Category Archives: Uncategorized

Blackbird, Bye Bye

Pack up all your cares and woes,

Here I go, singing low, bye bye blackbird

…… blackbird, bye bye.

Last post, they’re selling my posts. I never wanted or got a nickel from them, I will be removing them from WordPress.

I don’t know how to do this as I’m a writer and not a techie, that’s probably why they allow people to steal my words and sell them.

To my readers, I salute you and will be back on other than WordPress. Thank you for being with me and inspiring me these few years. The grandmother who died before I was a year old sang that song to me, to get me to go to sleep. It’s that time. Dee

 

The New Napster

Nanny calls us “the Grands” as over Thanksgiving she also has a lot of baby grands running around. Mostly in the 40′s middle age range, last year we carved out an hour for ourselves.

Dinner was done as were dishes. It was mid-afternoon in a darkened room where my husband went to lay on the floor to help his back. I joined him, then his cousins and brother and we all told stories.

They were poignant ones as one uncle had died that summer. We also told funny ones.

For ten years I’ve tried to carve a niche without stepping on any toes. You wouldn’t believe the lengths these ladies go to make the best dessert! I’ve primarily done it by making nuts and boursin and spinach balls (I gave that one up to a new wife because they were always a hit) that just sit on the kitchen table all afternoon. All the women gather there while the guys watch The Game.

Now the cousins are asking me about nap time. I told them the Grands are all invited and anyone else has to promise to tell a good family story to get in. I told them if they call me the Napster I’ll make it happen! I’ve found my niche!

In a 16-hour day (12 of it at Nanny’s, the rest prepping and packing up) one hour of down time is key to survival. The sweetest moment last year was one of the younger kids running through and saying that his cousin, twice his size, “disobeyed” him. His mother and aunt said “they’ll work it out” and laid there, blissfully aware of their spouses and offspring but craving down time.

Napping is a good thing. The New Napster, a napping maven. Dee

Kids, Thinking and Parenting

I was a girl in the early 1960′s that wasn’t supposed to show that I was smart. Mostly, I hid it because I had geek written all over me. I wanted to be, and could have been smart in math but had to take home economics. The feminist in me asked for shop class but that didn’t allow girls.

My husband was the opposite, he grew up on a dairy farm and became a physicist and software engineer. He got the biggest glasses because for the first time, it allowed his poor eyes to see the world for the first time as a child. And he was proud to wear those glasses even though it made him a geek.

We never would have met except for fate but have been matched for over a decade because we did meet.

Parents, please don’t push French classes or others at your toddlers, but allow them room to grow and don’t diminish them in any way. If they choose math and science with some liberal arts so to smooth the edges they’ll be able to choose their way in the world. Dee

ps When I was 16 I won a ping pong game against a local boy and he said I should have let him win. The other day I played my first game of table shuffleboard and beat a guy by one point and he stormed out of the room. What has changed?

Centennial for Julia Child

Julia Child would be 100 years old today. I think I might make her French Onion Soup and raise a glass this evening in her memory.

Bon appetit! Dee

Welcome to Wisconsin

We’re new here, and it is nearly impossible to get a form or find a place to register my car. A labyrinth of possibilities awaits the new resident with only license plate choices and not registration forms.

I know it’s a rust belt state, and that it does little to promote itself in regard to business and tourism. But it needs to welcome new workers, new consumers, new residents.

Years ago I wrote legislation that affected 34 million people. In this new State, I can’t even negotiate the DMV. Go figure. Fix this mess or you won’t have new taxpayers here. Dee

Great Storm!

What happens when you wash your car? It rains. What happens when your 15th floor windows have just been cleaned on the outside on a 1X per year plan? Bingo.

We have 12 floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of Lake Michigan. Now I can’t see anything and it’s the 2nd or 3rd round of lightning and thunder. Dog and husband are asleep and safe, I just love watching storms.

Yes, they both went to sleep at nine and awoke at 7 a.m. while I braved Hurricane Ike alone. The Mayor told us to stay put and all the skyscrapers 1/4 mile away had their windows blown out. Ours was the only loft of 140 that was not damaged.

We were across from City Hall so must have had some special powers in the electrical department as our power was only off for several hours. We had no water for five days, and no food or water to drink.

I wanted to stay in the bedroom but as long as we had power, I wrote, I blogged, and watched the hurricane’s force. Know that as we took in the haggard refugees of Katrina (New Orleans), that city didn’t offer a finger, much less a hand in friendship over those dark days.

Many years ago I underwent a month-long culinary apprenticeship in Mendocino CA and one of the waiters wanted to sublet his cabin. No heat, a wood stove, broken windows, privy lock on the front door. He left a mattress, sheets and a blanket next to the wood stove.

I had windows all around and no coverings so when a big storm came up I sat up on the kitchen counter and watched it. Nothing like a good storm. Cheers, Dee

MYOP

A Make Your Own Pizza Party

I’m sure you have my dough recipe. Each ball should make four rolled personal pizzas. For kids they should be able to roll their own dough once it has been prepared and risen two hours earlier by the host.

Toppings: caramelized onions, anchovies for pissaladiere; roasted butternut squash slices; sauteed spinach and arugula; boiled potato slices and rosemary; sauteed mushrooms, and peppers; tomatoes/sauce; feta, goat, fontina and fresh mozzarella; sausage, pepperoni. Parmigiano Reggiano. Olives, plus, plus, plus.

And a big salad that the host would make.

I’ll think of more toppings but want to make it do-able, for me at least. There’s a lot of prep work but I think this is a good party for kids or to meet new people as everyone has to get their hands dirty, so to speak, and nothing gets people to know each other like working in a kitchen.

As a chef-trained home cook I’m thinking 8-12 guests is the maximum considering only four pizzas will be in the oven at a time and kids go first.

Let me know your thoughts, then we can go to Costco together and buy yeast in bulk. Cheers, Dee

She Ain’t Your Momma

Yes, I tried a new grocery this morning, and a Black woman asked her daughter “who’s your momma” and she pointed at me, I happened to be squeezing by her cart at the time, thus the comment.

Luckily I only had to by paper products, macaroni and tomatoes. It’s always a trial going to a new city and finding out where to live. I find that shopping is a good key to the neighborhood and I was in the wrong grocery for me because they didn’t have the meats, veg and cheeses I was looking for.

All I know is that I’m in a city and want to go somewhere safe and where I can park and get a week’s worth of groceries without a hassle from shoppers, attendants or homeless people. I’m in my 50′s and give to everything, give me a break. Dee

Hip? Or Suburbs?

My dear husband had me look at a place today, a four-bedroom a block off the lake that is way too big and, well, “adult” for us. Right now we’re in a “hip” tower in the cool part of town, a block from the lake about a mile south of the 4br home. But we’re paying $110 per month each for two parking spaces in a garage designed by an idiot.

But there’s something in this 50-something brain that says “that’s our guest room,” where [Jim's mom] will be at home. Here’s Jim’s office. Here’s my office, the sun room downstairs. There’s room to even store the boxes we haven’t seen in three years that we don’t even want to open. Yes, we’d have to get a guest bed/beds and fill in. But there are original wood floors. Window seats. Leaded glass and a butler’s pantry.

That’s so much more than we can get in a hipster tower with bad parking. Now if I looked further, I may find another single-family home (not a duplex like this with a shared basement).

While I’d like to have a true “Aha” moment, I tend to believe that fate steers my way and I fall into things for a reason. Yes, I’m actively looking and don’t “fall into” things but I believe most things happen for a reason, as I’d find out in a year when I meet so-and-so and it leads to a great collaboration in work or life or both.

I guess the message is not to mess with what works, even if my husband doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t need to, only to live there and pick up a few boxes. And walk the dog at night. Maybe take out the garbage from time to time? Oh, I’m asking too much to ask for toilet paper to actually be put up for use.

Yes, Genie, those were my three wishes, forget about the tp because it’s been over 10 years and this math genius cannot learn that new trick. Cheers, Dee

Welcome Back!

I’ve been dog sick the past week and had to pack and drive 1,500 miles to get to our final destination. Now Jim is sick. We really need a break.

Starting Sunday we drove out of Utah and across the great states of Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa en route to Wisconsin. Crossing the Mississippi we were in the home stretch but had changed to Central time so even though we left at 8 from Omaha, we were in the dark and Jim lost me.

I knew the further East I went the better, because I’d hit Lake Michigan and he’d find me (my phone was low and spotty) so I ended up in Milwaukee between the Discovery Center and Art Museum/Calatrava. He picked me up to go to our new temporary home, where the parking spots we pay for dearly were stolen. That was the last straw for me.

Now my husband knows how bad I felt packing and driving for three days and says we should have put his car on a transport and driven my car with the dog.

Anyhoo, I end up at the edge of Lake Michigan and a Sheriff pulls up opposite me. I can’t get out, even though I’ve been on the road three hours and need to stretch my legs. He doesn’t come over to see me. I wonder if I’m sitting in an abandoned area illegally. I wonder if he thinks I’m “soliciting.”

Here it is in a nutshell, I’m sick as a dog, driving a dirty “Mommy Car” from all the semi’s kicking up snowmelt and sand and dirt and rocks. There are boxes in the car and a dog in the back. I’m as much of a hooker as your favorite nun.

Once at the famed Grand Central Oyster Bar, I arrived earlier than my husband and said I was meeting him. They sat me immediately and said they’d show him to my table. On my left was a high-end escort with her john, on my right a tattered hooker with hers. That’s where they sat me. My husband says tonight that it had nothing to do with what I wore that day but what I said, that I was “meeting my husband” for lunch. Amazing things one learns on the road to enlightenment!

We ended up in Wisconsin, a block from Lake Michigan but no view from our tiny corporate apartment. Being sick, I’ve not finished unpacking stuff from our cars, and want to bring as little in as possible until we find out where we want to live. Neither of us has ever been here before so we want to get the lay of the land first.

One of the first things I did was buy a block of Wisconsin cheese, featured at Whole Foods. Hope to get into that tomorrow.  Did you know that Wisconsin provides 25% of America’s cheese and 50% of its’ specialty cheeses? I didn’t know until I read up on it today.

TripAdvisor can look to new reviews as can you. After we unload/unpack/move and decide where we want to live, I’ve a couple of project and one includes cheese.

Here’s to you from the 17th floor looking west from whence we came. Cheers, Dee