is so flaming fragile...I had no concept.

The end of April came and so did "the phone call". It was my brother. The doctor in the emergency room had called him since he had the medical power of attorney. My father had lapsed into a coma after another heart attack. The prognosis was bleak. We both knew (since he clearly told us more than once) that he had no desire to be put on life support. He was a strong believer in the quality of one's life vs. the length of it.

Afterwards, my brother told me that the doctor confided in him that he'd "never seen anyone so pissed" at death. He was enraged by it and that he couldn't will it away. Just like my Irish father to the bitter end. I always used to say "he may not be right, but he's never wrong". The following weeks were a numb fog.

My brother and I are so different. In times like that I fall to the earth like a dried leaf, where he instead, marshalls his forces. He took care of everything for the funeral. My dad was buried in a wooden coffin just as he'd wished. It was actually made by Hasidic Jews with no metal parts, only dowels and glue (according to the funeral director). I'm sure the director was not happy since the coffin cost only $600.00 (447.96 Euros). Most coffins today run into the thousands of dollars. It's a big business.

The casket was swathed in a rainbow of fresh flowers and not the "funereal" type. He'd found about half a dozen black and white photos of my dad from throughout his life, then framed them in an assortment of silver frames. Those sat among the flowers on the lower half of the coffin. It was amazing!

He read "Stop All the Clocks, Cut off the Phone" by W.H. Auden. It's a glorious poem, so perfect for the day. I read, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. It always symbolized my father's unique life. I also read Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night" because I felt it summed up my father from birth to death so perfectly. I sobbed through the whole thing.

A surprising number of people showed up at the funeral home. Apparently, everyone in small Midwestern towns reads the obituaries. Former employees and even his early morning coffee "buddies" from George Webb's made a visit.

We did not have any religious entity present because my father's wish along with the wooden box was to be stood up in the corner while everyone else had a party in his honor. So we kept it very simple. The family and close friends were invited back to my parent's house for an afternoon feast with food brought by friends, family and neighbors.

My brother seriously thought of handing out shots of whiskey to everyone there for a toast, but felt my mom might have a coronary, so he didn't. It was a very hard day. It didn't hit any of us, the permanence of death. As time passed, it settled in painfully.

To be continued in the next post....

Quiet Note Post

On a quiet note, I'd like to share three links with you. I hope you'll go visit them.

First is Corey Amaro's blog Tongue in Cheek. On her flight home from visiting family in California, her cousin suffered a pulmonary embolism and slipped into a coma. This is her latest post and my heart goes out to her.

Second, a commenter on her post today, shared this moving piece of music, I hope you enjoy it.

May you be surrounded by peace and love today. Find joy in every second you have with loved ones, life is so fragile and can vanish in a blink. The permanency of it can hit you harder than you ever imagined. Take nothing for granted. Share a smile with someone you don't know today.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, today is a gift, that's why it's called the Present.

Late Silk and Sunday Post

As I posted earlier, we actually had weather on Friday! It rained, real rain vs. drizzle which masquerades as rain here. It was great, but the weather has been so heavenly prior to this that I was totally unprepared for the temperature dip that hit! Brrr! (Note:  this was written throughout the day so hopefully it makes sense.)

I'd been wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals. At night, no more than a sheet was needed. Thus I totally forgot to call and have the pilot light lit on the tiny, ancient gravity furnace. Let me just say, that lighting a pilot is no big deal.

I've done it in other houses but I have a great respect for natural gas and I don't feel comfortable playing around with a 60+ year old furnace that is in a box below the floor. It also requires a long rod to reach in and actually turn the gas knob, so the idea of reaching down (past my elbow) into a gassy little pit with my bare hand holding a lit match is simply a "no-go".

So I sit here at my computer freezing. Still wearing sweat pants, sweatshirt with turtleneck, big socks, furry (fake) slippers, a shawl, fingerless gloves. My hair is down for added warmth, it's usually up, off my neck. Nothing I'm wearing matches. Of course I wouldn't go out in public looking like this, luckily, Mr. Blue isn't picky. Food, not looks, that's his priority.

Attractive, no?

This morning I looked for my electric blanket, but have yet to find it. I managed to get through the last two nights piling pashmina shawls and my robe on top of the sheet, but I also wore sweats with socks and fingerless gloves to bed.

The temperature reading in the house is 55F (12.7C) which is as cold as outside! I'll have to go out to the garage and find the tiny electric heater before it gets dark. The night time temps will be down in the 40-45F range for the next 6-7 days. Daytime will be in the 50-65 range. I repeat...brrrrrr! Supposed to rain again tonight.

When I called the gas company for an appointment, there was nothing available till next Friday. Seems I'm not the only one who forgot. For this service you have to be home from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. It's going to be a chilly week. I did put an old red blanket on the bed for tonight. Followed by an oversized cotton quilt which was rounded out with a handmade silk quilt. A friend of Valborg's made it for her.

When Valborg (our childhood, adopted grandmother) died, I inherited the quilt. Story goes that back in the 20's and 30's, she had a friend who worked in a silk tie factory in the Midwest. The seamstresses were allowed to take the scraps home for quilts, etc. With the Depression, everyone was focused on not wasting a thing.

This is the back!

It's an amazing piece of craftsmanship. Since it's all silk, and even though it has no batting, it's very warm and quite heavy. I crawled in and tested it...I'll sleep like a baby tonight, all snuggled under the covers. Still have no clue where the electric blanket is.

On the right is the top of the quilt, on far left is the back again. All silk tie scraps!

Just looked at the clock on the computer. It read 4:25 p.m. which is not the time indicated by the light. So I checked on when DST ends and it ended already, at 2 a.m. this morning! This just ticks me off for some reason, maybe it's because I thought it changed tonight. Anyhow, in protest, I turned my computer ahead by one hour and it feels much better. I know, I'm weird, what can I say?

Yes, it's sitting on my desk. If I could get any closer, I would!

Yay! Found my little heater in the garage when tossing the trash out. Oh warmth, here I come!

Blue just scared the heck out of me with an extremely loud, sharp bark. Holy cow! The rain is here with thunder! Real weather! Of course every time it bangs, he barks like a little crazy dog, running around the house to find the "culprit". He really gets disturbed by thunder, helicopters, loud motorcycles and skateboards whizzing by on the front sidewalk. This could be a long night.

Ebb and Flow Post

It's funny how at different times of the year, the posts on various blogs, ebb and flow. One time of the year is the start of summer when everyone is getting organized for summer. Camp, vacations and so forth, no one has time to blog. As the winter holidays approach there's another ebb. Even though I'm not employed, have no children and don't get into full holiday celebration mode...it is just me for heaven sake, this trend is still noticeable.

Thanksgiving is less than three weeks away. (We won't even broach the subject of Christmas.) Once again, despite the fact that it is just me, I'm tempted to make a small turkey for the holiday (10 pounds at the very most, smaller if I can find one). I was looking back over my blog and noticed that the first year I was separated, I made an 18 pound turkey. I hadn't gotten into the cooking for one mode yet, obviously.

There's something about Thanksgiving that just makes all the memories of smells and tastes come rushing back and I feel the need to reconnect in some way, even if I'm stuck with a ton of leftover turkey.

Remember the year of the gargantuan failure of the crock pot turkey breast meal? It was the first time I'd ever used a crock pot. If nothing else can be said for me, it's that I don't start small! I leap in with both feet and turkey breasts! It looked so good initially...

Crock pot failure. Thanksgiving 2009.

The following year I skipped cooking altogether. What a bummer, big mistake. There's something very heart-filling about the traditions of Thanksgiving, at least for me. I think it's my favorite holiday of the year! All warm and cuddly. Even more so than Christmas which is surprising!

The magical part of all this is that any and all bad memories vanish and all I remember is the closeness of being with family if only for a day. It's a time when I'm surrounded by visions of all that was wonderful in my childhood. As a kid, we always had Thanksgiving at my great grandma's house. She lived with my aunt and uncle in her old home/boarding house. We'd drive an hour to get there regardless of the weather. Remember, there were no seat-belts back then.  :)

Even after a huge feast where we stuffed ourselves, when the time neared for the trip home, we (my brother and I) insisted my aunt prepare sandwiches for the "journey" back home! I still marvel at how all the adults put up with this silliness. In truth, the "big draw" was that my aunt used Wonder Bread to make the sandwiches. My mom bought bakery bread that was totally different and no fun. WB's fluffy nothingness of doughy goodness could easily be shaped into dense, pretend pancakes, balls, tubes and so on. Ah, the stuff of childhood.... Amazingly, not a sandwich made it home. Lol! We were voracious little critters.

As the holiday approaches this year, I'm fortunate to have, a bag of Pepperidge Farms herb cubes left from last year. (This brand is sooo much better than Mrs. Cubbison's pathetic excuse for dressing.)

"Yech! I used this once about 9 years ago...never again!"

Frankly, I don't think that any loss of taste will be noticeable. Once you make the mixture with butter, stock, fresh diced celery and onions and stuff the turkey, it takes on a whole new delicious life. Mmmm! The funny thing is, I don't need all the other classic accompaniments. Sure they'd be nice, but just turkey and dressing make the day, always have and probably always will!