Italian Babushka

2011-10-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

Back in April of 2000 Ed took me to Hawaii. We had been together for 6 months and this was a very special trip for us. Also, it was the first REAL vacation I had taken since I was 21 (which is more years than you really need to know about!). Up to that point, my "vacations" always consisted of visiting family or adding days on to a conference trip. But a real vacation - one where you plan the trip just for fun and all your time is totally under your control? Unheard of!

I had never been to Hawaii before and had no real desire to go. I mean, big deal - beaches and palm trees. I lived in California for pete's sake! I could see those any day. But Ed really wanted to take me there so I figured, what the heck, a week on the Big Island wouldn't be so bad. The minute we stepped off the plane, I could see that this was a different and wonderful place. The smells of flowers, the silky air, the sounds of Hawaiian music. the breezes. The money and language are the same, yet you feel like you're in a foreign country. We stayed in a condo unit at Kona by the Sea on Alii drive and I was in love.

	The place we stayed on our first trip to Kona.

Both with Ed and with Hawaii! Our condo had a view of the ocean and every morning we were awakened by the sounds of the surfers looking for that perfect wave. When it was time to pack and head back home, we were both very sad.

Took this photo to freak out family and friends

Follow up photo this trip

We've been back to the Big Island four times and visited all the other islands. The Big Island is definitely our favorite - so much to see and do and so many varieties of climate and topography. Not to mention some truly special memories. Our most recent trip was a couple of weeks ago. We hadn't been there for 5 years and forgot how much we loved it! This time we stayed at Kona Coast Resort. During this trip we visited some of the spots from our first vacation there.

Photo by the ocean 2000 - back when I could still wear white shorts!


2011 ocean shot

One of our Kona traditions is dinner at Huggos on Alii Drive our last night on the island.

Dinner at Huggos 2000

Outside Huggos 2011

Notice Ed's Guido Bandito look in the 2000 photos! Love it! We'll go back to Kona again - it's a special place for us and a wonderful way to spend a week.

I'm such a slacker!

2011-10-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

I started this blog in February of 2007 as a way to write down stories about my family for my kids and grandkids. There seemed to be so many colorful stories and I didn't want any of those memories to fade after I'm gone.

And I did pretty well for a couple of years! Stories about family history morphed into more current blogs about everyday life. And then came Facebook and suddenly it was easier to relay something with a few words and a photo or two rather than try to be creative with a blog post. Every now and then something will come up that makes me think, "That would be a good blog post." Then the lazy side of me says, "Nah!"

Today I was looking into having my blogs put into book form. There is a site via Blogger that compiles everything including photos (excluding comments) into a really nice 8 1/2 x 11 book. It would be great to have so all those stories that I worked so hard on in print so they don't get lost! But looking at some of them made me nostalgic for the days when I did post more.

There were so many people blogging back then - and blogging regularly. Now most of my "blog buddies" are on Facebook and we stay in touch that way. But I so miss reading my daughter's blog about her kids, the blogs of two of her friends who are very funny writers, Nikki, Maria, Beth Ann, Patti. A blog or two will pop out every couple of weeks or so, and I still have one friend, Linda, who blogs regularly. But the rest of them not so much.

So, I may try to get back to it. There are still stories that I would love to share with my kids and have in my "blog book" when I decide to print one. Now if I could just find the energy..........

The Note in the Door

2011-09-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

Ed and I have a Dodge Dakota pick up truck - one of those small ones. Don't use it a lot, but when we need it, we really need it! And our kids and friends borrow it periodically to haul stuff so we're always glad to have it around.

Today someone put a note on our door asking if we were interested in selling the truck. No, we're not. But the note reminded me of a story about my son when he was 15 1/2 and trying to buy his first car.

Joe had his heart set on a Bronco. You know, big tires, manly, yada, yada, yada. I mean, he already had the mullet so having a Bronco could only raise him even higher on the cool-o-meter.

So, we started looking around. There was an ad in the paper for a Bronco about 25 miles away in San Jose. We drove down there - Joe, Jenni, and Joe's friend, Aaron. Finally found the address and the car turned out to be in pretty bad shape and bright orange! So we drove my and didn't even stop. Joe was feeling very deflated. As we were driving out of the neighborhood, he spotted a teal and white Jimmy GMC (which apparently is similar to a Bronco) and told me to drive by. "But the car isn't for sale," I said. Joe said, "I know, but I want to look at it." He and Aaron hopped out of the car and checked it out - even sliding underneath to look for heaven knows what. And Joe fell in love.

He asked me if I had something for him to write a note with. I said, "You can't just ask people if they want to sell their car!" He said, "Sure I can." And he did. Left a note stuck in the door asking if they wanted to sell their car and leaving his phone number. I just shook my head and drove home.

That night Joe got a call. From the owner of the Jimmy. The woman asked him how much he was able to pay for the car and he said all he had was $2000. Then she started crying. She said she was having health problems and needed a procedure done but they didn't have the money. The cost was just under $2000. She and her husband had just been to church and were praying for an answer to their problems. On the way home they talked about maybe trying to sell the Jimmy! Then they found Joe's note.

So, Joe got his dream car. And I have never questioned his judgment again. On our end the story didn't have the greatest ending. Joe really wanted a "roll bar" (I think that's what they call it) and managed to find one that was a perfect fit. They guy wanted to get it out of his yard and sold it to Joe very cheap. The car sat at the curb for a few months until Joe was old enough to get his license. And then there he went - Mullett flapping in the wind, top down and roll bar shining, shirtless (for some reason he and Aaron were always taking off their shirts), the Budweiser sticker prominently displayed on the roll bar and the "No Fat Chicks or I'll Scrape" bumper adding a touch of class. Six months and two tickets later my son was back on his bike.

But, oh, what a story about how he bought his first car - back in the day.....

Yosemite - Lessons Learned!

2011-06-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

It had been several years since we visited Yosemite and we heard the falls were spectacular this year - so we planned a trip. On Memorial Day weekend. That was our first mistake!

Apparently 4.2 million other people also planned to visit the park that weekend. Who knew?!? And the weather in California has been particularly sucky this year so the forecast was for rain and temps in the high 50's to low 60's. But away we went!

The first night we spent in Sonora at a great little hotel and it was very relaxing.

Got to Yosemite around 10:30am on Saturday, finding only 10 or so cars ahead of us in the line to get in. Great! Might not be so bad! We met up with Ed's brother, Kim (he works at the park) at 10:30 after easily finding a parking spot close to the center of the park. Piece of cake, we thought. We visited Yosemite Falls, walked on the paths, took photos, had a nice lunch at the lodge, walked some more. Beautiful day - the sun was actually shining! Then we walked back to the car and headed to Bridal Veil Falls. Here's where the fun started.

By the time we arrived at Bridal Veil, about half of the aforementioned 4.2 million people had arrived. Seems they just got a later start than we did. We managed to find a parking spot at the falls - mostly because people were driving past figuring there was no way they could park. But we did. And Ed had to pee. The line for the restroom was about 30 people deep. In spite of his brother's admonishments to "just go find a tree", Ed waited in line. After 15 minutes he said the heck with it and we took off. We walked half way to the falls (which, as an aside, is not a great thing to do when you really have to go!) but the water was so heavy that we were drenched so we couldn't get any closer.

Now we were going to take Kim back to his abode. More people had arrived. Ed still had to pee. Traffic was at a standstill. It was not pleasant. More cries of "for pete's sake just get out and find a tree" emanated from the back seat. But to no avail. Finally we spotted a legitimate restroom a short ways ahead so Ed got out and headed for the restroom while Kim jumped in the driver's seat and we coasted along. Luckily the line here was short so Ed managed to catch up with us a short way past the restroom and he and Kim switched places. At the same time a woman in the car next to us shouted to Kim, "Hey, will you come drive my car while I go pee?!?" He probably could have made a lot of money that day providing the service.

Anyway, we got him back to his place, managed to get out of the park and back to our hotel. Which is right on the river. It started to rain just as we left the park and poured all night. Our plan was for Kim to meet us at the hotel the next day and we would drive up Glacier Point (which had just opened for the season a few days before). 10:00 am the next morning Kim knocks on our door with the following report - thanks to the rain/snow of last night, Glacier Point is again closed. On top of that, Kim counted 105 cars trying to get into the park as he was leaving. Yes, he actually counted the cars.

After a series of "oh, shits" we decided on another plan. We'd go in to the park the back way! Yeah, no one else would think of that! We were so cool. So we drove a very long way, got close to the back entrance, and got in line. After 20 minutes or so a ranger was telling cars that there were no parking places left in the park. We figured we could always park by Kim's place or just drive through taking some photos and seeing the falls. So we stayed in line (did I mention that we made more than one mistake?). 45 minutes later we got to the entrance! Only to be told that the park was so crowded they weren't letting anyone else in! Oh, joy. We turned around and headed back to the hotel. Now the temperature on this road had dropped to 39 and it was snowing. Yes, snowing. Spring in California.

But, at least the drive was pretty. The weather cleared up after awhile. We had a nice lunch at a place called Pete's and a nice dinner at the hotel. And our balcony was right over the river so it was a great place to relax and read. Monday we came home.

Ed still wants to go back to Yosemite some time this year. During the summer, he said. When there might not be as many people, he said. I'm not even a California native and I know that's a crock!

The Things Mothers Do

2011-04-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

I love my daughter – really I do! I enjoyed raising her (well, there were a few times during those delightful teen years....), and I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with her as an adult. I love her kids and look forward to my time with them. I love her husband – he is so totally a part of this crazy family.

But, alas, Jenni also has cats. She’s down to two now, but even two cats need to eat and drink when Jenni and the family go on vacation. And good old Mom gets “cat duty.” It’s a little easier these days with just two cats. The third one, while he did have an interesting personality, had one serious flaw – man poops (as Jenni called them). Made litter box duty much more challenging.

So yesterday was my first day of Cat Duty while Jenni and family make a trip to Tucson for Spring Break. And such a fun day it was. I didn’t get home until around 6:45 and immediately got into my sweats and cozy, fuzzy socks. Started working on dinner and talking with Ed. He asked something about the weekend so I checked my calendar and saw “Cat Duty” in bold letters! Shit! I forgot! It was now 7:20pm and I knew “the girls” would not be happy. So I removed the cozy fuzzy socks, put on my tennis shoes and bolted.

Jenni had told me that she was expecting a package from UPS and had left instructions for it to be placed in the gardening box in the back yard because other packages have been stolen from her porch. So my first stop was to open the fence and find the garden box. I finally figured out which container it was and I opened it. Nada! No packages. Just a lot of tools and pieces of yard decor and unidentifiable things. I looked carefully to be sure I didn’t miss it and then closed the box. Almost. It wouldn’t close! Crap – now I’m rummaging through all the stuff trying to figure out the problem. Turned out to be a combination of some tool sticking up too high, and the hinge thingy not working right. I finally got it closed and proceeded to the mail box.

Nothing there, but I saw Jenni’s UPS sticker still on her door – the one with the instructions on it. Drat, they must not have come by. I went up the stairs and noticed a note on the UPS sticker saying the package was left next door. Back down the stairs and up the stairs next door. I rang the bell, heard a lot of commotion and kids, then the door opened. And I was face to face with a Pit Bull!!! Now, I am NOT a dog person. Never been a fan of the whole barking, crotch-sniffing, jumping thing. But this was no ordinary dog – it was a pit bull! My life flashed before me and I thought, “Great, I’m going to die in my sweats and tennis shoes while Ed is home waiting for dinner.” Thankfully the dog ran past me down the stairs while the lady of the house yelled after him and a young boy ran out into the street to try to catch him. The lady gave me the packages and I juggled them back down the stairs and up Jenni’s stairs as fast as I could with bad knees and two bulky packages in my arms (not to mention fear in my heart). I was getting ready to unlock the door when that damn dog came back and started running towards me!! Of course, the lock chose that moment to be a bit sticky but I managed to open it, throw the packages in, break a nail, and slam the door shut.

The cats were happy to see me so I fed them, watered them, cleaned their “bathroom”, and told them I’d be back tomorrow and they better damn well appreciate it!

Our first 10 years

2011-01-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

Over the past week there have been a lot of newspaper, magazine and internet articles about world events that have occurred since this millennium began. You know - dot-com bust, banking fiasco, recession, elections, blah, blah, blah. But that made me think about all the events that have happened in our lives in the last 10 years.

Ed and I met in late 1999 so our "story" really began in 2000. Since that time there have been four weddings - my daughter, Ed's daughter, my son, and, of course, me and Ed!

Of our 13 grandchildren, 7 were born the past 10 years including a set of twins, and 2 amazing kids born in a village on the northern border of Russia where they lived for four years before finally coming home to us on Christmas Eve 2005.

We lost people, too. From January 2007 through January 2008 we lost three parents - Ed's mom and dad, and my dad. Those were difficult times but we had them around long enough to celebrate that.

Then, last year, we both found new "old people" in our families! For me, I met an Aunt Mary in France who will be 101 in February! She remembers my grandfather when he was a teenager. And on Ed's side we found Aunt Stella who turned 97 last August.

Oh, and my brother added two kids to his family during the last 10 years, also! He is now the father of four!!

And I was finally able to retire and say goodbye to the corporate world!! Yippee!!!

Neither Ed nor I had ever been out of the country (except for Canada and Mexico) until we took our first trip to Italy in 2004. Now, thanks to timeshares and airlines miles, we've been lucky enough to go to Europe 5 times!

All in all it's been quite an eventful 10 years. Can hardly wait to see what the next 10 will bring!

Our first Skype Christmas

2010-12-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

Although I know a lot of people who use Skype, I wasn't one of them. Until Christmas Eve. Ed's daughter, Wendy, now lives in Denver with her 1- 1/2 year old twins and this was the first Christmas she wouldn't be with us. So she and I cooked up a plan to surprise her mom and dad with a Skype visit on Christmas Eve. Yes, her mother spends the holidays with us!

On Wednesday I sent an email to Wendy with the suggestion and she was all for it. She downloaded Skype on her laptop and I tried to do the same on Thursday. Alas, Skype was having some sort of outage and I couldn't get signed up or logged in. Finally I did and, since Ed was going to be out of the house Friday morning, Wendy and I set up a time to practice. We called each other and signed in to our Skype accounts. She could see me, but I couldn't see her. So we logged off, logged on, called, etc. for several minutes but nothing. I had to go to an appointment so we decided to try again later. I was afraid Ed would be home by that time and the surprise would be ruined for him, but we had no choice.

After my appointment I tried to find someone with Skype so I could try again and be sure it wasn't a problem on my end. I called my son - he was just heading out the door. He gave me the name of his sister-in-law who was at the airport waiting to go home to New Orleans. I called her to see if she had any ideas, but her camera issues were minor so she gave me the name of a friend of hers. Who wasn't home! Then I remembered my friend in Tucson had Skype so I called her and she was home. We signed in and could see each other! So we had a fun chat and then Ed walked in so I hung up quickly.

Rats! I really wanted to surprise him but Wendy wasn't home so I was stuck. Then he told me he had to go to Home Depot. Now usually when he goes out on holidays when we have a ton of people coming over and a lot of work to do I'm not happy. So he told me with caution in his voice. But this time I was thrilled that he was leaving! (He told me later he thought that was pretty strange). As soon as I heard the garage door close I called Wendy and told her we had about 30 minutes. She had just gotten home so she plopped the babies in their high chairs and logged on. This time it worked! We had a nice chat, she showed me her Christmas decorations and we set up 5:00pm call time for that night.

My laptop is on the kitchen counter and we usually put it on my desk when we have a crowd over. Ed started to move it and I practically yelled "Leave it there!!" He gently put it down and backed out of the kitchen. At 5pm I called Wendy and she wanted me to log in out of sight of her parents so we could be sure things worked. So I had to sneak in the kitchen while everyone was talking, take the laptop, and duck into the office. I did and we got all set up.

Then I took the laptop back into the kitchen and said, "Hey, guys, someone is here to see you!" They turned around and there was Wendy and her twins on the laptop! At first they thought it was a video Wendy had sent, but soon realized that they were talking with her and seeing her real time. And the tears flowed. Ed and Linda (Wendy's mom) couldn't talk much at first because they were crying. But eventually we all took turns standing in front of the computer and saying hi. Wendy took up around her house to see the Christmas decorations. At one point her son scurried up the stairs so she put her computer down to go get him. And we could watch the whole thing. Very cool.

On Christmas Day Ed and I Skyped Wendy again so we could talk with her without the whole gang around. Of course, there were more tears. Then I Skyped my brother in Chicago and got to wish him and his whole family a Merry Christmas in person! He Skyped us back a little later when they were at the dinner table and then he held the laptop close to his face and turned in a circle singing "The Circle of Life". Yes, I have a weird family. But it was really awesome.

So now we have a new toy. Ed is on the hunt for a good webcam for his desktop computer. And the world has shrunk again. That is a very good thing.

Another myth destroyed

2010-12-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

I know what I'm going to say goes against common logic, but not all Italians are good cooks!!

My maternal grandfather, Papa Jim, was a true, old Italian cook with heavy sauces (gravy!), meats cooked until they fell off the bone, homemade pasta (macaroni to us), red wine. OK, there was about 1/4 inch of oil sitting on top of his sauce, but we could spoon that off. The taste was incredible.

Nani Gene, my grandmother, was another story. She had an amazing talent for taking the simplest recipe and destroying it! Two examples come to mind. One when I was about 11. We were having a family dinner at my grandparents house and Nani Gene had made a custard (at least we think that's what it was supposed to be) pie. When dinner was over, they asked me to go into the kitchen and get the pie. Nani Gene had already cut it into nice little wedges so all I had to do was carry it about 10 feet. Alas, being the graceful damsel I have always been, I tripped in the kitchen and the pie went toppling - little custard wedges bouncing around the floor. I panicked and quickly begin gathering up the pieces. Oddly, none of them even had a dent in them so I arranged them back into the pie tin and carried it (slowly this time) to the table. No one knew until several years later when I "fessed up" at another family dinner.

Later, as an adult, I was invited to my grandmother's house for dinner one night. She was going to serve Beef Stroganoff (a true Italian specialty!!). When I got there, she mentioned in passing that she discovered she didn't have the right kind of beef in the freezer so she used neck bones! Now, I don't know about your families but for some reason neck bones were big in mine. Must have been one of those "I grew up in the Depression" things. But I have vivid memories of my mother, aunt, and grandmother gnawing away on those dang neckbones at family functions. Disgusting. Anyway, back to dinner. which turned out to be a lovely "Bones and Rice" covered with Cream of Mushroom Soup. Yup, them's good eatin' !

My mother was an incredible cook. A lot of very Italian items, plus she would create her own great recipes. Of course, nothing was written down - just a pinch of this and a handful of that. She was the type of person who could create a wonderful meal at the drop of a hat with just what was around the house. Wish I had that gift!

Her sister, my aunt, definitely took after Nani Gene. Well, she did make a few things really well. But she had this obsession with germs and felt that cooking things A LOT would kill all of the germs! So much of what she made was overcooked and dry. Also, another post-Depression thing (I think) was not wasting even one kernel of corn. So when she would make a casserole, it would not only be dry and overcooked, but it would have a little bit of everything in it which is not always a good thing.

But the most famous (infamous?) thing my aunt did was one Thanksgiving. My cousin was visiting his mom for the holiday and when we went to get some candied yams, he noticed brown spots. He asked her what that was and she said brightly, "Those are Hershey's Kisses!" Ken said, "Mom, why did you put Hershey's Kisses in the yams?" She informed him that it was his favorite and that she always did that for him. Um, no. Not the case. So, from that holiday forward, they gave her a break and didn't let her cook anymore.

Well, time to go start dinner. Wonder if they still sell neckbones?!?

Channelling the old days

2010-11-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

We're having a smaller group for dinner this year at Thanksgiving so we decided to turn it into a really traditional Italian Thanksgiving. That means you start with pasta! And not just any pasta - we're going to make home-made gnocchi. My kids and grandkids will come over early to roll and pinch the gnocchi just like "back in the day". I have such fond memories of my grandmother's house where all of us kids (after a thorough hand washing) got to help make the gnocchi. Then Grandma would put them in batches on a cookie sheet dusted with flour. In the spare bedroom she had spread a white sheet (I think we only had white sheets back then!) on the bed and dusted it with flour. Our job was to put the gnocchi on the bed, making sure none of them touched, and sprinkle with flour so they could dry before cooking. All of us would be covered head to toe in flour and loving every minute of it.

Growing up we always had pasta as a first course. A couple of times my cousin invited some of his fraternity brothers to our house if they couldn't get back home for the holiday. We would try to warn them about the volume of food. Alas, they would never listen. Nani Gene and Papa Jim would bring out the platters of pasta, meats cooked in the sauce (gravy to us Italians), salad and bread. The frat boys would devour it senselessly not heeding our warnings to pace themselves.

When the pasta was done, the women would clear off the table while the man sat there and finished their wine. There were satisfied sighs and burps all around. Then, a few minutes later, the womenfolk would waltz back in with the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, broccoli, dressing, gravy (real turkey gravy this time), cranberry and rolls. This is about the time the frat boys would get a look of horror on their faces. But they dug in like the rest of us.

Once we were all in a total food coma, the women would again clear the table. About 20 minutes later the pies, cakes, cookies and candy would appear. Then it was time for a few naps, some clean up, football. Within 2 hours of dinner all the leftovers would magically appear on the table and we would be back at it. Usually playing a friendly game of "put and take" along with the eating. That was a fun little dice game that even the kids would play so there would be 20 of us yelling and trying to win pennies.

Our holidays haven't been that traditional since my grandparents passed away. The pasta disappeared as did the "put and take" dice. We've built our own traditions and hopefully my kids and grandkids will have fond memories of our time together. But this year we bring back the spirit of my grandparents with gnocchi and gravy.

I can't wait!

Some things are just a matter of principle.

2010-11-14T12:25:00.001-08:00

There are a few things in life that I just don't do - mostly on principle. Things such as

darning socks (pleeeaaassseee, just buy a new pair without a hole)
parallel park
use that last little sliver of soap before getting out a new bar
back into parking spaces or driveways (this one drives Ed nuts)
swim in bodies of water other than swimming pools
use hankies

And I don't camp! I know, I know, it's the great American adventure sleeping out in the open, cooking over an open fire, blah, blah, blah. A friend of mine once said that, to her, "roughing it" meant not having a rose on her breakfast tray. Well, I'm not nearly so shallow. I can even stay in a hotel without room service! As long at it has flushing toilets and hot water.

What is it about camping that people love? Sleeping outside where bears and bugs can attack at will? Peeing (and other things) in the woods? Having dirt and weeds in your food? What is it??

First, let's talk about water. I like water - running out of a faucet. Hot water, stuff like that. Jumping in a lake to clean off isn't my cup of tea. There are critters in lakes. And seaweed (I think) and used fishing line and other creepy stuff. Give me a swimming pool where I can see the bottom, smell the chlorine, and see the little wiggly thing on the bottom that catches bugs. I am, after all, from Tucson. Oh, and let's not forget trying to wash dishes in cold water or lake water. Nope, not gonna do it.

Camping is a lot of work. You still have to cook and clean, but without any of the niceties of home. Oh, sure, cooking over an open fire is fun once in awhile - about every 10 years or so. And coffee perking out in the open smells great. But batting away flies while you eat or finding a piece of bark in your potatoes - no thanks.

I can manage without electricity for awhile, but not without hot, running water. And I can sleep in the great outdoors if I have a comfortable bed that is inside something like a nice RV or a room. No tents, no cots, and dear god no sleeping bags.

There have been camping experiences in my life:

Overflowing "toilet" in a camper
Skunks
Brushing teeth with using a little dixie cup of precious water - insert gag reflex here
Campgrounds filled with smells of other people cooking, loud radios, dogs pooping willy-nilly, drunks
Dirty hair = itchy head

Ed and I have both always thought it would be cool, once we retire, to travel the country in an RV. Of course, my version of that is to stay in a hotel every third night and eat in restaurants much of the time. Which, apparently, defeats the whole purpose of taking RV. Whatever.

I do have my principles!!

Food "back in the day"

2010-09-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I read an article about TV dinners. Those of us who were around in the 50's and 60's remember when those glorious little silver trays first came out. As the article said, it was totally cool to have metal TV trays and those segregated portions of "food".

And, of course, that reminded me of other foods we ate back then. Fresh vegetables weren't as plentiful back then, but frozen veggies was all the rage. Luckily we didn't eat too many vegetables out of a can - I mean gray peas !? Really?!? But we did eat the frozen stuff. Many a meal was rounded out by a solid square of spinach that was plopped in a pot of boiling water. You couldn't defrost them (don't even remember how that was done pre-microwave!) but they didn't take too long to melt down in the hot water and turn into lovely soggy vegetables floating in their own juice.

Another favorite of mine was pot pies. Specifically turkey pot pie. Our junior high had split shifts so I would get home around 1:30 pm. Mom worked so I was alone for a few hours. I'd pop a turkey pot pie in the oven and it would be done just about the time the Afternoon Movie was on tv. Always a good old black and white movie. I'd close the curtains, whip out the tv tray, and savor my pot pie and my movie. Some of the best afternoons of my life.

Fish sticks - I loved fish sticks! Don't even want to think about what might be in them, but back then it was pure heaven. Especially if there was some frozen corn and mashed potatoes to go along. Do they even still make those?

Jiffy-Pop Pop Corn. Watching that foil top puff up, smelling the burned kernels (there were always burned kernels). Both entertaining and delicious!

Alas, none of these items are in my diet anymore. But they sure to evoke some wonderful memories.

Let's hear it for longevity!

2010-09-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

I love having really old relatives! That means I might make it to a nice old age.

Earlier this year Ed and I met an aunt of mine in France who had just turned 100! She was getting a little forgetful (that is a lot of years to remember, after all), but still lived alone with some help and was doing great!

This past week Ed, his older sister (who just turned 82!) and I met Ed's last remaining aunt who just turned 97! Her name is Stella, she lives alone in a condo she bought in 1975, and she's quite amazing. Has a young woman who comes in twice a day to help her with meds and meals, but other than that she gets by all by herself. Still reads voraciously - in fact she had just gone to the library and picked up about 8 new books! Recently she and the caretaker took a trip to Sausalito to visit one of her "girlfriends" who had her 93rd birthday.

As we were driving there we were wondering if she would remember Ed, if she would be very coherent, etc. We walked into her condo and there she was, sitting in the chair with this yellow 2-piece outfit on and a big smile on her face. I would not have guessed she was more than 80 at the most! We spent 2 hours with her going through old family photos and talking about "back in the day." In fact, she pulled out her boxes of photos so we could take whatever we wanted. She has no children and doesn't want things to just be thrown away when she dies. So we found some great photos of Ed's father as a young man and many other treasurers. I'll be on another scanning frenzy soon.

She told us some fun stories about Ed's grandmother and great-grandmother. Some interesting stuff about her own life. And she told us about her husband, Elmer, who passed away four years ago. She's lonely - no kids and most of her friends are gone now. And how she's ready to join him.

All in all, a very touching and wonderful visit. And inspiring. We're so glad we connected with her and plan to visit her again.

Phobias

2010-09-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that there are as many phobias as there are "things"! Well, I have a few. My main one is claustrophobia. I know, pretty common and not very exotic. But please do not ever describe your MRI to me or I'll start breathing funny.

Another one I've had since I was a child is fear of quicksand. I don't even know if there's a name for that phobia. In fact, I tried to look it up and discovered that I'm not the only person in the world with this fear! I think it stems from some old 1950's movie I saw once where this woman went totally under. I've never even been close to quicksand as far as I know. And my guess is that this isn't a major health threat. But I fear it none-the-less.

However, there is one phobia I have a bit of control over. Again, I don't think this one has a name so I'll make it up - messyeyebrowphobia! I literally have a mild panic attack when I see someone with really messy eyebrows or, worse yet, see someone rub their eyebrow against the grain with their finger! I mean, why in the world would anyone do that?? Of course, Ed does it periodically just to see me squirm. But he's smart enough to quickly remedy the situation. And he often trims his eyebrows to save me from angst.

My daughter is afflicted with this same condition. You'll often see one or both of us smoothing our own eyebrows when a person does the unthinkable (please refer to above - I just can't write it again....). When I worked at Stanford there was a woman physician who would come into my office to chat. She really was a great person, but she had this habit of playing with her eyebrows and pushing the hairs the wrong way. By the time she left I would have major agita.

Spiders are no problem. Not afraid of heights. No problem with airplanes. But PLEASE keep me out of tight spaces and keep those damn eyebrows neat! Oh, yeah, and if you have a map with quicksand locations that I can avoid, that would be great!

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

2010-08-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

Reminds you of a great scene on a bicycle in Butch Cassidy, right? Well we had a scene with bicycles last weekend but it wasn't quite so charming.

As we were reading our paper on Sunday morning, Ed saw an ad for bikes at Target and got all excited. He decided we needed to go there and buy them! Now, we have bikes, but he said that these were mountain bikes with wider tires which would be easier to ride which means that we might actually take a bike ride some day!

I vaguely remembered my bike and truly couldn't tell the difference. I bought it about 12 years ago and paid quite a bit for it. And when we moved in together we thought it was so cute (Kismet) that we had bikes that were the same color. But Ed said they weren't mountain bikes. I asked what we would do with our old bikes but he didn't have that answer just yet.

So Monday we took both of our cars to Target to get the bikes. Found them in the bike department (clever, eh?) and had the staff person help us get them down. Then we pushed them through the store, checked out, pushed them to our cars, and with just a little struggling managed to get them into the cars. Drove home, another little struggle getting them out of the cars, and there they were. All shiny and new sitting in the garage. Yep, now we'll be bike riding all over the place.

Ed decided to find a place for them and take the old bikes out so we could give them to someone. He opened the door of one of our sheds and suddenly I heard, "Well, shit!" He was looking inside the shed at our matching bikes which, as luck would have it, were mountain bikes! Apparently when you don't ride your bike for 8 years you forget what it looks like.

Tuesday we again struggled to put the bikes back into the cars and take them to Target. Get them out, push them into the store, and head for the return desk. Ed absolutely HATES returning things, but this time I decided to let him handle it. The clerk noticed that we had only been the proud owners for less than 24 hours so he asked Ed, "Anything wrong with the bikes?" Ed simply replied, "They just didn't work out for us." They man looked at me like WTF does that mean, but then he rang us up, moved the bikes, and we hustled out of the store.

Now I guess we're going to have to go bike riding.

Memorable Responses

2010-08-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Today Ed and I stopped at Safeway to pick up just a few things. As we walked in, there was a young man at a table by the front door who asked us if we would like a free copy of the local paper. We both responded, "No thanks." He said, "Have a nice day," and we went in the store.

Not more than 15 minutes later we walked out the same door and he again asked us if we would like a paper! Still no thanks! Now, granted there were a few other people going in and out of that door, and we certainly aren't that memorable - but it still struck us as funny.

Which made me think of two other "responses" that were pretty amusing. Several years ago Ed and I used one of our timeshares for a week of down time after Christmas. We wound up in Myrtle Beach (don't even get me started!) and stayed at a really nice place. Golf is a big thing in Myrtle Beach. Miniature Golf is just as big. When we were checking in, there was this cute, young blond girl with the golf outfit on and a ponytail who welcomed us, told us about the resort and then asked us, with a big smile on her face, if we played golf. We both responded "no" which caused her expression to stall in mid-smile and for a few moments she looked like a Stepford Wife who had a misfire. I mean, we were probably the only people at that resort who didn't golf. Finally she gathered her wits about her, told us about the welcome breakfast the next day, and then looked up at us with a big smile and said, "Do you play golf?" Since barely five minutes had passed since the first time she asked, we said , "Nope, still don't." Now she was really lost so she raced through the rest of her questions and got us the heck out of there.

But my all-time favorite is when we lived in Denver and my twins were about two years old. We were at one of the malls and there was a kiosk in the middle which sold ice cream. It was summer so we decided to get a couple of milkshakes. There wasn't anyone else at the counter and the girl was standing there looking at us so my husband said, "We'd like two chocolate milk shakes with chocolate ice cream, please," She said to us, "This side is closed, please go over to the other side." Which we did - even though the whole kiosk was only about 6 feet long on each side and was so small inside that the girl didn't have to do anything but turn around.. But we pushed the stroller over to the other side at which point the girl turned around and said, "Can I help you?" We just looked at her for a second and then burst out laughing. I don't even remember if we got the milkshakes.

Have you ever had one of those "responses" that leaves you a bit speechless?

Road Trip!!!

2010-07-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Ed and I leave on a road trip to Tucson. We're taking it in two days this time - stopping near Palm Springs for the night. We planned this before Ed hurt his leg and now we're really glad we did!

We love road trips. First of all, you can carry all your shit with you in regular sized bottles and regular hairspray! And a bag o' shoes so we don't have to try to make it on one pair that will fit into a suitcase. We can hang our clothes up in the car, carry both laptops, and food - we can bring food and drink!

When I was a kid, road trips consisted mostly of driving from Tucson to Southern California to do the Disneyland - Knotts Berry Farm - Sea World circuit. Almost every summer. We always left at 4:00am because back in those days we didn't have air conditioning in the car and the rule was that you had to make it to Yuma by 8am, have a quick breakfast, and be back on the road by 8:30. If not you would simply die because Yuma is a thousand degrees in the summer.

I remember so well as a kid my mom would wake us up and toss us in the car in our pajamas. That eliminated the whole ordeal of us getting ready at 4am. We'd be sleeping in the back seat (this was pre-seat belt days) and mom and dad would talk in low voices. I would periodically open my eyes and see all the lights from the truck stops and it made me so happy because I knew that on the other end was California and Disneyland. Mom would always bring a thermos of coffee. When they were ready for a cup, she would open a dishtowel on her lap and pour. It smelled so good and to this day the smell of coffee in the car reminds me of those trips.

We would stop in Yuma for breakfast and then in Pine Valley (which is closer to San Diego) for banana cream pie at the Hobart House. Tradition! We always knew we were close to the ocean because the trees were slanted from the breezes and we would see orange juice and date stands popping up. This was also pre-freeway days so there would be vendors on the side of the road.

Of course, there was the usually chorus of "are we there yet?" followed by "Stop asking! I'll tell you when we get there!!" We'd usually have a picnic lunch at a rest stop and several bathroom stops.

When I grew up and had my own family, we continued the tradition of leaving very early in the morning. It just seemed like the right thing to do. And there's something very special about being far away from your home and watching the sun come up from inside the car. Magical. The kids and I took several trips back to Tucson after we moved to California and many times we would leave as soon as I got home from work and drive all night. That way we could have breakfast with my mom! She loved it and so did we.

I've never outgrown my love of road trips and my daughter is the same. Not sure about my son - I think he's more of an airplane guy. Luckily Ed is a road-trip kinda guy, too. So we're excited. Tucson will be very hot. But who cares. Maybe we'll catch a monsoon or two. And we'll visit with family and enjoy the desert.

On the road again.......

Day at Sea

2010-07-25T14:32:00.001-07:00

Ed is a total Type A personality. At times I'm not far behind, but I think if you look up Type A in the dictionary, you might find his picture. Constantly busy. The only time he sits and relaxes (like watch a movie, read a book, nap) is when he's sick. I, on the other hand, feel the most productive thing I can do is watch a movie, read a book, or take a nap!

So yesterday he was doing some yard work, made an awkward leap for the porch, and tore a ligament (or something like that) in his calf. He was really in pain - you know the kind of pain that makes you break out in a sweat and almost puke. Finally made it in the house and to the couch. After ice backs, elevating his leg, and several Tylenol, he felt better. But today his leg is swollen and quite sore so he can't do much.

Which means we're just hanging around the house, reading, eating, resting. I managed to get a project done that I've put off for almost a year. In our front hall we have a box with 9 little drawers each having a place for a photo. I use it for grandkids photos. However, since we have 13 grandkids and my brother's 4 children feel like grandkids, I had to add four small frames on the sides to hold the whole gang! Today I actually had time to update all the photos, add the twins who were born last August (!!), and get the 8 older kids in the outside frames.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like it when Ed is sick or hurt. But I do secretly enjoy the "day at sea."

Do you know this man??

2010-07-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

As you know, my Aunt Mary passed away at the beginning of June. The family is having a memorial service in Tucson this weekend and my daughter, Jenni, said she would do a video for them to show at the service. Jenni does an incredible job with these videos - she's made several of them for memorials and birthdays and special occasions. This one had three parts - my aunt growing up, my aunt and uncle together, and the last section called "a la famiglia" which had a lot of old family photos of grandparents, cousins, etc. I keep telling her she should market herself, but, alas.....

Anyway, back to the story. My cousin found a lot of old family photos while he was going through his mom's things. He had them scanned and sent us a dvd for the video. I went through the photos before I gave them to Jenni and added several of my own. One of the photos Ken had sent was of an old man -looked like an old Italian fisherman.

When Jenni was going through the photos, she called me to ask who the old man was. I said I wasn't sure, but I thought (and assumed) it was Ken's grandfather. He had died when Ken and I were only 2 or 3 so I hadn't seen pictures of him. But his face looked similar to my uncle so it was a safe bet. Besides, Ken put it on his dvd so it had to be a relative!

Jenni finished the dvd, we watched it (and cried) and then I sent it to Ken. He called me the other night after he watched and I could tell that it had gotten to him, too. Through a stuffy nose he told me how much he loved it, how he had forgotten how beautiful his mom, my mon (they were sisters) and my grandmother were. We laughed about some of the photos of he and I as kids with our moms. Then we had this conversation:

Ken: Sandi, who is that old guy in the "a la famiglia" portion of the dvd?

Me: That's your grandfather, isn't it?

Ken: No, I don't think so. All the photos of Grandpa Frank I've seen he was dressed in a suit. He died when I was little so I don't remember him, but I don't think he looked like that.

Me: Well, Ken, you had that photo on the dvd you sent us so we assumed it was your grandfather.

Ken: Hmm, wonder where that came from. I don't remember seeing it or scanning it. Where did you get it??

Me: Oh, for pete's sake, you sent it to us! See if anyone at the memorial or any of your relatives from Chicago recognize him. Since family always seem to come out of the woodwork at Italian weddings, he may have just been a passerby who had his photo taken! But why would your mom have the photo in her album?

Ken: Heck if I know. Oh, well, he looks like family so we'll just keep quiet about it.

So, if you know who this man is, let me know! Hey, maybe it's one of ba's relatives!

Sugar overload

2010-07-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last week, for 4th of July, Ed and I made marshmallows. Why, you might ask? Well, I'll have to get back to you on that.

Anyway, after Ed asked if I could make them "low calorie" and I explained that basically all marshmallows are is sugar and water, we went to the store to buy sugar in all its forms - granulated, corn syrup, powdered. The recipe is actually pretty simple, except that I'm not a candy maker. First step was to see if I had anything that could serve as a candy thermometer. We did have a small digital thermometer which went high enough so decided that would suffice.

Then I had to go online and find out what the crap "soft ball stage" meant! Still not sure I understand that concept but it turned out to not matter. We mixed the sugar, syrup and water and let it boil. Now the fun part - checking the temperature. Remember that meat thermometer? Well, the head of it is about 3/4" and there's no way to clip it to the pan. So Ed and I had to take turns holding the dang thing in the middle of the pan to check the temp. You can only hold it for so long before the steam and heat begins to melt the skin from your fingers so this was NOT the fun part! Plus the steam sort of obliterated the readout so mostly we had to guess. It finally got to what we thought was the right temperature so we said, "what the hell."

The next step is to pour the scalding, sugary liquid into the mixer to mix with more water and gelatin. WITHOUT getting any on your bodily parts as super hot sugar tends to stick and then pull your skin off. Remind me to tell you about my experience making popcorn balls in 7th grade Home Ec and the scar from the blue sugary syrup that is still on my forearm 50 years later.

But finally we got it all mixed and put it into the pan which was lined with parchment. Of course, Ed had to run to the store to buy parchment paper because we didn't have any. After we spread it in the pan, we put red and blue food color dots on top and ran threw them with toothpicks to give the marshmallows a festive flair.

One of the biggest problems I had was washing the bowls and utensils before Ed could lick all the marshmallow batter off them and sink into a diabetic coma! That was not easy. This little glob stayed on his chin and neck for the longest time!

A few hours later we cut them into squares and rolled the in powdered sugar. They actually came out quite good and everyone loved them. Much better than store-bought. Ed wants to make this a new family tradition for big events. I may have to invest in a real candy thermometer.

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

July is a great month - it's my granddaughter's birthday, my birthday, and the 4th of July! When I was a kid, my grandparents lived a couple of blocks from the University of Arizona so we would all gather on their front lawn and watch the fireworks. So many great memories. The whole family would be there including my great grandmother.

Tonight my kids are coming over with their families for some roasted chicken, red-white-blue chili, watermelon and homemade marshmallows (not yet sure how those will turn out!). Jeff is also bringing a blueberry cobbler or pie. Then we'll take to the front yard with our fireworks - fountains, little jumping flowers, and sparklers for the kids.

I love fireworks - it's one of my favorite things at Disneyland. But somehow the fireworks on the 4th feel different. Whether they're the small street-legal type that we are allowed to have in our city, or the big displays over San Francisco Bay, they're all a celebration of our country. And, even with all our current problems and conflicts and naysayers - it's still the best place to live.

Happy Birthday, America!

Wonder if there's an app for that...

2010-06-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I wanted to be a doctor. Didn't want to go to school and spend all the time becoming a doctor - just wantd to wake up one day and be one!

Same thing for playing the piano. Practice be damned, I just want to be able to play ragtime or any old thing my little heart desires.

But, alas, neither of those came to fruition. Can't imagine why.....

Today I remembered one other profession that always seemed very cool to me - bank teller. No, it wasn't my desire to sit behind a cage all day dealing with the masses. Nope, didn't want to have to balance my account every night. Didn't particularly want to handle all that dirty money. But the stamps! How I loved the sound of all those stamps on the marble countertops. My mom would give the teller some money or a piece of paper, and the stamping frenzy would begin. Bang, bang, bang the teller would stamp several pieces of paper, put some in a drawer, give something back to Mom, sometimes money was exchanged. The sound of stamp hitting marble seemed so grownup and melodical.

So now I have several stamps at my desk and sometimes I stamp things just for the thrill of it. Now don't try to tell me you don't have any little quirks like that! Come on, come clean. You know you want to.

Sometimes there are tears

2010-06-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

Ed and I went to dinner tonight at an Italian restaurant where they were playing old Dean Martin songs. One of them brought back a flood of memories of my childhood and suddenly I missed my family so much. My grandparents, my mom and dad, my aunt and uncle. Mom and Aunt Mary were sisters and my dad and Uncle Joey had know them since they were all kids. They grew up together, got married two years apart, and my cousin and I were born 2 months apart (first wave of Baby Boomers).

Most of my childhood is filled with memories of the four of them being together. They knew each others families and grew up in the same neighborhood. Their histories melded together. And their history is my history.

I remember so many wonderful family events, especially after we all moved back to Tucson where my grandparents had moved. Holidays meant family. Lots of food, love and laughter. My mom and aunt were very close and my mother often would tell me how she didn't know what she'd do if Aunty Mary died. My aunt was the least healthy of the group - and yet she was the last one to go.

So many times my cousin and I would look at our family enjoying each other and wonder which of the four would pass away first. We dreaded the whole idea of any of them not being in our lives. My mom, who was the healthiest of the group, died in 1994. My aunt never really got over it and when her husband, Uncle Joey, died 4 years later, we thought she would not be around much longer. But she hung on for 12 more years. My dad died in 2007 and Aunt Mary was the last one - she just passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 88. A good friend of mine, when I told her my aunt has died, said, "Isn't it funny how they died in reverse order of what we all thought would happen."

Today I started thinking about my childhood and trying to remember something, and I suddenly had a very cold feeling inside realizing that there was no one left to ask! They're all gone.

Gone are the huge family dinners with more food than any human can eat. Gone is my grandfather's silly dancing trying to make us kids laugh. Gone is my mom and aunt talking and laughing. Gone is my dad and my uncle constantly teasing each other and pretending to be fighting. Gone are all the stories of the "old neighborhood" which we kids were bored with and which I would give anything to hear again. Gone are the family events at the drive-in theater, the park, Old Tucson, Sabino Canyon. Gone is the whole family sitting around my grandmother's table playing poker for pennies.

When that song came on tonight, it all came back. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's because I was talking with my cousin this afternoon about his mom's memorial and we were telling stories we remembered from our childhood. My family was always my strength and I never felt more loved or secure than when we were all together. How I miss that.

Today our holidays are still filled with food, love and laughter. Ed and I have wonderful kids and grandkids. I hope we're helping them build special memories that they will carry with them forever and pass on to their kids.

And, I guess, if someday they shed a tear or two missing us and our family times together, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Happy Father's Day!!

2010-06-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

It's Father's Day and I miss my Dad. So I'm recycling one of the posts I did about him back in early 2007. I actually showed this to him and first he laughed, then he looked at me and said, "That's not funny!" Oh, yes, it is.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. And all the other fathers in my family - Ed, Joe, Jeff, Marc, Michael, Michael.

***********************

Growing up, Holiday meals with my Italian family were interesting events. There was always lots of food, lots of laughter and one important tradition. After dinner, usually over dessert and coffee, we would tell stories about my dad. He would be sitting there laughing along with us, sometimes just shaking his head.

Three of my favorites are The Lamp, The Washer, The Water Bucket.

The Lamp - my aunt and uncle moved to Tucson a couple of years after we did and bought a new house. They waited patiently for it to be built and finally they had the walk through, signed the papers, and were ready to move in. But, first they wanted to show it to my parents. My uncle was taking us on the grand tour and we got to the dining room. One of the new-fangled things many new houses had was a pull-down lamp over the dining room table. Not really sure of the purpose, but people thought they were cool (until they banged their heads a couple of time). So, when we got to my uncle's dining room, my dad said, "What a nice lamp. Is it pull-down?" Before my uncle could answer (the answer being "NO!"), my dad reached up and yanked on it. Nice and hard. Pulled the darn thing right out of the ceiling!! Broken lamp, plaster everywhere, the whole group just staring at the mess.

The Washer - my dad loved to do things around the house - build, repair, etc. Some projects worked out okay, but others were fraught with disaster. Okay, disaster is too big a word, but definitely fraught with, "oh, for pete's sake!!". One such time was when the washer broke. Turned out the hose was old and leaking. So dad carefully cut a hole in the wall to get to the hose. Bought some new tubing, carefully replaced it, cut a board that would fit the hole, sanded and painted it, and began to put everything back. This took the whole day and my mother was patiently waiting to wash the loads of clothes that were sorted and lying on the floor in anticipation. Finally dad put the board back on the wall, nailed it on, and managed to run one of the nails right through the new hose he had just installed!

The Water Bucket - we used to take a lot of road trips in our 1954 blue and white Olds (yes, it WAS my father's Oldsmobile). On one of our gas stops - this was back when the attendants actually pumped the gas, filled the radiator with water, etc. - we were done, dad paid, and then we drove out. The car seemed to hit a small bump and so dad backed up a little gunned the car a just a bit so we could go over the bump. We heard the station attendant yelling and saw him walking towards us. Couldn't hear him, so dad backed up. Ran into that same danged bump again but managed to get over it a second time. The attendant yelled again so dad rolled down the window. "My water bucket, you ran over my water bucket!!" the man was yelling. Dad apologized and offered to pay. The man said no and we drove away. I still remember looking out the back window and seeing that station attending sadly holding what can only be described as aluminum roadkill.

Happy Birthday to you, dear Eddie........

2010-06-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

Monday was Flay Day. It was also my husband, Ed's, birthday! I can't tell you how old he is because he's not happy about the number getting bigger each year. Senior discounts be damned! But since I'm a year older than him (yes, I'm a cradle robber), I can tease him about his advancing age with no remorse.

We gave each other nice parties for our 60th birthdays, but now we keep them low key. A few calls and maybe gifts from the kids and other family members and that's about it. Which is a good thing. I even finally got him to agree that we don't need to buy each other presents for our birthdays - that took about 6 years to convince him of that! I mean, we have pretty much everything we need and I'd rather we spend the money on a nice dinner out or a trip somewhere.

Ed and I met in late 1999 so this is our 11th year of celebrating birthdays together. We've gone through so much in our short time as a couple - the death of three parents, the addition of 11 grandkids to the family, the weddings of three of our kids. Not to mention numerous trips to various places - we're great travel buddies! Sometimes we talk about all those special times in our past that we wish we had been able to share with each other. But we've had 11 great years and plan on living until we're at least 90!

So Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. And here's to many more years together traveling, enjoying our family, and sharing our lives. I love you.

My first niece

2010-06-03T17:45:00.001-07:00

Fourteen years ago next Wednesday my brother, Tony, and his wife, Nicki, had their first child - a little girl names Mallory Rose. I still remember the night of her birth. Tony called me and my kids when Nicki was in the hospital and we high-tailed it out there. Sat in the waiting room just outside delivery for what seemed to be a very long time. Finally my brother walked in with tears of joy in his eyes and this little tiny bundle in his hands. And we met Mallory for the first time.

Sadly (for me, anyway!) my brother and his family moved to Chicago when Mallory was around 6 weeks old so I've had to watch her grow up from a distance. They've added three more kids to their family and Ed and I make several trips to Chicago to see them all. Because my brother is 18 years younger than me, his children feel almost like grandchildren to me.

My mom never got a chance to meet any of Tony's kids, but my dad knew three of them and was so excited when his son had his first child. Luckily my dad moved back to Chicago and spent his last 5 years there so he had plenty of time to watch his youngest grandchildren grow.

Mallory started ice skating almost as soon as she started walking and has become an excellent skater. It's one of her primary loves.

And now she's 14 and this weekend Mallory will graduate from 8th grade and head to high school. Ed and I will be heading to Chicago tomorrow to watch her graduate.

How did she get so old so quickly? Wasn't it only yesterday that Tony came into the waiting room with this little bundle? I'm quite sure it was.

Happy Graduation, Miss Mallory. Here's hoping the next four years don't fly by quite as quickly!

Goodbye to my Aunt

2010-06-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

My Aunt Mary passed away early this morning. She hadn't been well for quite some time and she was 88. But somehow none of that matters - it's still a sad loss. She and my mom were only 13 months apart and were very close. I always thought of them when I heard the song "Sisters" from White Christmas. They loved each other so much.

They grew up in the Italian neighborhood in Chicago and married men they had known since they were kids. This is a photo of my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother in the middle - amidst all their fur!

The got married two years apart, but managed to get pregnant almost two months apart and had me and my cousin, Ken (who always reminds me he's my MUCH younger cousin - by two months).
As they got older, my parents moved to Ohio and then to Tucson. My aunt and her family followed us to Tucson within a couple of years and she and mom were so happy to be together again. Rarely a day went by without a phone call or visit.

My aunt and Uncle Joey had two boys and both of our families spent most of our free time together.

Aunt Mary had a heart condition from childhood and my mother told me so many times that she worried about her and was so concerned that something might happen to her sister. Mom didn't know how she would cope with that. Then, as fate would have it, my mom died first. My aunt was devastated and never truly got over it. Then a couple of years later she lost her husband of over 50 years.

My uncle totally doted on my aunt and they were very close. His death following my mom's was almost too much for her and we didn't know how long she would last. But last she did!

She had a chance to know my babies and to meet two of my brother's children. Plus her own great-grandson.

We had a party for her when she turned 80. Lots of family and friends. This is her with her two sons. My MUCH younger cousin in on the left.

And a couple of years ago my kids were able to take a trip back to Tucson so she had a chance to meet Jenni's kids.

Ed and I visited her every trip to Tucson and for the last couple of years she was pretty much confined to her apartment. But she still laughed with us and was always ready with bowls of candy, nuts, popcorn - all kinds of snacks.

Today we say goodbye. She told my cousin a couple of days ago that she was ready to die and was looking forward to being with her husband and sister again. She was the last one in that family line and it's left the rest of us with a bit of a hole. But she was able to live a long life surrounded by family and friends and a person can't ask for much more than that!

Goodbye, Aunty Mary. Say hi to my mom for me.

Food Disasters I Have Known

2010-05-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

This past week I was making dinner when I discovered that I had mistakenly (yes, it definitely was a mistake) taken out the powdered sugar container instead of the flour. And I was making a sauce. I had sauteed the mushrooms, garlic and onions. Then I added the "flour" and thought - wow, it isn't clumping as much as usual. That should have been my first clue, but, alas, no. I added the liquid whisking away and, again, noticing that there were no clumps. I just figured that I was getting pretty good at this. It cooked for awhile. I added the Marsala Wine and noticed that it wasn't thick enough. So I got some hot water and put a tablespoon of "flour" in it to use as a thickener and THAT'S when I noticed that it was a bit shiny and, horrors, it was powdered sugar! I was able to drain the veggies and re-make the sauce and it turned out pretty good (the Marsala masked the extra sweetness).

Apparently somewhere along the way I thought it was a lovely idea to put both the flour and the powdered sugar in similar containers. And store them practically next to each other. So now the powdered sugar has a big red X on top of the container. Hopefully that will work. I know, I could rearrange my cabinet, but that is so much more work than a red X.

I'm no stranger to food mishaps. First one was when I cooked my first turkey and left the little bag o' stuff in the bird when I stuffed it. We've probably all done that at least once (please tell me you have all done that....).

At 40 I finally accepted the fact that I needed reading glasses when I was making baking powder biscuits and used 2T of baking soda instead. They tasted like baked Alka Seltzer. Not good.

In college I had a roommate who wanted to make her family recipe for spaghetti for me. Being Italian, I had doubts about the German "family recipe", but it was two pages long and she really wanted to do it. When we sat down to eat, the sauce had an odd taste which I mistakenly mentioned. She was insulted and insisted that her family had been making this recipe for years. Then SHE tasted it. Turns out that when she copied it she forgot to add the word "garlic" after the word "clove" so she had put 1T of cloves into the sauce. Do NOT try this at home!

And who in the family can forget my youngest stepdaughters first attempt to bake a frozen pie. She took it out of the little pie tin and put it on a cookie sheet. As you might guess, she wound up with a cookie sheet full of melted pie.

Any food disasters in your life?

Mother's Day and the Circle of Life

2010-05-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

The one thing in my life that I've loved the most is being a mother. Any time I'm asked to describe myself, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is that I'm the mother of twins! My kids are my strength and I cherish every minute I get to spend with them.

I also miss my own mother - she's been gone for 16 years and rarely a day goes by that I don't think of her and miss her. But the circle of life goes on. We're born and we die and hopefully know a lot of joy and love during the time we're here. When my grandmother died my mom made a comment about not being very enthused about Mother's Day that year and didn't want to do anything. I said, "But, Mom, I still have my mother and I want to celebrate that." So we did - but I truly appreciated her feelings my first Mother's Day after she was gone.

A lot of people chose not to be parents and that's okay. No one should ever feel pressured into parenting - it's not an easy job. But it's been my favorite job. One from which I'll never retire.

Digging through some photos to celebrate tomorrow I found one of my mom and her mother in 1935 at a swimming pool. By the way, I just bought that exact same swimming suit that my grandmother is wearing!

Then mom grew up and had me. Both my parents were Italians with dark eyes and dark hair and the nurse was a bit confused about this blond, blue-eyed baby. But I got that from my dad's side. There are blue-eyed Italians, after all!

Here's one of me with my mother and grandmother. Not sure what the saucy sailor hat is all about (that one is my grandmother).

And the circle continues. I grew up and had my beautiful twins. Do NOT comment on the hair!

My mom loved those kids. And she was their favorite. We lived close to her for quite a few years and my kids were the light of her life.

And the circle continues. Now I have the pleasure of my own grandchildren and watching my daughter be a mother. What an incredible experience that is! I had no idea what a joy it would be. This is me and Jenni the night our Vika and Eamon came home to us - December 25, 2005.

Motherhood isn't easy. It's messy. There's a lot of crying (both the kids and the moms), there are those wonderful teen years, and there's the day they move out and leave a hole in your home and your heart. And there's not much feedback along the way. It's not like you get an annual evaluation or complete a project and have it graded. You don't know if you're a success or failure as a mom until it's way to late to change anything. Pretty scary.

But it's the best damn job in the world. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Pizzone

2010-04-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

One of the primary adventures of this trip to Italy was to visit the village of Pizzone where my grandparents (my aunt's parents) are from. They, and a lot of Pizzonese, emigrated to the US and other countries to escape poverty and lack of jobs. My family was among those immigrants.

We had booked a couple of nights at a farmhouse close to Pizzone, but our Garmin had trouble finding it. When it said, "you have arrived at your destination" we were on curvy mountain road with nothing insight. We drove a mile or so up the road and stopped at a pizzeria. Now, mind you, this is very rural Italy and not a tourist area. I went inside with a copy of the website for the farmhouse. The boy at the counter spoke a little English but didn't know where the farmhouse was. So he asked a young man who was up to his elbows making pizza dough - his name was Emilio. Emilio knew the farmhouse and said "Paolo?" "Si!" I said - I knew that was the owner's name. Emilio told us to wait 5 minutes and he would lead us there because it was too difficult to tell us directions. We waited and in 5 minutes out he came and off we went. We NEVER would have found the place without his help.

After we unpacked we drove to Pizzone. The town only has 350 residents this time of year - a few more come during the summer. It is a very small and quiet town. We walked up the main street which was lovely and tried to find the church where Grandma was baptized and where she and Grandpa were married. We saw a woman pulling in her laundry and asked how to get to the church. She spoke a little English, said her name was Adele, and told us to wait, she would be right down and walk us there! On the way to the church, she went to get another woman who apparently had the key to the church and could let us in. The five of us went into the church and they turned on the lights.

We got a tour through the whole church including the sacristy and the crypt. My aunt shed a few tears (as did I) - it was pretty emotional to be in this place with so much family history. We took photos by the baptismal font. Then my aunt asked the woman if we could get any info about Grandma's baptism and her marriage. The woman worked at the church and had access to the records so she said she would get those for us! I mean, what are the odds of us finding these people so randomly??

We planned to meet them the next day at 11am. On Sunday we got to the church at 11am and the woman was waiting for us with copies of documents about the baptism, the wedding, and even my grandmother's parents' wedding. It was quite amazing. Then she went into the church and dragged out a man who had just moved back to Pizzone after living in Chicago for 50 years. His name was Pasquale. He not only translated for us, but it turned out that he and my aunt knew a lot of the same people and places.

Mass was starting so we decided to go in. The woman we first found - Adele - gave the liturgy. The other woman passed the basket. We felt like we had friends in the church! It was so amazing to us. After Mass we were introduced to the priest and then Pasquale walked us through the the town showing us the homes of some of my aunt's cousins and friends. He also took us inside his house and introduced us to his wife. Then we went to the very small piazza and he found a man named Mario Grimaldi who turned out to be a second cousin to my aunt1

All in all, it was an amazing day. What could have been just a walk through a small town not knowing what we were looking for turned into a rich experience with charming people and a huge feeling of family.

It's mostly about the gelato

2010-04-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

It's Friday afternoon in Tuscany and it's been raining all day! So we have spent the day sitting in front of the fire reading, eating, dozing, and just generally enjoying the down time. Luckily we saw a lot the last three days so this has been great. As you can see, my husband and aunt weren't too thrilled about the photo.

Over the past few days we've see lots of cypress lined roads and drove down one of them. Definitely a Dramamine moment - but really pretty. We've seen so many charming farmhouses and all those sights that are icons for Tuscany.

It's one of those places you think you'd love to live in until you talk to residents who tell us they pay up to 50 euros (about $75) per DAY to heat their homes in the winter. Water, phone land lines, electricity are all in short supply, not efficient and very expensive, So I guess we'll just visit every now and then.

We toured these grounds (which are huge) and had a fun chat with the owner. He inherited this place from a distant family member! This is me and my honey in the "stable" which has been converted to a computer center, eating area, and lounge.

One of the things I love about this area is the hill towns. We've walked through five of them - well, maybe "ate" our way through would be more accurate. And shopped. The first photo is from a market that sold prosciutto and salami. The big brown things hanging at the top are prosciutto!

My aunt is a professional shopper. Ed takes photos. Both of them embarrass me at restaurants.

We also visited an abbey. Really big and really beautiful. But there were so many Italians around the place! And they were all talking and gesturing and laughing. Felt like home! By the by, my nose isn't really as big as it looks in the picture of the three of us. Camera was too close...

But, let's face it, the real reason we keep coming back to Italy is the gelato. Some of the shops are small, some have more than 40 flavors. All beautiful - they display them like fine artwork. And all very good. Plus, gelato doesn't have as much fat, sugar, or calories as ice cream. Now, how's that for justification?!?

The sunglasses

2010-04-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

You might have to actually know my aunt to appreciate this, but here we go. Yesterday we were tooling around Montepulciano which has a lot of very steep streets. I'm talking 45 degree angles. By the time we left we were all a bit exhausted. As soon as we hit flat ground, my aunt discovered she had left her sunglasses at the place where we ate lunch - yep! at the top of the hill! Now these are pretty cool sunglasses. They fit snuggly over her regular glasses. But, rather than climb that dang hill again, she decided she could get by without them.

Not Ed. He quietly spirited away as we were getting a few groceries and ran up the hill himself to retrieve the lost glasses. Well, he ran the first 10 feet then decided to give his heart and lungs a break and walk the rest of the way. My aunt fell really bad that he went all the way back up there, but she was glad to have the sunglasses back.

Fast forward to today. We went to the hill city of Cortona - made famous by Under the Tuscan Sun. Bought some souveniers, had some gelato (of course) and had lunch. As soon as we sat down for lunch, my aunt started rooting around in her stuff like she was on a truffle hunt. She searched her souvenier bag, her coat, her purse. Then she searched them all again. We just watched her not having a clue what was going on. Finally she admitted that AGAIN she had lost her sunglasses! But this time we knew not where. So after lunch we went to the store where we had bought some scarves. The lady in the shop didn't speak a lick of English. So we tried to ask about the sunglasses using some rather odd hand gestures. She showed us some lovely cases for glasses. We tried to make her understand that we lost them. She finally got it, but didn't have the glasses and felt really bad about it!

Next we went to the shop where my aunt saw some beautiful dishes. No sunglasses there, but she did decide to buy one decorative dish. After that we ran out of ideas so decided to cut our losses and move on. As we were almost to the bottom of the hill, we saw another shop that we had visited, but forgot about. Again we tried to ask about the lost sunglasses. Again the shopkeeper showed us her glass cases and even some drinking glasses. A passerby translated for us and, lo and behold, that was she had left her sunglasses! 2 hours earlier!

I can hardly wait for tomorrow. We're going to visit an Abbey and hopefully won't have to roll any of those monks looking for my aunt's sunglasses. But, with my family, you never know...

Leaving France and Arriving in Italy

2010-04-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it to Tuscany! It's so beautiful here. We left France on Monday morning and it was surprisingly hard to say good bye to Jean-Claude and Aunt Louisa. Tears were shed. We had dinner the night before at Jean-Claude's sister's house. Salad with duck pate, champagne with blackberry liquer, duck confit and french green beans for dinner, Cheese platter for after dinner, then chocolate tort on a bed of creme anglais for dessert. Finally some fermented cherries in their own liquer. Our clothes no longer fit, but it was a wonderful time.

We drove to Genoa with a few stops along the coast. There were way too many cars, not enough parking places, and no bathrooms. By the time we were finally able to stop, we could barely walk to the restaurant. All three of were in pain!! Genoa is nice - we had dinner by the pier on Monday night and then took a one-hour city tour Tuesday morning.

The drive to Tuscany on Tuesday seemed uneventful, until we hit stopped traffic due to an accident. Stopped for about 30 minutes. People were getting out of their cars and just walking around. Not a fun time. But we finally started going again only to head into a tremendous thunder, lightening and hail storm. Finally made it to the "apartment" we were staying in around 6pm. This place is amazing. 195 acres with 10 apartments on it. We have a living room with fireplace, two bedrooms with private bathrooms, and a kitchen. Plus a private garden in the front which is where I'm typing this right now!

Today we went to see Montepulciano, Pienza, and drove around looking at the houses and the cypress trees. It was good to walk as much as we did today to wear down some of the food we've eaten (and will continue to eat, I am sure).

We have three more days here and many more hill towns and abbeys to visit.

Bad start, family, and the locked room

2010-04-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a really good day - although it didn't start out so well. We had breakfast scheduled at 8:30. It was 7:00am and we were laying in bed enjoying the quiet morning. Ed was checking e-mail on his phone and, at one point, I dozed off for a few minutes. I asked him what time it was and he said 8:00!! I freaked out! No way can I get ready in 30 minutes. I jumped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Started to put in my contacts, but forget to take my glasses in with me. With the contact lens delicately perched on the tip of my finger, I went into the bedroom to get my glasses. By the time I got back to the sink, the contact was gone! Oh, lovely. Then I spotted it on the floor by the door. As I bent down to pick it up, Ed started to open the door. I yelled "Shut the door!" which, of course, he did as by that time he wanted to keep far away from me. Got my contacts in and decided to start the water in the shower. The shower is one of those hand-held things which was resting on the water faucets. So I decided to get the water to the right temperature while the shower head was resting. I turned the faucets on - first the cold then the hot. Suddenly the handle fell off the faucets, hit the bottom of the shower, and started wiggling around like a snake. Spraying water everywhere including the front of my night gown which now was soaked. Oh boy, I was not a happy camper. But I did manage to get everything done and we had breakfast.

First order of the day was to take our rental car to a mechanic to fix the little gas problem. He had to drain the tank of regular gas, remove the tank and clean it, put in a new gas filter, and then put the whole thng back together. Luckily, because Jean-Claude knows him, the price was very reasonable.

Jean-Claude took us first to the center of Chateaurenard. There we found the house where my grandfather and his family lived for several years. The door he entered to get upstairs. It was a bit emotional for me and my aunt. Here is a photo of the front of the house and one of Aunt Marylou and I by the side door.

Our next stop was Orgon which is the village my grandfather was born in before moving to Chateaurenard. We saw the block of houses where they lived and tried to see the inside of the church. But the priest was an old poop and wouldn't unlock the door for us. We did get to the town hall where they printed copies of his birth certificate for us.

We drove around a bit more then came back to our rooms to rest before dinner. When it was 7:30 and time to go next to Jean-Claude's for dinner, I went to Aunt Marylou's room to get her. I knocked a few times and suddenluy there she was at the door. However, she had misplaced her key and could not get out! The doors lock from both the outside and the inside and you need a key to do it. She was standing at the window in the door like a little prisoner saying, "I can't get out!" Luckily the B&B owner was home and we told her what had happened. She laughed, of course. Next thing I knew I heard two voices in the room! Turns out there is a side entry from the main house to Marylou's rom and the owner went in there. She let my little aunt out and gave her a second key. I was laughing so hard I was crying. When Jean-Claude translated the story to his mother, she started laughing pretty hard too. Oh, Marylou did find the first key this morning.

That was it for day 2. Started and ended with a bang, with a lot of nice stuff in the middle.

First Day in France

2010-04-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it to Milan and then drove to France. Long drive, but nice. One small glitch is that Ed accidentally put regular gas in the diesel engine which is definitely not good. But we're getting that taken care of.

When we arrived in Chateaurenard, we found Jean-Claude (or rather, he had to find us on a corner) and met his mother. It was so wonderful meeting this cousin who we had been communicating with. His mother is 84 years old and still very active - she even cooked dinner for us. They are such warm, loving people. Here's a photo of Jean-Claude and his mom on the couch with my Aunt and me.

Dinner was veal cooked in wine with olives and mushrooms. Started with a salad with incredible olive oil, goat cheese, crusty bread. Then a platter of cheeses with the veal. Fruit and home-made cake for dessert. Plus wine and champagne. So much better than airplane food! We were stuffed, but happy. And slept like logs.

Today we're going to visit Orgon where my grandfather was born, and a few other spots Jean-Claude wants to show us. Plus a visit to the Farmacia to pick up some real sized toiletries instead of my legal travel-sized crap.

Au revoir!!

Back to Italy !!

2010-04-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

On Monday Ed and I head out on the first leg of another trip to Italy (and France). This one is going to be very different from other trips and very special. We get to meet family!

Several years ago, a distant cousin named Jean-Claude contacted my dad and his sister, Marylou, and told them he was their cousin. He lives in the south of France and has spent a lot of time researching family history and tracking down family members. I still remember my dad calling me to tell me about the letter he received from France. He was in tears while he was telling me. Apparently, my grandfather's family (my dad's and Marylou's grandparents) left their village of Pizzone, Italy in the late 1800's and migrated to Avignon, France. This was during a time when a lot of Italians were leaving for France, Brazil, U.S., and other countries to escape poverty and famine. My grandfather was born in Orogon, France, but went back to Italy as a young man when he entered the Italian army.

In fact, he went back to Pizzone where he met and married my grandmother. Then they all came to the U.S. in the early 1900's. Amazing that they were in their late 20's in this photo!

But a large portion of Grandpa's family stayed in France and those are the descendants we will meet. Grandpa died when in his early 50's (I was only 4 years old) so wasn't yet at the age to tell stories about "the old days". Plus my dad was at the age where he probably wouldn't have been interested.

But Jean-Claude told much of this story to dad in that first letter. Later he sent my dad some postcards that Grandpa had sent to the family as a young man in the army. They were all in Italian, but dad recognized Grandpa's handwriting and more tears flowed. Jean-Claude continued to send dad and Marylou photos, stories, family tree diagrams, etc. After my dad died in late 2007, I got Jean-Claude's e-mail address from my aunt and wrote to him. He responded quickly and warmly and sent a few additional photos and family stories. At one point I told Ed, "Wouldn't it be cool to visit him in France and then go back to Italy?" That was pretty much all I had to say - Ed was on it! When I mentioned this to my aunt she asked if she could come with us. I mean, it was her father who was born there! So the three of us are heading out next week for the trip of a lifetime.

We'll fly in to Milan and drive to Avignon where we'll spend four days touring the area with Jean-Claude. And seeing the house where Grandpa was born. Also, we will visit Aunt Maria who turned 100 years old in February. She actually remembers my grandfather - called him little Pasquilino. She was a young girl when he was a teenager!

After those four days we'll drive into Italy and spend 5 days in Tuscany (I know, it's quite a sacrifice!). Then the last two days we're going to spend in Pizzone exploring the village, checking out the cemetery and church records, taking in all we can.

Then we head home with tons of photos and hopefully some really good stories. As I said, the trip of a lifetime.

I'm such a bad mom

2010-03-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot my kids Half-Birthday this year. Actually, I've forgotten it several times over the last couple of years. But this year my daughter was telling me how she had laughingly mentioned it to her kindergarten class and the next thing she knew some of the parents brought her presents!

The Half-Birthday was started when my kids were around 3 or 4 years old. As much as I loved having twins, I felt a little cheated that I only got to have one birthday party each year. So, since their birthday was September 12th, I deemed March 12th their Half-Birthday! Each year we would have a little private party - just the three of us. I would usually get one birthday card and cut in it half. Of course, each year I had to alternate who got the top half and who got the bottom.

Then I would bake one cake layer, cut it in half, and make a half cake. Gifts usually included things like chapstick and kleenex for Jenni and some hot wheels thing or soccer trinket for Joe. Just fun, silly, cheap gifts.

As they got older we sometimes went out to dinner to celebrate. And, yes, I would let each of them have a whole meal.

It was a fun tradition that I kept going until a couple of years after they moved out. Then, because they now have their own families, it sort of slipped away. But now that I see it's still important to my daughter, I need to put it on my calendar so I don't forget again!

Such a negligent mother.

We passed the test

2010-03-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Ed and I went to Cambria. It's a little town on the Central Coast in California. Lots of wineries in the area, antique shops, restaurants, and Moonstone Beach which is so beautiful and unique. This was our 11th trip to Cambria. The first was in January of 2000 and it was the first trip of any kind that we ever took together. So it was a bit of a test - could we stand each other's company for three straight days? Did we travel well together?

The answer was "YES" to both! So we made it an annual excursion. Normally we go in January or February, but this year we moved it to March. Which was wonderful. The weather was warmer and March in California is so beautiful. The trees were all in bloom with pink or white flowers. The hills were bright green. The wild mustard was in full swing. The photo below is the beach by our room taken from a hill covered with wild mustard.

There is a military base close to Cambria and we saw a couple of convoys going down the highway. This was one of the vehicles. We decided to give him a wide berth!

We stay at the Fogcatcher Inn in one of the front rooms which has a fireplace and a full view of the ocean. This is a view of the sunset from our room.

And along the beach is a walking path that has been built since our first visit. Also some stairways to the beach which always draw Ed like a magnet. He likes to climb on the rocks and manages to go to areas that, if he were a kid, would cause him to be grounded! Instead I just make sure I have the car keys and the room key in case he gets swept out to sea.

And, of course, we go wine tasting. The wineries in this part of California are very low key. None of the crowds or noise of Napa. Everything is clean and quiet and quite beautiful. And the wines can really be good.

On the trip home we stopped at a beach that is famous for seals, sea lions, walruses (walri?!?) that spend time there. March is at the end of the mating cycle so the beach wasn't as crowded as usual. But still quite a sight.

This guy was still trying to find someone to mate with him and, apparently, not having much luck. I could have sworn I heard him singing the Queen song "Somebody to Love"!

So, another trip to Cambria is under out belt. And we still travel well together! Who would have guessed!

Grandma vs. Mama

2010-03-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

Being a grandmother is an interesting experience. Before Jenni had kids, I always assumed I would enjoy being a grandma, but turns out I had no idea the depth of love you feel for your grandkids. That was a surprise. It's as deep and heartfelt as what you feel for your own kids, but different in so many ways.

One of which is in the area of discipline. Now, even though my own kids are perfect in every way, they did get into their share of trouble as young 'uns. And back then we were still allowed to give a kid a smack on the butt without CPS being called so they received several of those. When they would do something wrong and I had to discipline them, the tears often flowed. But I was immune. They still got their punishment.

With the grandkids, when they do something wrong, I often find it amusing. And, heaven forbid they tear up! When Eamon does something wrong and we ask him to stop, his face gets flushed, his lip quivers, and his eyes tear up. Plus he gets this really forlorn look on his face and all I want to do is hug him. Vika doesn't get quite so pathetic looking, but she has some big tears and it melts our hearts.

Last night was supposed to be an "overnighter" for Vika and Eamon. They had been wanting to spend the night for awhile, but our schedules didn't allow it until last night. Then Vika blew it. Jenni caught her hiding homework, in some cases throwing it away, and not telling the whole truth when asked about it. Very bad. So the decision was that we would cancel the overnighter and Ed and I would take Eamon out to dinner instead. With the understanding that if Vika got a report (or something, not sure of the details) done by Thursday, she could join us for dinner. And she did it! However, Friday morning Jenni found yet another homework assignment in the garbage pail in Vika's room. So she was told that she had to complete it at our house right after school or no dinner date.

I picked the kids up and we went to our favorite yogurt spot before heading home. While we ate our yogurt I reminded Vika about the homework. She looked at me with wide saucer eyes and said, "I accidentally left it at school!" Then she started tearing up. I told her we needed to call her mom to find out next steps. She said, "Can we call her after dinner?" I said no, because then I'd get in trouble too!! And I'm way too busy to be grounded.

When we got home we called Jenni. I gave Vika the phone and suddenly she started crying and said in a tiny voice, "OK." Jenni had told her that she would be picking her up in an hour and Eamon would go to dinner with us alone. Vika said to me, "I think that's too big a consequence for what I did!" (what 8-year old uses that word?!?). Then she asked me if I would do the same thing if I was her Mama. And I said yes I would because it wasn't just one incident, but a lot of them all put together and this was the last straw. She understood, but didn't like it. And those tears were so hard to watch. So I dried her eyes and painted her fingernails and then we played computer games until her mom arrived. Of course, I didn't know that she was also grounded from using a computer!

Maybe it's because we have more patience as grandparents than as parents. Maybe it's because we don't feel responsible for the way the grandkids turn out (we had enough pressure worrying about our own kids). Maybe it's because this feels like a second chance to not get so upset about things. Or maybe it's because we only have them around for short spurts and don't have to put up with these "episodes" on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, that's probably it. But just wait until you're a grandparent. You'll totally understand.

Annual Angst

2010-03-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

Today was one of my least favorite days of the year - the day I have to have labs done for my annual physical. As I've said in the past, I'm a total needlephobe. Hate 'em! Last summer when I need to have a blood draw for my pneumonia, I had a lab trainee who had to consult her notes. Yeah, that was fun.

This time I had an experienced tech, but who cares. A needle is a needle. Of course, I had to sit in the waiting area for 30 minutes before my name was called. During that time a little 6-year old girl was taken into the lab screaming her head off. The whole time she was in there she was screaming "don't do it, don't do it!!" I told the woman next to me that I pretty much have the same reaction, but I try to not be as verbal about it. By the time that little girl left (about 10 minutes later) with big tears rolling down her cheeks and a handful of lollypops, we were all squirming.

Then it was my turn. The tech asked the usual question "which arm would you prefer?" and I gave my usual answer, "YOURS!!" She smiled patronizingly and proceeded to thump the vein in my right arm. She told me she would use a pediatric needle (apparently my angst was noticeable) and, after jamming it in my arm, she tightened the rubber tourniquet, thumped the veins a bit more, and announced that no blood was coming out! WTF?? So she bandaged that hole and said, "Let's try the other arm." Oh, goody.

My left arm apparently has blood in it because she filled three vials. All the time keeping up the banal small talk about health care, my job, my family, etc. Really now, I'm 63 and am NOT distracted by small talk when you're draining my body of blood.

So now I have bandages on both arms but at least I'm done for another year. Hey, I just realized I didn't get any lollypops!

Has Anbody Seen My Gal?

2010-02-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

When I was little, there was a popular song called "Five Foot Two" that started

Five foot two, eyes of blue.
But, oh, what those five feet can do!
Has anybody seen my gal?

As I hit the age of eleven I was five foot two - the tallest kid in my class! Which wasn't so cool since I had a crush on Tom who was a head shorter than me. But, alas, the rest of the kids kept growing and I just stayed there. Oh, I was the tallest woman in my family, even topped many of the men. However, I've spent the majority of my life being vertically challenged.

But, hey! At least I had a song in my honor!! Sadly, those days are over. Yesterday during my annual physical I was weighed and measured and I'm down to 5 1/2" (we do NOT need to discuss the weight figure). I don't think there's any song for that. Now I'm just short.

Sigh............

Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way.....

2010-01-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

I love the movie Bye, Bye, Birdie. In it there is a song titled, "Kids" basically lamenting that kids of today aren't as wonderful as all of us were when WE were kids. Anyone who has ever had kids, or been a kid, knows what a pain in the ass they can be at times and how they seem to thrive on getting hurt and/or in trouble.

My daughter had one of those "special" parenting days yesterday when Vika and Eamon decided to jump from the railing in the dining room down to the living room couch. Eamon did fine. Vika busted her head open when she used the couch as a trampoline and did a header on the coffee table. A couple of hours and three staples later she was fine. But it was an exciting evening all around. Ed and I were headed to a crab feed, but went to Urgent Care to be with Jenni, Jeff and the kids.

Of course, my kids never did anything like that. Well, unless you count the time Jenni found a little metal ball, threw it in the air and looked to see where it would land. As luck would have it, it landed on her mouth and broke a tooth.

Or the many times my son Joe got sun stroke because he would play too hard without a hat in the 110 Tucson sun.

Oh, and the time he went dirt bike riding and didn't realize the sand dunes change overnight with the wind and all so he did a header over the dune and landed on his shoulder.

Back to Jenni, when she finally learned how to climb out of her crib, she would do it from the front instead of the side and land on her head on the ground. If I was downstairs, I would hear a loud thump followed by a wail. Good times.

I, on the other hand, was a perfect child. No need to bring up the time I decided to do a little dance on my mother's coffee table with the glass insert (what was she thinking?!?) and my leg went through the glass. What's a few stitches here and there.

Or the time I gave my sister a ride on my bike and got her foot caught in the spokes.

Or the time I shoved a rock up my nose (please don't ask me why) and ran home crying so hard that the rock fell out. Actually, my mother never knew about that one.

It's amazing that we parents survive.

Want to Join - call me at VVV-VII IX III IV

2010-01-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about starting a Facebook group called "Why the heck do people still use Roman Numerals?!?" I mean, isn't it time to give them up?

Latin is a dead language. The Romans who invented those numbers are long gone. And they basically make no sense. Oh, let's not forget what a mess they make when you're trying to line up columns of numbers! Oh, I know, the whole gladiator thing is sort of sexy and romantic. And togas. But those numbers - not so much.

I was looking at some document yesterday with Roman Numerals. Now I can do okay with the V's and the X's, although I still get a little confused about the I's before and after and whether you need to add or subtract. Then along comes an L or an M! WTF!

Please, everyone, get over it. Gotta run. I have an appointment at VII o'clock.

My son's son turns one (hey, that rhymes!)

2010-01-24T10:17:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we had a birthday party for my grandson, Tyson (my son's little boy). He turned ONE on Thursday! As his mom said, the year seems like a blink. The whole family rallied around to wish Tyson a Happy Birthday and he did his best to appear interested. At one that's a little difficult. Although he did take time to notice that Grandpa had shaved off his mustache!

Someone gave him a ball. And that was it. Joe had to keep pulling him back to open the rest of the stuff.

Tyson had his personal birthday cake, and the rest of us pigged out on cupcakes. Of course, I didn't realize that the red smile on the cake was a piece of red licorice. When I took a bite I caught just the end of the "smile" and the whole thing started slapping against my chin. I had no idea what was going on until Ed mentioned that it was licorice. By this time I had frosting all over my chin. Just another day in Sandiville.

One of every parent's intentions at the first birthday is to get a good shot of the honoree with frosting all over his or her face. And, like my own kids, Tyson wasn't cooperating. He was daintily putting his fingertips in the frosting and licking it off. Jenni wanted to just put a bunch of frosting on Tyson's face for the photo op, but didn't dare. So she told Joe to do it. And he did. Went over to Tyson, picked up the cake, and basically made contact with Ty's face! It was great. NOW we could get some photos!

As with all things kid, it eventually got out of hand and mom and her washcloth came to the rescue.

I'm guessing next year he'll be more interested in his presents and probably do a fine job of getting all frostinged up all by himself. I just hope this year doesn't also go by in a blink. I want to relish every moment.

And, yes, I use nightlights

2010-01-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

I've probably watched Twilight Zone too much, but twice this weekend I was sure Rod Serling would be making an appearance in my home.

On Friday afternoons I pick up Vika and Eamon from school and they stay with me until 5:00 or 5:30. This Friday Jenni wanted to pick them up early because she'd had a long day at school, so they left around 4:20. I was alone in the house and had just sat down at my computer when I heard knocking at the front door. I figured the kids forgot something so I opened the door and there was no one there! No cars in front of the house, no people, nada. I had distinctly heard a knock so now I was freaked out. Did I mention I was ALONE in the house! And that I'm basically I'm not a brave soul. I closed and locked the door, started back to the computer, when I heard the knock again. I could see that there still wasn't anyone at the front door. Yikes!! I was really freaked out. Then I realized the knocking was coming from the garage door. Apparently one of the little darlings had locked the door from the garage to the house, Ed decided to come home a little early in hopes of seeing Vika and Eamon, and he was knocking! Good grief.

Then yesterday morning I was talking with Jenni on the phone. We finished our conversation and I hung up. But I could still hear her talking - although it sounded like it was coming from a distance. Did she not hang up on her side? Was something wrong with my phone that it didn't end the call? I took the phone out of the cradle, hit the Off button with a bit more authority this time, and put the phone back. But I could still hear the voice! The rest of the house was quiet. Now I was wondering if it was coming from one of the other four cradles so I steathily went to each of them (you know, didn't want them to see me coming) to listen. They all seemed fine, but the voice continued. Then I got to the bedroom and there was Ed listing to a voicemail message on his phone using the Speakerphone. He had gone into the corner in the bedroom so he could hear while I was talking with Jenni in the den.

Maybe I need to switch to tv comedies. Although Ed thinks I'm pretty much of a joke all by myself!

Conjugation can be fun

2010-01-16T08:37:00.001-08:00

There's a new Jack-in-the-Box commercial that shows a bunch of college students having a Toga Party. I did that! But as a freshman in high school. When I was taking Latin.

Yes, I took Latin. Two years of it. And, yes, I know it's a "dead" language. But back then I really wanted to be a doctor and I thought Latin might help. Well, I didn't become a doctor, but Latin helped me a lot when I took the much more practical Spanish. It's helped me spell and understand a lot of English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese words. Not to mention all the "doctor" words I needed to know during my 20 years at Stanford Hospital. And the first year of class was fun!

Our teacher was Felizardo Valencia. He spoke eight languages and was one of the best teachers I've ever had. Even though there's no such thing as "conversational Latin", he would have us do little plays speaking it. Great fun. Of course, there were also times that our pronunciation was a bit off and what came out of our mouths was actually a dirty word in Spanish. We always knew when this happened because Mr. Valencia would get a bit red in the face and sometimes break out in laughter.

One of his class traditions was to have a Toga Party at his house towards the end of the year. We all had to bring a white sheet to drape over our clothes, his kids would make wreaths for our heads, his wife would make lunch for us. The freshman were the "slaves" so we had to serve the upperclassmen, peel grapes for them (I was a mean grape-peeler), and use palm fronds to create breezes. Today this whole thing would probably not be politically correct on so many levels. But luckily we lived in simpler times and we had what we called a "blast". Oh, and we had to speak in Latin as much as possible (although there really isn't any Latin word for cheeseburger or Pepsi so we were allowed to let English slip in periodically).

I really loved that class. We had a lot of fun, and learned a lot. Probably one of the few classes in high school that has stayed with me and that is still useful in everyday life.

Then came my sophomore year. Because we were on split shifts at an over-crowded school, I had Latin at 6:30am. The teacher was Mrs. Stone (we didn't have any "Ms" back then). And a stone she was. Grey hair, grey skin, never a smile on her face. And a nasally voice. By the end of that year, Latin was truly dead for most of us. Mr. Valencia had retired so we were the last class to be lucky enough to have him as our teacher. Ah, but our memories of the first year were alive and well.

And I can still conjugate a verb: Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant! Which, as you might imagine, makes me a big hit at parties!

Conversation with my son

2010-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

Had a fun conversation with my son this morning. He called to tell me that he had dropped off his almost one-year old son at the day care earlier today. As he was getting back in his car, he could see Tyson through the window and saw him go over to another little boy and smile. Then Tyson looked out the window, saw Joe in the car, smiled and did his bye-bye wave (it's his newest trick). Joe said, "It made me kinda tear up!" Which, of course, made ME tear up! Now that the first year of mostly crying, pooping, eating, and sometimes sleeping is almost over, Tyson is becoming a kid. Learning new things every day, realizing and understanding who the most important people in his life are, and being more and more interactive. Joe is soaking it all up. It's such fun to watch your children be parents. I love it!

Joe also told me about an 11-year old friend of his stepson. Apparently the boy still believes in Santa Claus. Joe was driving the two boys somewhere in December and his stepson was kidding the other boy about the whole Santa Claus thing, but the friend wasn't buying any of it. He's thoroughly convinced that "Santa Claus" exists. But he went on to explain that it isn't just one man - that would be logistically impossible. He informed Joe that it's a "network" (his word) of Santa Clauses who have different regions world wide. For instance, his home is serviced by the West Coast rep.

So I asked Joe when he stopped believing. He said he doesn't remember the exact age (9 or 10), but that year he did start having some suspicions. When I took the kids to visit Santa at the mall, I asked the usual post-lap question, "Well, what did you ask him for?" Joe decided this was a good time to put his theories to the test. He also was kept awake at night wondering about the logistics of one man hauling gifts for every kid worldwide. He figured the fat man would have to return to the North Pole several times to keep re-stocking and there wasn't enough time even with the whole time change thing. Based on his calculations, and hoping to prove himself wrong, he choose not to tell me what he asked Santa for on what turned out to be his last Santa lap visit. And, surprise!!, he didn't get the things he had asked for! Foiled again! He woke up Christmas morning a little wiser, but not a whole lot happier.

Even though my Cherrios were soggy by the time I got off the phone, it was a great way to start the day!

Friday afternoon education

2010-01-10T08:59:00.001-08:00

Last Friday I got back in the post-holiday routine of picking up Vika and Eamon after school. I now meet them at the curb rather than try to park and walk in and they love it. Makes them feel special to have their "ride" at the curb! Vika was a little late this time since she had to go to the "store" outside the Library and buy some gummy earthworms.

But I did get an education on the way home. The kids were talking about Sassy girls and Cool girls. Not having a clue what that meant, Vika explained, "Sassy girls wear short skirts, high heels, lots of makeup, long hair, and walk sexy. And sometimes they have tattoos and let their bellies show. Cool girls wear nice clothes, but don't let their bellies show and don't wear lots of makeup."

Eamon said, "Yeah, I like to look at Sassy Girls. I might want to marry one."

Never one to miss a chance for grandmotherly advice, I told him that while Sassy girls are fun to look at, when he gets married he should choose a Cool girl. He nodded his head - either in understanding or as a way to shut Babushka up!

Then we played Windows. When we were in Tucson I took the child lock off the windows so my friend could breathe in the back seat. Well, V and E discovered that about half way home. In the rear view mirror I could see them look at each other in a conspiratorial way and slowly roll the windows down. (OK, "roll" is probably not the correct word for electric windows but I don't know what else to call it). I let it go until they started putting the windows up and down, up and down.

So I "rolled" Eamon's window up and hit the lock on my console. "Aw, Babushka!" he wailed. But Vika's window was still down. So I quickly hit the unlock, rolled her window up, then tried to hit the lock again. But by this time Eamon had rolled his down again. We played that game for a few minutes until I realized that it would be easier to just wait until I got home and they got out of the car! I also realized that I didn't have to hit the "unlock" to roll the window up from my seat, but at the time the whole thing was a bit frazzling. Yes, we old folks take a bit longer to realize the obvious. There, now I've said it so you don't have to!

We did make one stop at Safeway. Vika asked me if I was going to use the self-checkout lane. I told her we didn't have one in that store. She insisted we did. Then she said, "You wanna bet a dollar?!?" "Do you have a dollar?" I asked. She did so I said, "Sure". Hey, I could use the buck. Of course, as soon as I agreed she became concerned that she might be wrong. And she was. As we got to the registers she realized the error of her ways and said, "I wasn't really betting." I said, "Well, I was and we shook on it!" She was horrified that I would really take her dollar (which, of course, I didn't) and asked if she could pay me at a later date. I said fine, but suggested that next time she either be prepared to pay up or not make a bet. She nodded and then spent the next five minutes begging me to let her buy gum and candy with her dollar! My answer was No and I was very happy to finally get through the checkout and back to the car.

Well, except for the window thing.

Yikes! It's back!

2010-01-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over. My house is back to normal. No more frantic shopping or wrapping or cooking. A new year awaits. Tra la, la, la.

Then today I was hit up side the head with the primary reason I dread the end of Christmas season - Valentine's Day!!! That is one "holiday" I truly do not like. And I felt that way even before getting married to husband #2 (he who shall not be named) on V-Day. It's all the hearts and candy and flowers and pink balloons attacking me everywhere I go. And who really thinks pink and red go well together?? Seriously ?!? We went to dinner one year and the mashed potatoes were pink - I was mildly horrified.

It's one of those days that anyone who isn't in a relationship is made to feel like a loser. Or, worse yet, if you're in a relationship with someone you really don't like but haven't figured out how to end it gracefully - this is truly the day from hell. If you're in a good relationship, hopefully you celebrate that more regularly than once a year.

And what about all those people who pronounce it ValentiMe's Day?? Just add that to the list.

It took a few years, but I finally convinced Ed that I did NOT need a gift for Valentine's Day. We do buy each other cards and usually go out to dinner - mostly because he couldn't go total cold turkey.

It's not that I'm against love and romance. I am totally pro-love and pro-romance. But on my own terms. Not because of a Hallmark invented date.

But the good news is that on February 15th all the green St. Patrick's Day stuff will come out and life will be good again.

Vacation almost over

2010-01-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

Here I sit watching Ed and Babette trying to make a fire (in the fireplace) using a dried up wreath. I thought I'd just stay at the computer and be prepared to douse both of them should the whole thing flare up! Ed got a cut on his arm from the twigs but he has his Neosporin so all is right with the world.

Tomorrow we head home. It's been a great week in Tucson visiting family and friends. Lots of good food, weather is perfect, walks in the desert, and lots of time to relax. Also time to get great gelato at Frost, see three movies, and cruise the neighborhoods we hope to be able to find a house 4 or 5 years from now. Now THIS is what retirement is supposed to be like!

Like taking a shower

2009-12-31T08:05:00.000-08:00

My blog friend, ba, did a post on events of the past 10 years and I am going to shamelessly copy her idea! It's amazing how fast time goes the older you get. As my son once said, "When you're 10, a year is a 10th of your life and seems like a long time. By the time a person is your age, Mom, a year is like taking a shower!!" Yes, he's a brat.

I'm going to start this decade with 1999 because it was a special year.

1999

Biggest event of this year occured on October 5th when I met Ed. At a Starbucks after initially meeting on Match.com. Had no idea while drinking that cup of coffee how my life was about to change!
Y2K - bought the water and batteries and first aid kit. What a bust!

2000

Jenni and Jeff bought their house
Ed takes me on my first trip to Hawaii
My dad came to visit in June on his birthday and we took him to an Oakland A's game. Wished him Happy Birthday on the marquee and he loved it
Moved from Sunnyvale to Newark and in with Ed in July
Ed and I had our first Christmas with the blended family. Only two grandsons on Ed's side (from his middle son, Michael) at this time.

2001

Ed's youngest son, Marc, has his first little boy, Cameron
Although we didn't know her yet, Vika was born in Russia
Jenni and Jeff get engaged
Ed and I get engaged
We discovered that the world is nothing like it was in the movie 2001!

2002

The year of the weddings - Jenni and Jeff, me and Ed
When Jenni and Jeff get married, we gain a granddaughter - Ali
My dad turns 80 and we have a big party for him in Chicago
Although we didn't know him, Eamon was born in Russia
Had surprise 50th anniversary party for Ed's parents
Took Ed's grandsons, Damian and Ethan, on their first visit to Disneyland

2003

Marc's second son, Shane, was born
Two of our sons - Marc and Joe - buy their first homes
My dad moves back to Chicago beginning our quarterly visits to see him
Reconnect with my best friend from the past, Babette!

2004

Jenni and Jeff begin the long process of their Russian adoption
Ed's daughter, Wendy, met Mike who would become her husband
My son, Joe, begins dating Angie who will become his wife
Ed and I take our first trip to Italy - and a love affair was born!

2005

Vika and Eamon join our family on Christmas Eve - best gift ever!
Took 15 family members to see Lion King in San Francisco

2006

Wendy and Michael get married - we inherit another granddaughter, Cachet
Second trip to Italy
Sandi turns 60!!

2007

The year of losing parents
Ed's mom passes away in January
My father passes away in October
Joe and Angie get married in May. Add two more grandsons to the family - McKayle and Spencer
Ed turns 60!!
My kids join us for a few days in Tucson where we all take a "walk down memory lane"

2008

Ed's father passes away in January. We're both now officially orphans
I retired from Stanford Hospital after 20 years. Yippee!!!
Another trip to Italy, plus Austria and a day in London
After another trip to Tucson, Ed and I decide we could easily retire there
Trip to New York City to see it "done up" for Christmas

2009

The year of babies
My brother, Tony, and his wife, Nicki, have their fourth child in January- a little boy named Alex
Joe and Angie have a little boy two weeks later - Tyson
Wendy and Mike have twins in August - we're now up to 13 grandkids
Ed and I go to Portugal where his family is from

2010

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

2009-12-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas
and
Happy 2010

Well, here it is again - Christmas Eve. I think we're in pretty good shape - everything is wrapped and in it's place, food is purchased, table is set, some appetizers are done, and we both got a good night's sleep last night!

When I was a kid Christmas Eve was a big event with the traditional Italian fish dinner. Spaghetti with calamari sauce (back then I didn't like calamari - what I wouldn't give for some of Papa Jim's sauce today!), fried smelts (these were little tiny fish that Nana Gene fried whole - not so much), and a bunch of other fish that I don't remember anymore. Now, on Christmas Eve, we've gone from "fish" to "seafood". Crab, shrimp and clams.

Christmas Eve is a big day at our house. All the kids come over, and this year all the grandkids. Even the one who lives in Indiana is visiting for the holidays. So the house will be full of people tonight - 22 last count. Jenni and Jeff come by for a visit, but the have dinner at home. Since Christmas Eve is also the night they brought Vika and Eamon home from Russia, it's a two-fold celebration for them.

Christmas Day is just my two kids and their families so the count is down to 12ish. Have a couple of nice beef tenderloins at the ready.

At this time of year I always miss my parents, Ed's parents, my grandparents. My memories of Christmas as a child are so wonderful - full of family, laughter, presents, food. And I miss all the "old people" so much.

But hopefully we're creating new memories for our kids and our grandchildren that someday they'll look back on fondly.

Hope all your holidays are wonderful!!

CVS Pharmacy sucks - I want my Long's back!!

2009-12-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

I've had a little stomach bug for the past couple of weeks - turns out it's something I ate. Today my doctor called in an antibiotic for me to the local CVS (which used to be Long's). She called it in around 11:00 or 11:30 am, and by the time I got done wrapping presents it was around 4:30 before I got to the store.

Went up to the counter and gave the girl my name. She pulled a print out off the computer and said, "Oh, we don't have that medicine in stock." What!! A pharmacy that doesn't have a really common antibiotic in stock!! It's not a designer drug, for pete's sake, just a basic antibiotic. I was stunned.

"My doctor called this in 5 hours ago, did you just figure it out?" I asked. She said, "I just pulled this off the computer." However, since there was a note on the printout about them not being in stock, someone had pulled the order, made the note, and then went on their merry way without doing anything about it. Apparently they don't bother dealing with any prescriptions until the patient comes in and asks for their order. Wow, such great customer service.

"Did you ever think to call me and let me know? What the heck!" I was so pissed. Then she said, "Do you want me to see if another pharmacy has some?" No, I'll just continue to be sick. Of course I want you to check!

She called another CVS about 5 miles away and they did have some in stock so I had to drive there to get my drugs. Of course, my order wasn't ready by the time I got there - oh, no, I had to wait another 15 minutes. No one else in line or waiting for a prescription, but I still had to wait.

As I was paying for the meds, the girl asked me if I have a CVS card. I said no. Then she said, "Would you like to get one?" Um, no - I don't want your friggin' card.

I want my Long's back!

Giving always feels good

2009-12-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday we had our annual "Wrap Party", a holiday tradition for my husbands real estate company for many years, where we "adopt" needy families at Christmas through the Viola Blythe Center here in Newark. The agents in the office contribute to the fund, we get our lists of families including names, ages, and wish lists. Then 4 or 5 of us do the actual shopping. Ed and I always shop for at least one family and it's something we look forward to each year. We buy gifts for all family members and also food, including a certificate from Safeway for a full turkey dinner.

Then comes the "Wrap Party". I still remember the first one I went to with Ed back in 1999 and how impressed I was with the energy and the whole concept of the office staff and their families getting together for this project. There is a potluck dinner and always a wide variety of ethnic foods - this year was no exception. We had Russian blini and a cold beet salad, Italian baked ziti, Mexican tamale pie, Egg Rolls, Italian cake, Philipino noodles with shrimp and chicken. The past few years this party has been at our house and, except for the wine incident in 2007, it's been a hoot! Since there's wine with dinner, the actual wrapping portion can get a little noisy, and bows can wind up in strange places, but it is great fun.

A few of the men are sent to the garage to put together the boxes of food for the families. Of course, we have to go out there periodically to make sure they stay on task!

The next day we take all the presents and food to the Center and get to meet the families and help them load their cars. There are always tears. Kids jumping up and down with excitement over their presents. Mom's hugging us. One Mom gave us a Christmas card. Photos are taken and we're all a bit misty-eyed by the time it's over.

Before I retired I wasn't able to be at give-away day, but for the last two years I have and it's so wonderful to be able to make the holidays a bit brighter for these families. I've also been able to bring two of my grandkids, Vika and Eamon, with me and they enjoy it. They talk with the kids, help load stuff in the cars, and it's a great lesson for them about giving. Of course, they also find time to climb the big tree in front of the center between families.

The Ornament

2009-12-18T16:02:00.001-08:00

And my final "re-run" Christmas post from 2007

**********************

This is our putting-up-the-tree weekend and with it will come a little tradition that fell upon Ed and I rather unexpectedly.

We met in October 1999 and shared our first Christmas that year. We still weren't at the stage where the families got together, and we actually spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our respective families and not together, but we did have a fun evening putting up Ed's tree. My kids and I began a tradition long ago of giving each other ornaments each year and my tree is now filled with these gifts from the past. So, in 1999 I decided to buy Ed an ornament. A nice one from Pier 1 that came in a little velvet box. It even has the year written on it. He liked it and we hung it on his tree.

By the end of 2000 we had moved in together and it was now "our" tree that we put up. We went through all of our combined ornaments and started hanging them up. Suddenly we came to the little blue box from 1999. Unbeknownst to me, and forgotten by Ed, there was a little note under the ornament at the bottom of the box that said, "Sandi xxxxx, Dec 1999, Hope we are still together in 2000 Dec"

When we took the ornament out of the box and found the note, we both started crying. How lucky we were to have found each other and to still be together.

Now, each year it has become somewhat of a tradition to open this little blue box. We have other ornaments in similar boxes that we have collected or given to each other over the years. But this one is special. The note is still there. We usually get all the other ornaments on the tree or in the holders and they take a quiet moment to open this one. And we still cry when we pull out the ornament and read the note.

The Plunger

2009-12-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

Another rerun from 2007

**************

My mom was a little odd at times. I say that in a loving way. She was my best friend and taught us all how to laugh at ourselves and at life.

In the early 1980's, during my single-mom days, I told her I wanted a plunger as a Christmas gift. The toilet in our apartment wasn't always up to the job and I was sick of borrowing one from the manager. Mom told me that wouldn't really be an appropriate gift.

However, Christmas morning there it was under the tree. Wrapped in a nice box with a big bow. This little puny plunger that couldn't unclog a water bottle. We all knew it was a joke, but she had packaged it lovingly and tied multi-colored bows all the way up the handle. So I placed it under the tree as a decoration. And every year since then it has gone under my tree. All but a couple of the ribbons are gone, but the memories are strong. It's not an easy thing to explain to people - why there's a plunger under the tree. But it's a fun story to tell. I told Ed it was an Italian tradition and he actually believed it for a bit!

The Doll

2009-12-14T18:57:00.000-08:00

I'm rerunning a couple of my favorites Christmas posts from a year or two ago. This is the first one from 2007.

****************

My grandmother passed away in November of 1982. She spent a couple of weeks in the hospital prior to that and on one of those days my mom and I went to the cafeteria for lunch. Being so close to losing her mother made my mom open up about a few things I hadn't known. My mom was always a bit of a tomboy, and her older sister was very much the "girl". Plus my aunt has a heart condition so she needed more attention. Turns out my mother spent much of her life feeling less loved than her sister and trying to do whatever it took to win her mother's love.

One especially sad story she told me was about a little porcelain doll she had gotten for Christmas when she was eight or nine years old. She loved that doll. My parents grew up during the Depression so having a gift like this wasn't taken lightly. Several months after she got the doll a little boy from the neighborhood was teasing my mom and took the doll from her. During the scuffle, the doll fell down the stairs and the porcelain shattered. Mom was heartbroken, but her family could not afford to replace it. Plus, my grandmother figured that since my mother was such a tomboy, she probably didn't care that much about the doll. How wrong she was. But my mother didn't want to cause any trouble so she never mentioned it again.

I remember so vividly sitting there with my mom hearing this story, seeing her eyes well up, and seeing a side of her I had never seen. My grandmother passed away shortly after that, about three days before Thanksgiving, and I made it my mission to find another porcelain doll for my mother. Not an easy thing to do! I wound up buying three of them until I found the perfect one and returned all the others. The one I finally found was in a box in a back corner of some small gift shop. It had an old country look about it, and even had dark hair and leather shoes.

I wrapped the doll and hid it in my bedroom. I had told my dad, brother, and kids about the present and begged them to not say anything so it could be a surprise. On Christmas morning we were all gathered in my apartment opening presents. Finally there was nothing left under the tree and we started cleaning up the papers. I went into the bedroom and came out with the box. "Hey, here's one that didn't make it under the tree. Looks like it's for Mom." She started laughing about not needing anything else but I plopped the box in her lap anyway. They rest of us got very quiet waiting for her to open it. When she pulled the doll out of the box, her face changed dramatically, she looked at me and then started crying. Which of course made all the rest of us cry (I'm tearing up just writing and remembering this). It was truly an emotional moment and one that I will never forget.

Mom kept the doll on her bed from that day forward. She also had an old rosary from her mother which she wrapped around the doll. When Mom died in 1994, the I kept the doll. She now lives happily in our home.

It's too bad this little doll doesn't know what an impression she made or what a special Christmas she made for my mother. Some day when I'm gone the doll will live with my daughter, Jenni. Hopefully the story of how she became part of our family will live with her.

My Babushka Tote

2009-12-12T09:07:00.001-08:00

I love the Internet - actually all things high tech. But mainly the Internet. In addition to having more information than I could ever want or need, it has given me an avenue of communication that has totally enriched my life.

Like my cousin, Cookie. I did a blog post about her in 2008. She and I spent a lot of time together when we were growing up, then lost touch and only saw each other occasionally at family funerals. Not as morbid as it sounds - they always say Italian funerals are like Italian weddings but with one less person. Then last year we reconnected - first by phone and primarily via my blog, Facebook, and email. It's become a relationship that I cherish and would probably not have were it not for the Internet (I'm not much of a phone person and haven't hand-written a letter since the invention of the keyboard!).

Yesterday, I received the coolest gift from Cookie. Apparently she got a new embroidery machine and thought of me because she wanted to try a non-traditional name. First of all I LOVE any kind of tote bag. Second, it's personalized!! Here's the result.

How cool is that? Thanks, Cookie! A very special gift that I will use for a long time. Love you, Cousin.

My morning

2009-12-02T08:41:00.001-08:00

I suppose you're wondering why I'm sitting here with a glass of wine at 9:00 am! Okay, it's really only coffee but it SHOULD be wine!

And let me make this clear from the get-go, I was a good Mom. I was able to take care of my kids, make them dinner, get them ready for school, etc., and fit it all comfortably in to a fairly hectic life.

Grandkids - now that's another story. My son-in-law called me a few weeks back and asked if I could possibly pick the kids up today because he had a conference in San Francisco, and Jenni works until 3:30pm. It's early release day (a new thing in California because of budget issues) and the kids get out at 1:15 instead of 2:35. I agreed since I didn't have anything scheduled for this afternoon. And then I decided to be a really good Babushka and offer to keep them Tuesday night and take them to school the next day, too, so he didn't need to stress about that. Of course, he agreed.

Vika and Eamon were dropped off around 5:30. This is when I learned that Vika gets out at 1:15pm today, but Eamon doesn't get out until 2:15 because of a reading class that he attends. Two trips to the school. Now, mind you, Ed and I had just spent 4 hours with the installation man from AT&T U-Verse. By the time the kids arrived, the place was a mess with extra tivo and DirectTV boxes everywhere along with vast quantities of cables and cords that we no longer needed. Ed was in total clean-up mode, and try-out-the-new-toy mode. I started working on dinner. Fire was going, Christmas lights were on - a very nice, cozy evening. Since the kids have a 7:30 bedtime, we needed to get the chicken on the grill so we could have dinner. Ed managed to get that done - but he set the timer for a few minutes too long so he'd have more time to clean up and play with U-Verse. (He'll probably deny that) Watching the kids saw through the slightly dry meat was amusing (for us, anyway) but Vika did manage to eat twice as much as I did. Then it was bedtime.

Bedtime with these two is never smooth. But usually they're here on a weekend so if they get to sleep late, no big deal. This, however, was a friggin' school night and I could feel my daughter watching. Got them to bed with a stern (although apparently not stern enough) warning - no talking, fighting, getting up, or anything. Kissed both of them, closed the door, went into the kitchen, only to find Eamon right behind me. I forgot his cold sore medicine. We solved that one, then Vike got up and said she needed some chapstick. Done. Now, back to bed. By the time Ed and I decided to head to bed to read around 9pm, I could hear the kids talking. Then Vika said Eamon was talking and wouldn't let her get to sleep. Eamon said Vika was being mean to him. Blah, blah, blah. So Eamon slept on the couch and all was finally quiet.

Then came this morning. Jenni said they usually get up at 7am which is good for me. I got up at 6:45, started the coffee, opened the curtains, and kissed the kids good morning. Oh, by this time Vika had gone into the living and was curled up on a recliner. She informed me that she went in there at 6:26. I got them up and told them to brush their teeth and get dressed while I made breakfast. Eamon's request was eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy. Wrong. Vika wanted pancakes or waffles. Wrong again. I told them I was making scrambled eggs and some cranberry/orange muffins. A little eye-rolling but not too bad. They went off to get ready.

I started making the muffins, and turned on the news. The kids immediately broke into a chorus of "We want to watch cartoons." I ignored them. Tried to work the new remote but had some trouble. Tried one of the other rooms, still trouble. Finally, after wasting precious time on remotes I got back to the muffins but I was off schedule. They would be done at 7:35 instead of 7:30. PROMPTLY at 7:30, Vika said, "Where's breakfast?" I told her it would be in about 5 minutes. Then she said, "But we have to leave for school in 5 minutes!" No, you don't. We have until 8am. More eye rolling.

The eggs had just hit the pan when Eamon says, "Babushka, we need a lunch and a snack!" WHAT?!?!? I didn't know about that. Vika said they could buy lunch and when I asked her how much they needed, she said $15-$20! Had a feeling that wasn't right so I called Jenni who hung up on me the first time trying to connect her speakerphone, but she finally got through and said lunch was $2.50. And only Eamon needed a snack because he was staying longer. The eggs were starting to overcook so I slapped them on a dish with a muffin, poured some orange juice and set the kids down. Then went off to find the money for their lunch and to pack Eamon a snack. I also took this opportunity to put on my shoes and get ready to bolt. Never did have a chance to have a cup of coffee.

Finally they were done eating so I dumped all the dishes in the sink and we headed out the door. I was still in my sweats, had not yet taken my shower, no makeup, hair looking pretty pathetic. I NEVER leave the house like this so my mantra the whole trip was to not get pulled over for anything or have an accident. When we got to school I got in the "drop off" line. Vika informed me that they were now late and only had 10 minutes to play instead of their usual 20. Big Whoop! She also tried to tell me that she knew a quicker way for me to get to their school and a faster way for me to drop them off. Way too confusing so I just stayed in the mini-van line. When I got to the curb, I stopped the car - apparently not in the right spot. The kids shouted "No, no, pull up" and at the curb was a 4th grader with an orange vest telling me where to stop so the kids could get out. But the kids couldn't get out. "Babushka, you have to unlock the doors!!" AAACCCCKKKK! Where is the dang unlock button ?!? Finally found it, the 4th grader (after completing her eye rolling) opened the door for the kids and off they went.

I drove home quickly, but safely. Soaked up the quiet when I walked in the door. And grabbed that cup of coffee that really should be wine.

Change of Seasons

2009-11-29T17:46:00.000-08:00

This was our "change everything from Autumn to Christmas" weekend and we're almost done. Right now Ed's vacuuming and I thought it best to get out of his way so decided to do a quick post. Aren't I the most thoughtful wife?!?!? We never quite made it to the outside lights and decorations, those will have to wait a bit. But Ed did manage to ditch the pumpkins and cornstalk from the front porch.

One of the more interesting challenges this year was to add three new stockings to our grandkid wall. I had 10 stocking fitting on the wall pretty nicely and it took a little maneuvering to add three more. But we did it!

Now little Tyson, Jacob and Faith have taken their place along with 10 others ranging in age from 20 to 4 months.

Each year I say I'm not going to buy any more stuff, and each year I buy more stuff. But, in fairness to me, I do throw a few things away. Mind you, I don't throw away as much as I buy, but what the heck.

We got our wonderful artificial trees (with lights) down from the rafters and assembled and decorated it. The ornaments on our tree are all memories. We buy an ornament any time we travel to a new place. The kids and I exchange ornaments each year. And Vika and Eamon made me two ornaments a couple of years ago. So opening each little package brings back a memory which makes decorating the tree special. Tiring, but special.

And all my fake poinsetta is in place! Jenni goes nuts when she see all of it - I think it gives her a rash or something. But I love it.

I think the vacuuming is over so I can safely leave this room now. Bye, bye/.

Thanksgiving then and now

2009-11-27T18:35:00.001-08:00

Well, Ed and I made it through another Thanksgiving - a few pounds heavier, but pretty good nonetheless. This was our 10th Thanksgiving together and our family has grown so much since that first one. Our crowd was a little smaller this year - only 18.

But the three new babies were all in attendance and doing what babies do best - cry, eat, poop.

The older kids (ages 6-8) spent much of the time outside playing with some new scooters Ed bought, having light saber battles, and watching Spiderman. I did a terrible job this year of photo-taking but managed to at least get a picture of the three newest family members.

Thanksgiving when I was a kid was the typical Italian event. More food than many people eat in a week! We would often have non-family members join us and we tried to convince them to pace themselves. Dinner was early, around 2:00 pm.

First course was pasta. Big bowls of pasta along with several bowls of meatballs and other meat that had been cooking in the sauce (gravy to us) all day. And salad and Italian bread. People would eat until their eyes bulged and then the plates and leftovers were taken back into the kitchen. A few minutes later the turkey arrived! Along with mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce (the kind from the can that still has the can marks on it and it cut in perfectly even slices), sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, broccoli and hot rolls. This was the fun part. Watching all those people who did NOT heed our warning sit their with their mouths open. This feeding session went a little slower because everyone was pretty full. But we managed to do a pretty good job on the turkey.

As soon as we all went into a food coma, the turkey remains and dishes were again cleared. By now no one could even move. So we just sat and tried to talk without burping or nodding off. The women were in the kitchen rattling dishes and pots and pans. You could smell the coffee brewing. Suddenly the table was set again with pumpkin pie, cookies, nuts, fruit, cake, anisette for the coffee, more red wine for the adults. We would dawdle over dessert for quite awhile and then my dad and uncle would head for the couch to watch football. My cousins and I grew up thinking that watching football required having your head thrown back, your mouth open, and loud snoring.

Once football was over the menfolk woke up and headed back to the table where we would play a rousing game of Put and Take. Two dice, one had either a P or a T on each side. The other had numbers. If you got a P you had to put the number on the second die into the pot. With a T, you took the amount out. My grandfather would dump out his huge can of coins and we would all take a share for our kitty.

While we were playing the leftovers started coming out. The table was soon covered with smaller dishes of pretty much everything we had earlier in the day. My dad would always grumble that the food was getting in the way of the game. I don't think he really cared, but it was his little traditional grumble.

Nani Gene's house was small and we spent 90% of the day sitting around her large table. And enjoying every minute.

How I miss those days.

The way to a man's heart

2009-11-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to Chicago for a few days to visit with my aunt and my brother. All in all it was a very relaxing and fun weekend. Only one small glitch. The morning of the day we visited my brother he had just installed a 55" LED, LCD tv in his family room. Now, this may not seem like such a big deal. Unless you're married to my dear Ed. When he saw the size of the screen (and yes, Virginia, size does matter) and the nice clear picture, the game was on. On the way back to my aunt's house the next day we had to find a Best Buy (thank you Garmin) to look at the tv's and try to get information on Comcast services because there was no way Ed was waiting until we got back home in 48 hours.

By the time we did get home, Ed was hyperventilating over the whole project. Now, he'll tell you it wasn't THAT big a deal to him and I'm being overly dramatic. If you wish to believe that, it's fine with me.

Currently we have three TVs, 2 PCs, 2 laptops, 2 phone lines. Our services include Direct TV, Tivo, AT&T for phones, Comcast for cable. I know, that's so 20th Century. So we decided to look at the package deals out there. The major focus of our next two days was Comcast vs AT&T U-Verse. Ed was totally in the Comcast camp because of some "less-than-pleasant" experiences we had with AT&T DSL a few years ago. But with Comcast you can't transfer recordings from one room to the other which is a biggie for me. Comcast has On Demand (which AT&T only has a weak version of) and that was big for Ed. I called AT&T, got all the information, and was offered $100 in cold, hard cash if I signed on right then! But we weren't ready just yet. Ed got the scoop from Comcast and then he called AT&T with a few more questions. This time he was offered a $100 VISA card if he signed on immediately.

Finally we did a Ben Franklin balance sheet and listing pros and cons for both - with lovely highlights for the winning entry in each category (yes, we're OCD) and decided on AT&T U-Verse which will be installed in early December. First, it will save us around $100 a month vs the piecemeal system we have now.

And it might prevent Ed from buying that really big tv he wants if we can get a better picture on our itsy bitsy 46" screen!

Grout and Music

2009-11-08T09:21:00.001-08:00

Today we are having Wendy's baby shower at our house. It was initially scheduled for mid-July, but she had to go on bed rest so we postponed it until the twins were 3 months old (which happened on November 3rd). So, this morning I was rushing around to make two loaves of pumpkin bread, and a batch of Ceviche before we have to head to Costco to pick up additional food. Ed thought that would be a fine time to clean the grout on the kitchen counter!!

He started with Comet then switched to Soft Scrub - in the process splashing some on his new sweatshirt which immediately went into the washer.

The point is (and I do have one), for some reason when he pulled out the Comet I thought about Ajax. When I was a kid, that was the only cleanser there was. As others came on the market, they were all labeled Ajax in our minds. Sort of like Kleenex and Xerox machines. Then, being me, I started recalling the Ajax jingle

"Use Ajax, the foaming cleanser (badda, bom, bada, bom, bom), [something, something] the dirt right down the drain!"

Then I started humming the old Pepsodent commercial "You wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent."

And Lucky Strike cigarettes: Be happy, go lucky. Be Happy, go Lucky Strike

Chevrolet: See the USA, in your Chevrolet (followed by a big air kiss from Dinah Shore)

Texaco: You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the big, bright Texaco Star!!

Brylcream: Brylcream, a little dab'll do ya, Brylcream, you'll look so debonair. Brylcream a little dab'll do ya. They'll love to get their fingers in your hair.

Do you have any favorites from the past? By the way, our grout looks lovely.

The "Old" People

2009-11-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week my good friend in Tucson wrote on her Facebook Status, "I Miss My Old People!!" I knew what she was talking about - her mother passed away in the Summer of 2008, and her stepfather died a month or so ago.

My hairdresser just lost her mother a month ago after a long illness. And over the past week there has been a man walking by our office who looks a lot like Ed's dad. All of these events brought so much back to me.

My mom died over 14 years ago, and between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008 Ed and I lost my father and both of his parents. All of our "old people" are gone, too. My dad was in a nursing home for over 2 years before he died, and Ed's parents both spent eight weeks in the hospital or nursing homes at the end of their lives. For two years our lives consisted of a series of hospital visits, flights to Chicago, nursing home visits, dealing with mounds of paperwork, knots in the stomach every time the phone rang. It was emotionally and physically draining - and I miss it!

I miss having them around. I miss their stories that they told over and over again. I miss being able to take my dad out of the nursing home and to a restaurant for oysters, white wine, and Caesar Salad. And driving him to downtown Chicago so he could see the buildings and the lights. He so loved Chicago. And Scrabble - up to the end it was hard to beat the guy at Scrabble.

I miss having Ed's dad over a couple of times a week for dinner and watching him enjoy our grandkids. And hearing his great phrases like "tall hog at the trough" and "knee deep in high cotton". And his laugh - boy could that man laugh. Mostly it was silent, you would just see his face light up and his belly jiggle.

I miss Ed's mom with her bright red hair and the perpetual kleenex in her hand. And her bright lipstick. I miss her yelling across the room, "Where's Clyde?" anytime her husband dared to stray out of her sight. I miss seeing her in that recliner where she sat for every holiday and dinner at our house. 90% of the photos we have of her are in that recliner!

I miss my mother's laugh and the way she always said, "Hi, Sweetheart!" when I would call her on the phone, and I could hear a smile in her voice. And how we called each other almost daily just to chat - often about nothing in particular. And how she was able to center me with just a few words. She was my best friend so I lost two people when she died.

I even miss all we had to do at the end of their lives because it gave us a chance to give back to them some of what they had given to us. To take care of them. My dad once said to me, "I hate that you have to do all of this for me." I said, "Dad, you took care of me for 20 years, let me enjoy the chance to pay you back a bit."

After all of our "old people" were gone, I made a separate collage for each of them and have them hanging in our hallway. I smile every time I look at them - and I tear up.

Now Ed and I are the "old people" ! I'm not sure I like that much.

1963

2009-11-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

This morning I watched last night's episode of Mad Men (thank you, Tivo). The show is exquisite and probably my favorite thing on tv right now. For those who haven't watched it first, shame on you! Second, it takes place in New York in the 1960's with all the slickness, drinking, smoking, womanizing, etc. of that decade. Last night's show revolved around the Kennedy assassination.

Throughout the episode, tv's in all the scenes were showing various stages of that awful weekend from the first shot to the notice of Kennedy's death, to the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. I found myself crying all over again watching Walter Cronkite announce that the president had died.

Any of us who are old enough remember where we were that day.

I was in my senior year in high school that year and in Journalism class. We were all babbling about needing a big story for the front page of the school paper when one of our classmates walked through the door and said, "The President has just been shot!" We all started laughing and said, "We don't need something quite that big." But then we realized he was serious and turned on the classroom radio. We had a phone in the classroom so all took turns calling someone - our mothers, best friends, dads - just needed to connect with someone.

Next class was Chemistry. My teacher was this very large black man from the South who was one of the best teachers I ever had. He actually made chemistry fun and we learned so much. He was well over six feet tall and had been a football player so had arms and thighs the size Texas and was a big, tough guy who always had a smile on his face. Class that day consisted mostly of talking about what was going on. He was sitting at his desk in front of the room just letting us have conversations with him and with each other. Shortly after 1:00 the Principal came over the loud speaker and announced to the school that President Kennedy had died. We were horrified. Our teacher looked up at the PA speaker, looked at us, then put his head on his desk and sobbed. We watched his shoulders shaking. This strong man felt apart in front of our young eyes. That told the story of how devastated we all were. Within a few minutes we were all crying and trying to comfort each other.

Our age of innocence was over. School continued for the rest of the day because they weren't allowed to let us go home early. But we all just drifted from class to class crying, talking, and waiting for the bell. When school was finally out and my mom came to pick me up, she was crying. Her eyes were so swollen and puffy.

We were glued to the tv all night. Stayed in front of the tv all weekend and I remember I was drying dishes and watching when Oswald was shot. By then we were so numb that I just sat on the floor and stared at the tv. What more could possibly happen.

Then the funeral, then John-John saluting his dad. It was a horrific week. I don't know that Kennedy was all that great a President. I was much too young to know enough to make that determination. He certainly had his faults, as all Presidents do. But he was young and charasmatic and the first President that my generation really had. His death was such a stunning blow to our way of life and all that we thought we knew.

Mad Men captured all of this perfectly. It made me cry, made me remember.

Ghosts, Goblins, and leftover candy

2009-11-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

Halloween is over for another year. We had a lot of kids again this year, but still have candy left over. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

Our House gnome donned his witch's hat and got ready for the evening's festivities.

Ed did his number as the Shadow Man and managed to make a few teenagers revert to 4-year olds, and then try to recover their dignity. The girls don't mind screaming and squealing, it's part of their nature. But the boys strut up the sidewalk looking all cool and then lose it when Ed says something. One especially brave young man decided to touch the Shadow Man with his bag proving that it wasn't real. When Ed reached out and grabbed the bag, the kid squealed like stepped-on cat.

This was the first Halloween for Wendy's twins. They got all dressed up, but not sure they enjoyed it much. Their treat was formula and their "trick" was some nasty diapers. Maybe next year.

Jenni's kids were here in all their glory. Eamon as yet another Star Wars character (that's three years in a row) and Vika as an Asian Princess.

The best part was this morning when Ed went into the hall bathroom and discovered a chunk of chocolate on the rug, a bunch of empty candy wrappers in the wastebasket, and a glob of chocolate on the sink. I could just picture Vika and/or Eamon going in there and shoving as much candy as they could in their mouths before Mama and Papa noticed they were missing!

One thing scratched off Ed's Bucket List

2009-11-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

Today was quite a big day in our house. First, we got to turn the clocks back and regain the hour that was stolen back in March. It's my favorite day of the year. No matter what time I get up, it's earlier! You just can't beat that. I don't re-set my clocks until morning so I have the euphoric feeling of going back in time with every clock that I adjust.

But what made this day really special is that Ed made pancakes for breakfast. The man has NEVER made pancakes in his six decades on this earth. Amazing. Apparently he developed a craving for them yesterday afternoon. As I'm sitting at my computer this morning, he comes in the room, bag of pancake mix in hand, and asks if we have a griddle (!). Why, yes, we do. Since I was in the middle of an online relationship with Amazon.com I figured he could handle this without my help.

He went into the kitchen to begin the project. Following the directions on the package he measures the mix and the water. Comes up with a bowl of thick sludge. Calls out to me, "Hey, I'm having a problem here!" I went in and looked at the muck in the bowl and the wooden spoon standing straight up. Not sure why that happened, but I never actually measure the water or follow the directions. Just pour in enough to make them the consistency I like. So I told him to put in more water, in spite of what the package says. He put in a teaspoon of water at a time, but eventually got them right. I also showed him how to use the whisk to blend the batter. I pulled out the griddle, sprayed it with butter spray, turned on the stove, gave him the scoop I use for pancakes, and went back to my computer.

A couple of minutes later I hear, "How do I know when to flip them over?" I yelled back, "When all the little bubbles on the top burst and the bottom looks brown." He flipped them and called out, "These look funny."

So I went into the kitchen and they actually looked fine for the first batch. I explained that the first batch usually looks a bit uneven, but they'll taste fine and the rest of them will be more uniform. As I walked out of the kitchen, I jokingly said, "Don't touch the griddle, it's hot." Back to the computer.

After I finished my online order, I went back into the kitchen where Ed informed me that he had burned his finger on the griddle! But the pancakes were done and were tasty, and I think his finger will be fine (I'm sure there will be a Neosporin moment).

Calling all Princesses and Transformers....

2009-10-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

One of the many benefits of retirement is that I get to pick up my grandkids from school on Fridays and have them with me for a couple of hours. That, of course, includes giving them a snack which they remind me about the minute we hit the doorway!

Today they had their annual Halloween Parade. Each year the kids dress up in their costumes the day before Halloween and parade down the street about three blocks from the school, then back up the other side of the street to return to their classrooms. It's quite an event. The teachers and administrators dress up, also. As do some of the parents. At least I think the lady with the black leggings, black t-shirt, tattoos on both arms, and a pierced eyebrow and lip was dressed up! Didn't dare ask!

Some parents bring younger siblings to join in the fun. People who live on the street haul out the folding chairs and sit on their front lawns waving to the kids. And the kids are all told to do the princess wave and say "Happy Halloween" to the crowd. A few of them actually do! Some of them have masks so we hear, "Hmpfhhh Hffpggwwn". But you get the idea.

It was a perfect Fall day - if you stood in the shade. In the sun it was still summer. Because our house is always cool, I wore a sweater so had to deal with a 60-minute hot flash. All of us parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. huddled around the parking lot waiting for the kids to come out. There were many, many transformers (who didn't transform into anything so that was a bust), princesses, witches, Darths, and Snow Whites. Also one boy dressed as Phantom of the Opera - I'm guessing his parents picked that one out.

As soon as the kids got past the school, the hordes of above-mentioned family members went across the street to catch the kids on their way back to the school. Imagine a couple of hundred people trying to huddle under the three or four trees that had shade.

There was even a witch helping with the street crossing.

It's really a fun event and my second time watching it. Tonight they have a Halloween Carnival at the school, but I'll leave that to Mama and Papa. I'll be on the couch with a glass of wine watching tv.

One Ringy Dingy

2009-10-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was watching an old Betty Davis movie (I know, the "old" is redundant) and in one scene her phone was ringing. It was one of those old phone from the 1940's that you can now buy touch-tone replicas of for several hundred dollars. Betty sashayed through her living room in her formal gown and got to the phone by the third ring.

How times have changed! Now we carry phones in our pockets. I remember when I was a little girl living in Tucson and we wanted to call family in Chicago. First you had to get the operator and give her the number. And, if you were really rich, you could make a "person-to-person" call! We weren't so just gave her the number.

We also had a cute trick we would do when we came home from a vacation. We would call our family and ask for ourselves which was the code for "we made it home safely." Clever, don't you think??

I sort of miss the old dial phones. It was such fun to dial a number with all small numbers because you could go really fast. Of course, if you had the dreaded 9 or 0 in the number, it increased your dialing time. There weren't any musical notes when you dialed a specific number like on touch tones, but the sound of the dial returning to it's home base was pretty cool.

My grandparents hated the push button phones. Dang new-fangled things. It was so much easier for them to hook their finger into the number 3 slot on the dial then to push the number 3 and maybe hit the 2 or 6. But they finally got used to it.

When I started working at Stanford there were a few physicians who actually had car phones that they could carry around. All cell phones were called car phones initially because rich people had them in their cars! It never occurred to us that having a "car" phone in your pocket was a bit silly.

And who could forget the invention of the cordless phone! Took me awhile to get used to that one. I would always put it back in the cradle and then have to run to get it when it rang. Drove my kids nuts. Now I've learned. Old dog - new tricks. Plus we have phones and cradles in every room in the house!

My first cell phone was one I bought through AAA and it had an emergency button to call AAA. Only bought it for emergencies - I think that was the line we all used in the beginning. The phone weighed about 3 pounds and was the size of a loaf of banana bread! But it worked.

I've been through Motorols, Nokia and Treo and now am totally in love with my iPhone. It does everything but wash windows and someone is probably working on an app for that!

A Squirrel by any other name.....

2009-10-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

My brother called me from Chicago this morning - very frustrated. Wanted to know if I had any "tricks up my sleeve" for getting rid of squirrels. No, I don't. Wish I did! Let me go on record as saying I HATE squirrels. They have rabies, make that awful noise, and dig up everything. No value whatsoever.

But back to my brother. Apparently he bought 200 bulbs and, since he lives in Chicago where they have real winters, he decided to plant them this morning while the weather was good. Bought some tool where he could dig the hole and plant the bulb while standing up (he's definitely the smart one in the family). After 2 1/2 hours of planting he looked back at the start of the row and discovered squirrels UN-planting several bulbs.

Tony couldn't believe their audacity! He said, "I mean, it's like, Hello!! - Homeowner here watching you!!" But did they care, nope. Just kept on digging. As he ran over to them, they ran up a tree with a "try to get me now" look on their faces. Supposedly cayenne pepper is a good deterrent so Tony has emptied every bottle of the stuff that they have. "We have no damn pepper left in our kitchen because of those furry rats!" he bellowed. Plus the rain washes it off and you have to re-sprinkle. "What do other people do? Just plant a bunch of bulbs and hope a few of them stay in the ground and actually bloom??"

Apparently a co-worker of Tony's was all upset the other morning because she had hit a squirrel in the road and felt bad. Tony offered her money if she would drive through his neighborhood for a few days!

I lived in a second floor apartment about 10 years ago that had a little front balcony. So I decided to put some flower pots on the railing. That was my first experience with squirrels. I would be sitting in my living room and those little vermin would be digging up the flowers while occassionally casting a glance my way and laughing. I tried everything. Red pepper was the first. I'm sensitive to pepper so the whole time I was protecting my plants I was having a sneezing frenzy that would literally make me jump off the ground. Then I tried some orange spray that was "guaranteed". All that did was make the planter boxes very sticky, but didn't seem to bother the squirrels. Finally I resorted to putting that black stuff you use to prevent weeds in the boxes around the flowers and holding it in place with 6" nails driven into the dirt. That worked for a short time. Then I moved and now live in a fairly squirrel-free zone. Our only issues in the back yard are snails (which I hate almost as much as squirrels - especially after they gnawed their way through many of my heirloom tomatoes!) and the occasional cat that uses our mulch as a litter box.

Sadly, I had no wisdom to impart to my baby brother about his problems. So we had a few ranting moments about the lack of value in squirrels, then said goodbye.

Hair (without the nudity)

2009-10-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty much a creature of habit. At least when it comes to my hair. Watching a news clip this morning about hair styles through the decades and interviews with women who change their hairstyle regularly, I realized that I'm an extremely boring hair person. Oh, sure, I had a couple of interesting "do's" growing up. This one was what my mother lovingly called my "witch do". For some unknown reason I insisted on having my hair like this for the photo with my baby sister. Mom was not happy, but she knew the photo would be punishment enough in the future. Although, as you can see from the school photo below it my Mom's ideas on "cute" hairdo's wasn't always top knotch.

As a teenager I tried to have long hair for awhile, but that never quite worked. I tried sporting a flip, then settled in on the short hair I have today. In pretty much the same style without all the teasing and without the cute little yarn ribbon.

I tried to get a shag cut once, but mistakenly went to a very old beautician who gave me a bad cut and then proceeded to seal it in place with a heavy spray of hair lacquer! I cried all the way home and spent the next two hours trying to wash all that shit out. Another hair disaster was when I wanted sculptured curls and an updo. That time I wound up with these two things on my head that resembled headlights. Again, tears on the drive home. And at every red light I would slunk down in the seat so no one could see me. So I figured it was time to find my lifetime style and just stick with it.

When I was in my early 50's I decided it might be nice for a change! After all, I finally got my ears pierced at age 51 so why not change the hair? I had been going to this one salon (yes, between headlights and today beauticians have become stylists and beauty shops have become salons. Sigh...) for several months and one day I brought in a picture of a hair cut I wanted to try. She looked at the photo and said, "Oh, but you can't do that. This style requires 'hair that moves' and you don't have hair that moves!" So all those dreams I had of soft hair swaying in the breeze were dashed to the floor among all those hair clippings. (And, seriously, I do have dreams that I have long, silky hair that I'm brushing while sitting at one of those little antique dressers with the mirror in the middle) Hell of a thing to find out in your 50's. So now my hair style quest is over. Short hair it is. Sometimes over the ears, sometimes behind the ears. That's about as dramatic as it gets.

It's all about grandkids

2009-10-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

The past two weekends have been filled with grandkids! Last Saturday we all went to Perry Farms about a mile from our house for our annual pumpkin gathering extravaganza. My kids and I have been going there since we moved to California in 1987 to get pumpkins to decorate the front porch. It's a tradition that I love. This year we had Jenni's kids, Marc's two boys, and Wendy's twins all along for the ride.

It was the first "social" outing for the twins and their parents which made the day that much more special. I don't think the babies got much out of it, but the older kids had a good time.

And this year it was at least a little chilly. I remember years past when it was so warm we had to wear shorts and that just should not be legal in the Fall!

On Sunday, my son and his wife came over with Tyson (the 8 month old) and then left him with me for a couple of hours while they went to play with their band. He's at such a great age (Tyson, not my son!). Crawling everywhere, standing for brief moments, and smiling a lot!

Jenni brought her kids over and Tyson watched tv with them for awhile. Then both families joined us for dinner. A perfect way to end a Fall weekend.

My grandson, Eamon, turned seven mid-week and yesterday Jenni had a birthday party for him. Of course, 90% of the presents were Star Wars or Transformers stuff. Jenni loves Halloween so the house was "done up" right and all the snacks had Halloween themes. With nine kids playing and eating sugar, you can imagine the noise. Or maybe you can't - lucky you!

Eamon ordered Boston Creme Pie for his birthday cake. Luckily for all of us his father is a master cook and makes a mean BCP. Eamon takes his cake eating very seriously.

My younger grandson also takes meal times seriously, as does his dad.

But a good time was had by all and Jenni did have adult drinks which included vodka, creme de cacao, and ice cream. How can you miss with that? Although, maybe we should have given some of the hooch to the kids to sedate them...

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

2009-10-05T18:50:00.001-07:00

Today is my anniversary - and it's Ed's too!! Ten years ago today we met for the first time at a Starbucks in Milpitas after meeting on Match.com. I did a 3-part blog about this meeting two years ago.

On October 5th 2001 he proposed to me at a restaurant in Sausalito. Just as I said yes and we both wiped our tears, Barry Bonds hit a home run and the Giants stadium lit up with fireworks. Right outside the window of the restaurant. Pretty cool.

Then on October 5th 2002 we got married. Surrounded by our children and parents. Have you noticed a pattern? We decided at our age it was much easier to just remember one "Ed and Sandi" date so October 5th it is. Which means today is actually our 10/8/7 anniversary.

Since we've been together three of our combined 5 children have gotten married, and our number of grandchildren has grown from 2 to 13! Life is good.

So Happy Anniversary, Ed! It's been a great 10 years and I look forward to many more. As I told Ed once - we've been together for 10 years and I still like him! Sure couldn't say that with the first two husbands.

I like tall people

2009-09-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

After work tonight I had to do a bit of grocery shopping to re-stock after our vacation. One of the items I needed was milk and, for some reason, the milk cartons are ALWAYS at the back of the cold case. I have never seen a carton towards the front. Anyway, being vertically challenged as I am, I couldn't reach the milk. My normal M.O. is to wait for a tall person to come by and take pity on me and grab the milk. So I looked around. There was an elderly (and my definition of "elderly" changes yearly) man a couple of feet away who was fairly tall so I asked him if he could help me.

He couldn't hear me so I tapped on his shoulder and asked if he would mind getting a carton of milk for me. He tried to reach them but couldn't. Then he was going to stand on the lower ridge of the cold case to try and I said, "Oh, no, don't do that - it doesn't look very safe." So he thought about it and said, "Wait a minute!" Then he went to his cart and got his cane. Proudly he walked back to the milk and used the handle of his cane to wiggle one loose and to the front. He grabbed it, handed it to me, and, with a big smile on his face, said, "Well, bet you haven't done that before!! Worked pretty well!"

Why no I haven't and yes it did.

A few more notes from Massacusetts

2009-09-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't know it was possible to be "lobstered out" but it's happened. Lobster isn't something we eat at home - it's way too expensive and often a little dry. But here in Massachusetts it's plentiful, not as expensive, and really good. We had whole lobster for dinner last night, lobster roll for lunch today, and Ed had a DOUBLE lobster plate for dinner tonight. Mind you, he had two whole lobsters, corn on the cob, potato all for $19.99! And that's how you get lobstered out.

We had lunch in Provincetown today. We had stopped here on our honeymoon almost seven years ago and wanted to re-visit. It still had all the charm we remembered. And Ed found a candy store so he was happy. You know, as in "kid in.....".

We're about 10 days too early for the great fall colors, but we have found a few bright spots.
Lots of toll roads here. And we saw a sign on one of the toll booths that made us laugh. It said "Please turn off your wipers." I can just picture the poor toll collector sitting in his or her booth on a rainy day and being pelted by someone's wipers.

Tomorrow we head to Boston for three days. The weather is finally getting a bit colder and feels like fall. Maybe we'll find a red leaf or two!

Of drug stores and donuts

2009-09-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

Our first day in Massachusetts consisted mostly of driving. We left our hotel around 10am and asked the girl at the desk how to get to Northampton. She chirped cheerfully, “Oh, that’s easy! Just turn right at the end of our driveway and stay on that road.” Easy enough. We turned on our Garmin just in case and Lee (our Australian Male Voice) kept trying to get us to turn right to get to the main highway. But we wanted to take the smaller road so we could drive slower and see more. We kept hearing:

“In .2 miles, turn right”
“Recalculating”
“In .4 miles, turn right”
“Recalculating”
“In .3 miles, make a u-turn”
“Recalculating”

And so on. We laughed – silly Lee wants us to take the big highway. Ed asked me if we were heading East and I said, Why yes, we are. “That’s all I need to know!” he said. And we drove. Put Lee on mute so we wouldn’t have to listen to his demands. I tried to find our location on the map but couldn’t. Oh, well. We stopped at a CVS Pharmacy for a few items. Then a couple of miles later Ed remembered he needed new shoelaces so we found another CVS and stopped again.

Still heading East. EAST?!?!? Suddenly it dawned on us that Northampton was to the WEST of us and the little chickie at the desk told us to turn right when she should have said left. So we turned around and headed back. 20 minutes later we were back where we started, but at least now we were going in the right direction. Poor Lee, he was just trying to help us and we shut him down.

There are a lot of Dunkin Donut shops out here. Sort of like Walgreens in the Chicago area – one on every corner. So naturally we had a craving for a donut. The next two we saw weren’t easily accessible but finally Ed found one and pulled in. Turned out to be a Dunkin Donut portion of a small convenience store. Selection was pretty bad, but we managed to find a couple of donuts and asked for milk. The girl said they only had coffee, no milk. But we could get some at the store they were attached to. So I went over to the cold case and found only half gallons. I asked the clerk if they had small containers of milk and he pointed to the half and half! Um, no thanks. Can’t drink a pint of half and half.

Found another donut shop which DID have milk and much better-looking donuts - so we bought two more. I mean, I probably have a donut twice a year and I didn’t want a stale, poorly-frosted one.

Mind you, all these stops and turn-arounds occurred within 5 miles of the hotel! We had been on the road for almost an hour and had gone practically nowhere. But, what the heck, we’re on vacation.

Then I remembered that I left my book in the hotel room so now we had to hunt for a bookstore. But at least that was up the road a few miles so we did get to see some countryside on the way.

Made it to Northampton and stopped for lunch. We were at a little café and a young girl sitting right in front of Ed started nursing her baby. No covering up – she just went for it. So Ed moved his chair a bit and averted his eyes. Then another young woman sitting in his new vision path pulled up her shirt and started nursing her baby! So Ed just stared at the table as he finished his lunch.

The colors are just starting to change – every now and then we see an orange or red tree. But Fall is definitely in the air. All the nurseries and produce stands are well-stocked with pumpkins and corn stalks. Fall in New England – I love it!

I am NOT a macophile

2009-09-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a PC person. You know like the button-down guy in the khaki pants in that commercial? My daughter used to be a PC person, but now she's a Macophile.

So, when I got my shiny new iPhone, her first question was, "Are you going to switch to a Mac?" The answer - No. I love my PC. And my khaki pants.

I also love my iPhone. After using a Treo for 6 years, this is such a difference and so dang much fun. There's an application for damn near everything - although I still haven't found the one for washing windows so if anyone has that one, please share.

But I have a couple of games, movie times, this cool thing that identifies music you are listening to (in the store, office, radio, etc.), Amazon.com, Facebook. The FB one is a little scary because as soon as you take a photo, it's posted. Gotta be a little careful with that one.....

Oh, and I can also make and receive phone calls on it! What a deal. Just have to find a cool ringtone.

So now I'm part of a new breed of person - PCUWI (PC User With iPhone)

I guess some things don't change

2009-09-13T12:41:00.001-07:00

My brother was in San Francisco for one day to speak at a conference so Ed and I picked him up Friday night and brought him to our house to have dinner with us and my kids. It's always fun to have the whole group together when Tony makes these short visits. We're a very loud Italian family and by the end of the evening my ears are ringing. But they are special times.

Tony was out here in early March and had a chance to meet my grandson, Tyson. I posted this photo which is one of my favorites of their first meeting.

Tony was having a good time, Tyson not so much. This time things were a little different. Well, Tyson is bigger now - that's the major difference.

You'd think, since Tony has four kids, that Tyson would be able to smell "kid" on him and feel safe! Guess it doesn't work that way. We think it may be the goatee. By the end of the evening Tyson was more accepting of Tony. Still not his number one fan, but at least the screaming stopped.

And I beat Tony's butt at Boggle so it was a good evening all around.

Guess I'll have to switch to Walgreens

2009-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

When my mother was still alive, she loved to shop at Long's Drug Store in Tucson. Then all the Longs switched to Osco and she was very annoyed. I had moved to California by that time and I remember her calling me to tell me about this horror. She boycotted Osco and went to Walgreens instead! It was that bad for her.

Mom came out to visit me a lot after we moved here and one of the things we always did was head to a Long's so she could shop. It almost became a joke between us. After she died, I would sometimes (not often enough) dream about her and in one dream she was given one day to come back and spend it with me. I was overjoyed. We were sitting in my car and I said, "Where should we go?" She said, "Longs!!!" In my dream I said to her, "Mom, you're here for one day and you want to go to Long's?!?" And we both laughed and hugged.

It was such a wonderful dream, the kind that leaves you feeling a little happy and a lot sad when you wake up.

Recently the Long's Drug Stores around us were purchased by CVS. There is one store that is right across the street from Ed's office and, yesterday, as I was pulling in to the office I saw that the Long's sign had been removed and the CVS sign was in it's place.

My heart sank a little and my eyes teared up. Somehow it made me miss her all the more. Where would I take Mom the next time I'm lucky enough to have that dream? And, if she's watching this, I know she's pissed!

Minor interruption

2009-09-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Putting in my contacts each day is not the most pleasant experience for me and I do not like to be interrupted while I'm struggling with it. So, this morning when I had one eye in and the other dangling from my eyelashes, the phone rang. Annoyed, I blinked my way over to the phone and, because the dangling lens was for reading, I couldn't tell who was on the phone. So I answered.

Phone: Good Morning, is Howard [last name] there?
Me: There's no Howard here.
Phone: Oh, I'm sorry, I meant Edward. Is he there?
Me: No, he isn't here either.
Phone: Oh, is this Sandi [last name]?
Me: Yes, it is.
Phone: Oh, great, you'll do fine! (I'll do FINE?!? Why, thank you!) I'm not trying to sell anything (yeah, right). I'm calling from Wells Fargo and we want to give you a $25 gas card for trying our new product - life insurance, blah, blah, blah
Me: No thanks, Howard and I have enough insurance at this time.

Back to installing the contacts.

Chick? Bird? Fox? Cougar?

2009-09-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

There was an annual National Cougar Convention in Palo Alto this week. Since I've always been a little slow on the uptake, I only found out a short time back that a "cougar" was an older woman in a relationship with a younger man. Think Demi Moore.

So does that make me a cougar?!? I mean, Ed is 11 months younger than I am. I remember when being called a "fox" was sort of a good thing. But Cougar?? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

My first cougar experience was at the ripe old age of 20 when I dated a young man named John who was 19 (thank goodness for proofreading - when I first typed this I put his age at 10!!). He worked in the mail room at my company and he was very cute (back then we called boys "cute" and it was okay). But the age difference actually made me uncomfortable! I mean, I was almost legal and he was still a teenager! Yuck! So that ended after a couple of dates. Especially after he was kissing me goodnight at the front door and my dad opened the door as loudly as possible and said in his best radio DJ voice - "About time you got home!!" Apparently I was a few minutes past curfew (yes, even at 20 I had a curfew). So John became a distant memory.

My mother dated after she and my dad got divorced and the men were always 15-20 years younger than her! But she looked so young and was such an energetic person that she couldn't abide being with a 60-year old man. You have to remember, 25 years ago 60 year old people were winding down. Unlike my generation where we're just gearing up!

Anyway, the older you get the less the age gap matters. So I hear. I would still have a very difficult time "dating" a man who was close to my son's age. Just too awkward for me. Also, I don't think Ed would like it!

There's always room for more

2009-08-30T10:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had a free morning so decided to clean the garage. Not the whole garage, but the big cabinet we have along one wall. Ed built this at a former house and hauled it to this place when he moved here in 1999. It's huge and, of course, filled to the brim. So it was time to re-organize. And if there's one thing Ed and I do really well together, it's organize!

We started by attanging two 6x3 tables and card table, and completely unloading one half of the shelving unit. Then Ed vacuumed the shelves and wiped a few of them down. And we moved a few of the shelves to better acommodate our ~~shit~~ stuff.

Of course, we picked one of the hottest days of the year to do this and managed to place the tables so we couldn't open the garage door. Hey, I said we were good at organizing, not always so good at planning!

All this done to a constant stream of:

"What the heck is this?"

"I didn't know we even had one of these"

"Oh, for pete's sake, I've been looking for that everywhere"

"Do we really need 750 white cocktail napkins?" [the answer to this was NO]

"I agree that we should save plastic bags, but I think a hundred of them is overkill."

"Why are there towels scattered among all the shelves? I say we put them all in one place"

"Can we get rid of the broken light bulbs?"

"Sorry, I didn't know that it was the law that you must keep the Star Wars toys in the original Star Wars boxes even if they are falling apart."

"Yes, we should keep the trucks your sons had when they were little - even if none of the boys particularly want to play with them anymore. They must be kept"

"I really need lunch!"

"Okay, call me silly but three shelves full of empty boxes that we 'may' use some day is a bit much, dontcha think??"

"I say we dump the rusty cookie sheets."

We made it through the whole project without killing each other (although there were a couple of near misses), the cabinet looks great, there are actually two empty shelves for future needs, and we did manage to get rid of a lot of things which always feels good.

Then we went shopping........

Hardly worth reading

2009-08-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to think up something interesting to blog about but, so far, I have bupkis. Oh, I suppose I could write about how my life sank to a new low yesterday when I had to remove a piece of swinging cat poop from the backside of one of Jenni's cats. Apparently he hasn't gotten the "wiggle your butt in the litter box until all of it comes off" message quite yet. No, it was just hanging there by a thread, swaying in the breeze as he walked. Armed with a paper towel I did the deed.

Jenni and her family returned from their vacation last night. Cheers all around!!

I could talk about the "how come I can't go out to play" feeling comes over me every time I hear about someone going to Disneyland (or World) or Europe. But that would just make me sound pathetic.

Of course, there is always a little Ed story to share. Like how we're watching our LOST DVD's (just finished Season 3) from our couch that has recliner seats. Totally an old person couch and we love it! LOST has many, shall we say, surprises in it. And each time a somewhat shocking scene comes on, Ed's feet do this little startled dance on the footrest of the recliner. It's sort of a horizontal Texas Two Step. I'm hoping that footrest makes it through the next two Seasons!

But, like I said, I have bupkis. Nada, Nothing. Zilch. Zero, Squat. Nil. Naught. Zip

Fun with Dick and Jane (or in this case, Jenni and Jeff)

2009-08-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today my daughter and her family left for a week at Disney World. Now let me just say that when anyone is going to Disneyland or Disney World who isn't ME, I get a bit cranky. That aside, here's how the morning went.

Since I had the honor of driving them to the airport, they arrived at my house around 9am for the people and suitcase transfer. I asked the kids if they wanted to make one more visit to the bathroom but was informed that they could not go at my house. Huh? Jenni then told me that if they let them go inside they'll start messing around and delay them. To which Vika rolled her eyes in her best pre-teen manner and said, "We wouldn't take that long, really."

I asked Jenni for her keys so I could get her mail and babysit her three cats. (Oh, yes, not only do they go to Disney World without me, but I have to feed, de-litter, and clean up after the cats). Jenni noted that Jeff just needed to move their car out of the driveway first.

Finally managed to get the kids, adults, suitcases, cameras, sweatshirts, backpacks, purses, snacks, books, etc. in the car and off we went. Traffic wasn't too bad so we made it to the airport in about 40 minutes. I dropped them off, watched as they took all their stuff out of the car. Watched as they kept trying to corral the kids who were anxious to get into the airport. Hugs and kisses all around and then I drove away.

Got about 2/3 of the way home and traffic, again, wasn't too bad which was good because I really had to pee. Then the phone rang.

Jenni: Mom, we forgot to give you the keys!
Me: Crap! Do you still have that spare in the birdhouse in the back?
Jenni to Jeff: Hey, do we still have that spare key in the birdhouse in the back? What? We don't have that birdhouse anymore? No spare key?
Jenni to me: I guess there isn't a spare key anymore.
Me: So what's the plan?
Jenni to Jeff: What should we do, Jeff? What? Oh, he said we could Fed Ex the keys when we get out there.
Me: Well, since you're getting there late tonight you won't be able to do that until tomorrow which means I won't get them until Thursday. Now, I won't mind not going over to take care of the critters until Thursday, but they may not like it!
Jenni: Oh. Jeff, that won't work - she won't be able to feed the cats until Thursday!
Me: Guess I'll have to turn around and come back up there and one of you will have to go back out through Security and meet me at the drop off spot.
Jenni: Maybe we can leave the keys at a will-call desk.
Me: No way! I'm not going to pay $5 bucks to park the car for 20 minutes and schlep up to the airport. One of you can meet me at the curb.

So we agreed to that and I said I'd call them when I was almost there so they could be at the curb and ready. When I called back the phone rang and rang. Apparently my daughter had a chance to go to the bathroom!!! Lucky her! Finally Jeff grabbed her phone and said she'd call me right back. She did and told me the girl at Security would actually meet me at the curb with the keys so they wouldn't need to leave the sterile area. Cool! Jenni told her what my car looked like and what my name was.

I got to the airport, drove to the Delta drop off, scanned the crowd but didn't see a Security girl. Finally I saw a short man at the end of the line holding up some keys. Apparently he recognized Lola (that's my car). I pulled up only to discover that it actually was a girl, a very tough looking girl. Rolled down my window and she barked, "What's your name??" Scared me for a minute and I almost forgot thereby blowing the whole escapade. But at the last second I remembered and blurted out, "Sandi!!" She nodded in that cool cop way and handed me the keys.

And, again, I drove home.

Truly, a full-service broker

2009-08-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, my husband is in real estate. He's been doing it for 35 years and has pretty much seen and heard it all. Or so he thought! Yesterday was special. I work in his office part time and my office is next to his. This is what I heard.

Hi, John, how are you doing?
Have you signed that 4-page agreement I sent?
Good! I need for you to fax it back to me with your signatures.
No, you don't have to fax back my cover page.

Here's the number. Thanks!

[About an hour later]

Hey, John. I only got one page of the document. Can you fax the other pages?
What? Oh, you're not sure if you can fax more than one page at a time? Does your fax machine have a paper feeder?
That would be a place where you can put more than one sheet of paper and it will be fed through.

Oh, you can't tell? OK, what type of fax machine do you have? No, I mean the name and model number. That should be somewhere on the front of the machine.

[So he gives Ed the information and Ed goes online to look up the model and see how it works]

OK, John. I found it. There is a feeder on the top - see that black piece that is sort of sticking up? That's the feeder. Just put the 4 pieces of paper in that tray, dial the number, push the start button and they should all go through.

[30 minutes later]

Hey, John. I only got Page 2. You put all of them in? Together or one at a time? Oh. Try it again with all of them at the same time. Ok, thanks.

[30 minutes later]

Yeah, John, still only got one page. Oh, wait, here comes another. Oh, now I have all 4 pages at the same time. Thanks, John.

[Then I heard a loud thump which was Ed banging his head on the desk]

A special day

2009-08-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I had the awesome opportunity to meet another blog friend - Mrinalini. She's a beautiful young woman who found my blog quite awhile ago while she was living in India. Now she's going to school in Los Angeles and just completing an internship in the San Francisco area. (I do miss seeing all those visits from India on my counter...) So we finally had a chance to meet!

It felt like being with an old friend who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. We know a lot about each other from our blogs and Facebook. We cruised around Palo Alto and Stanford, and we pretty much talked non-stop for four hours. Well, except when we were eating. Went to an Indian restaurant. She said for me to just find a table and she'd order for us. The food was very, very good and I even learned how to pronounce some of the items!

She's heading back to LA soon, but plans to visit this area again in the future. When she does, I'm hoping she can find time to come to our house for dinner so she can meet Ed and Jenni and her kids. She knows them all via my blog and Jenni's blog!

The internet is truly a wonderful thing. Brings so many wonderful people into our lives that we would never have met before.

See you soon (I hope!), Mrinalini!